Sarah Markley

There is something holy and powerful about words.

I wonder about God and Jesus and the fact that He is the Word. The Word in living flesh is Jesus. A person. God.

The Word.

There is something scary and powerful when it comes to words.

Words are things to be weighed. Thought through. Sifted. Held.

A few months ago I got a typewriter. A gift from my husband: an old IBM Selectric. It has since broken {we need to figure out how to fix the vintage machinations} but when it sat on my dining room table, near the windows with it’s own chair, I was often tempted to steal a piece of paper from the printer in the guest room, to roll it down at the back, make it square with the side and begin to type.

It took me a few days to get used to the analog-ness of the keys. I made mistakes and striked-through many a C that should have been a D. There are few do-overs on typewriters. Aside from white out {who wants to wait that long} and correction tape, typewriters make us think before we pound out a flippant word.

I wrote a couple letters on the typewriter. A note of thanks to my husband. My seven year old tap tap tapped out a few sentences, mostly her name N-A-O-M-I-G-R-A-C-E-M-A-R-K-L-E-Y. So proud of herself, she sat back and looked at the magic at her fingertips.

She tried so hard to make those letters count. Bent over the keys, she was so happy at her accomplishment. Each word was a mountain to climb and every mistake was monstrous.

There is so much more permanence to words than we give them credit.

Sitting around with family and friends over the weekend we talked about the times someone commented on our weight gains or acne or teenage awkwardness over the years. Of five adults, every single one of us remembered something significant. Something horrible. Something funny. Something that wounded and took on a life of it’s own 30 years later.

Words are full of power.

Words inch us together over long divides. Words knit together hearts that have been broken over seventeen years. Words reach down deep and save.

Words whispered, written, spoken to our people, the ones who are the closest {our partners especially}. These ones need to hear these permanent words.

And what can be more holy than the words I-Love-You.