Letter Boxing

Letter Boxing...

Hmmm....

Several of our friends are AVID letter-boxers and have told us the MANY stories of discovery adn adventure that goes along with this "sport".

For those of you who have NO idea WHAT the heck letter-boxing is, here is a quick lesson (Copied and Pasted):

Letterboxing is an intriguing mix of treasure hunting, art, navigation, and exploring interesting, scenic, and sometimes remote places. It takes the ancient custom of placing a rock on a cairn upon reaching the summit of a mountain to an artform. It started when a gentleman simply left his calling card in a bottle by a remote pool on the moors of Dartmoor, in England.

Here's the basic idea: Someone hides a waterproof box somewhere (in a beautiful, interesting, or remote location) containing at least a logbook and a carved rubber stamp, and perhaps other goodies. The hider then usually writes directions to the box (called "clues" or "the map"), which can be straightforward, cryptic, or any degree in between. Often the clues involve map coordinates or compass bearings from landmarks, but they don't have to. Selecting a location and writing the clues is one aspect of the art.

Once the clues are written, hunters in possession of the clues attempt to find the box. In addition to the clue and any maps or tools needed to solve it, the hunter should carry at least a pencil, his personal rubber stamp, an inkpad, and his personal logbook. When the hunter successfully deciphers the clue and finds the box, he stamps the logbook in the box with his personal stamp, and stamps his personal logbook with the box's stamp. The box's logbook keeps a record of all its visitors, and the hunters keep a record of all the boxes they have found, in their personal logbooks.

We are intrigued by this...

And starting next week, we will begin our journey into this excursion, as a family, to travel...to learn...to discover...to grow.

SO! I was sitting at the computer with my keyboard in my lap, working (again) on the new song that our praise team is learning tonight at practice. And as I'm playing these crazy gospel flats and rhythms, I'm thinking about our new family adventure...

Crazy, huh? haha...I swear I'm so ADD sometimes...Its the musician in me...

ANYWHO! I'm thinking about this and...AHA!

You know the moment when you put the pieces together and a spiritual revelation hits you and you just sit in stunned amazement bc you never put the two together??

Yeah. Happened to me.

Kinda had a vision.

Cant say it was God.

But it was UBER cool.

Here it is:

I saw the letterbox planter as the Father, the clues as the Holy Spirit, the journey as our walk, and the stamp as our influence.

You follow?? Pretty stinkin' awesome, right?!?!

God plants opportunities EVERYWHERE!

The Holy Spirit guides us to the EXACT location...sometimes the GENERAL location of that opportunity(sometimes we have to actually put some effort into decifering the 'clues' and wait and watch for signs of His hand).

And along the way, if we are on the right path...and even if not...we learn SO much about our surroundings, about the 'Planter', about ourselves.

And then we FIND it and look thru the pages of people who have been in this place before us...looking at their stamps...

Some of which are intricate and you know that they care about the imprint they make..others are not so intricate..simple, but still getting out there and making a mark... And then, with a sense of pride, accomplishment...and almost reverence...


We place the 'Planter's' stamp in our own book and then we take our stamp and we make our mark in the book the Planter left for others who will follow us to see.

Where ever we go...no matter which journey we find ourselves on, we have the opportunity to place our stamp on someones life.


What will yours look like? Will it be one that causes the ones who will follw you to gasp in admiration of the details and intricacy of your life.

Or will it be a simple one that's a mark, but it's not really one that will catch someone's eye and cause them to think about how much time and care you spent working on that stamp?

And HAVE FUN on the chase! The spirit-filled life is FUN! Enjoy EVERY twist and turn and geographical surprise! Have fun in the NOW! (which btw is not my revelation...I stoled it from my fran who spoke at church last night :P)