Janine Petry

The Carpenter’s Letter

in Reflections

It came in the mail—from my dad. A letter, during my college years. You wouldn’t think it was such a big deal; people get letters, right? Except this wasn’t like anything I’d received before.

It was written on a piece of wood.

A roofing shingle, to be exact. And I’ll be honest: I don’t remember all of what the letter said. But I’ll never forget his reason for writing—and the reason for the wood.

You see, he was at work. And he was thinking about me.

And so he grabbed what he had right there, in hand, and he put the words right onto it. The picture’s pressed into my mind: dad, sitting in his truck, scratching words onto wood. And then he keeps moving; back to work. Back to building again.

My dad’s a carpenter.

He’s always been one. Most all the words he’s spoken in his life, most all the energy and time’s he’s spent, have brought things into being—buildings and structures and homes you can see and feel and run into in the rain. And so right there, in the middle of work, he pauses to remind me: I’m thinking about you.

And his words were at it, building again. This time, the work in my heart.

The letter will always be precious to me; all the words that came that day. In fact now, all these years later, I’ve got more reasons to remember them.

They remind me of another Carpenter, and a letter He wrote on wood.

It’s just how you’d expect a builder to get a message across. The wood, always His tool. And while He’s still laboring, busy bringing things into being, He writes the Word, scratches it right on the wood.

So we’d know for certain: He’s at work. And He’s thinking about us.

The Letter written, He’s off again. Still busy; still moving.

Because there’s more to be done, more letters to pen. Always there, where He’s at work. Right on what He’s holding in His hand.

You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts (2 Corinthians 3:2-3).