Long distance love

It's Halloween and once again, I'm going to miss watching my grandsons trick-or-treat. Living 400 miles from them (and their parents) is at once a blessing and a problem. Certainly, it's much easier to visit them now than it was when we lived in Alaska. Yet driving eight hours for a visit and then driving another eight hours to return home takes a chunk out of a weekend! So pictures and phone calls will have to do in the meantime.

That's not such a bad thing, though, when you think about it. Just think what the homesteaders traveling west or the pilgrims crossing the ocean to America's shores would have given to have email, telephones, cell phones, digital cameras, video capabilities on their phones, cameras and computers--let alone the much more efficient postal service we have today! Millions of families are spread from one side of this country to the other, or even across the world, for that matter, and yet, thanks to today's technology we can stay in touch daily.

No, I wouldn't trade a real hug for a picture or a phone call. Never have, never will. But I will be grateful for the many blessings with which God has seen fit to bless us. He knew that families would start to move away from one another and in His great love, He provided for that by giving us the technology and the products to help us stay in touch.

So I'll be tickled the next time I hear "Hi Grandma" on the phone or open some pictures on my computer or read a letter from one of my loved ones, because I'll know they're not the only ones saying "I love you." If I listen carefully and pay close attention, I'll also hear the quiet voice of God saying, "I've always loved you."

Until the next time...