Sharing a couple of scribbles left in the notebook at the end of the month:

• A good friend of mine is participating in a worldwide initiative to send a handwritten letter to someone every day in February. International Correspondence Writing Month (incowrimo.org) celebrates “vintage social media.” One of the suggestions on the website is to write an encouraging note to a stranger and leave it in a coffee shop, on a bus, or tucked beneath a windshield wiper.

  About two days later, I pulled a book from the new non-fiction shelf at the Sewickley Library and found a prayer card tucked between the pages. I’m not sure if the prayer was intended as a blessing for the next reader, or if it was simply a bookmark the last reader had forgotten.

  Concepts collided immediately. What if I left a handwritten prayer for a strangers every day in February? What if one of those 29 prayers splashed a little of His Light into someone’s day?

  I think I have to do it.

• Greg and Dina are married, but shared their thoughts on prayer on different days. As I considered their insights together, I found new inspiration.

  Greg said he often uses prayer to “change the direction of the day … it always works.”

  I second the notion that earnest prayer can bring positive energy to a day shaped by frustration or impatience or anger. I am getting so much better at recognizing those moments and asking for His help.

  I worry more about days when I am self-involved, disengaged and blind to all the possibilities He places before us. I have a to-do list and, most days, you’re not on it.

  Dina said that her best days begin with a prayer of thanks for the blessings in her life and a request for God “to let me be a blessing to somebody today.”

  I’m want to use Dina’s prayer to change the direction of my self-involved days. If I can repeat her prayer in the morning, in the afternoon and again in the evening, I am certain He will lead me to opportunities to share His love.

  I think I have to do it.