Your Cartoon Pig Card

Over a crunchy Asian salad of Napa cabbage, green lettuces, red peppers, and sugar snap peas drizzled in a fresh cilantro dressing, she handed me the card.

Grinning and arching an eyebrow at me, she waited, her wavy brown hair tucked behind an ear.

(Scanned card. Design courtesy of cards by Sunrisegreetings.com)

Inside the envelope, a white card featured pink cartoon pigs winched between red metal c-clamps. The caption inside read: “If you’re happy and you know it, clamp your hams.”

I laughed and smiled across the table at her.

“I would have been disappointed if you hadn’t laughed,” Marie said, knowing my quirky habit of laughing uncontrollably at some jokes.

Indeed as I read it aloud to other friends at the gathering, and then to each family member at home later that week, the joke grew funnier and funnier to me.

The card sits near my desk now and still makes me grin, the singsong nature of the words reverberating in my head as I read it.

What I love best about the card, though, is that my friend knows me. Knowing I like to laugh and that a joke may just push me into silent convulsing laughter, she bought it and thought of me.

This weekend I am traveling to a women’s retreat where I am honored to be the keynote speaker. Their theme for the weekend is Pursued and Loved: God’s Heart for You. In this last month as I have been reading and re-reading my notes for the sessions and digging into God’s word, I am encountering a God who says he sees me and he hears me. Indeed he is the God who sets up extraordinary word pictures throughout time to point to his never-stopping, never-giving-up love for us.

So whether or not you have a friend who sends you pig cards, know that you are chased by the God of the Universe who loves you fiercely, un-endingly, and unconditionally. 

Pray for us this weekend, will you, friend? Thank you. 🙂

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