When the Letter Walked Through the Door

For fourteen months, the Reyes family in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, lived on letters. Staff Sergeant Marco Reyes wrote home every week from his deployment — pages filled with his humor, his longing, his love for his three daughters. The girls memorized his phrases. They read his words at breakfast. His youngest, Sofia, slept with his letters under her pillow, pressing the paper to her cheek as if she could feel his warmth through the ink.

His words were real. They carried his character, his tenderness, his authority as their father. But they were still words on a page.

Then came the Tuesday in March when a truck pulled into the driveway. The front door opened. And everything those letters had promised — every ounce of love, every whispered reassurance — suddenly stood in their kitchen in boots and desert fatigues, arms open wide. Sofia did not reach for a letter. She reached for him.

John tells us that in the beginning was the Word — the eternal expression of God's mind and heart, the Almighty's self-communication echoing across creation. That Word was not insufficient. It carried divine authority and truth. But God was not content to remain ink on a page. The Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood. He became someone we could reach for, cling to, and press close. The God who had spoken through prophets and pillars of fire walked through our front door — and made His home among us.