Dear Brittany,

I’ll never forget the smile on your face, the way you peered deeply, kindly, into my soul. You were a friend I could count on to listen, to care. Whether we were talking about a paper we needed to complete, or our loved ones back home, you always gave me your full attention. The slight tilt of your head and the way you nodded at just the right time indicated you really wanted to know, you really wanted to hear, you really were concerned. You made me feel like there wasn’t anyone else in the world you’d rather be talking to at that moment.

And you were so, so sweet.

Have you ever met someone so sugary sweet you actually thought for a moment it couldn’t possibly be true? There’s no way a person could ever be that sweet. There’s no way a person could be that kind. There’s no way a person could be that gracious, that lovely, that pure, that real. But time marches on, and after repeated interactions with the individual, you discover there’s no facade. There’s not one ounce of putting on, pretending, make-believing the sweetness. It’s authentic, it’s real. You’ve found a hidden treasure, a diamond in the rough. You’d do anything to grab ahold of that sweetness and bottle it up for a lifetime.

Brittany, there’s one thing I know for sure. You’re the real deal.

In 37 years, I’ve only met one other person as genuinely sweet as you. I was truly blessed by your presence in my life those two years of graduate school.

I pray you feel loved as much as you made me feel loved. I pray you feel cared for as much as you cared for me. I pray you’ve found someone who will listen to you as much as you listened to me. And I pray you have someone who tends your heart, who pays careful attention to your needs, just as much as you tended to me.

Bless your heart, sweet friend. I remember you fondly, and will consider it a gift, a pure privilege when our paths cross again.

Sincerely,

Amy

*If you’d like to read more from my #31Days Letters to the Unthanked series, click here for the landing page where all the letters are listed and linked!

Dear Dr. Gierut:

Indiana University was ranked 7th in the nation for its Speech and Hearing Sciences graduate program in 1998, the year I began working towards my graduate degree in speech-language pathology there. Perhaps I’ve gone overboard with my inclusion of paperwork from your graduate level courses, but I included it intentionally because it tells a story. A story of you, a brilliant professor. A professor who without a doubt elevated the status and reputation of Indiana University’s Speech and Hearing Sciences program, both internally and externally. I completed graduate school 13 years ago, and have held you in the highest regard since.

You entered the room with authority and dignity. Your tailored suits, clean-lined sweater sets, short dark hair, and glasses that rested perfectly on your nose fit your personality to a T. You were a petite woman, but there was no messing with you. Absolutely none. We knew you meant business, and you commanded our attention, our dedication to the science of speech.

No doubt about it, you were a scientist. Highly regarded, your work was published too many times for the average Joe to count. It seemed you always had a paper “in press,” about to be published. I knew it was an honor to be under your instruction, and to this day, I still consider your instruction a once in a lifetime gift.

The way the words spilled out of your mouth so eloquently proved your brilliance. Place of production and manner of production were your basics. Nasals, stops, fricatives, affricates, liquids, and glides? They were a given. Same goes for bilabial, alveo-palatal, labio-dental and the like. But before I knew it, things became much more complicated. Extremely complex words and concepts came spewing out of your mouth, like ambient, coronal, major class distinctions, nonmajor class distinctions, contrastiveness, distinctive features, phone trees, monovalent features, inventory constraints, positional constraint, maximal opposition, free variation, and complementary distribution. You expected us to know it all, and we did.

The expectation you held for us, your graduate students, was absolute excellence. There was no way we were going to pass your class unless we studied our brains out. We were all a bunch of wild and crazy overachievers the way it was, but we’d become studying maniacs in the days leading up to exams in your class. I vividly recall being among the last to complete your exams. Your brilliance and knowledge of the field inspired me tremendously, so I studied as hard as I could and wanted to show what I knew. But clearly, I was slower to process than the rest of the fast-thinking men and women in class, so I trotted along at my own pace. Thank goodness you and your doctoral assistant didn’t make me feel like an absolute idiot when I was second to last or last to turn in my exam.

It’s been 13 years since I completed graduate school and earned my master’s degree in speech-language pathology. Those were the most intellectually taxing years of my life, and your classes were the most academically challenging by a landslide. As students, we were gifted with a wealth of knowledge from your teaching. The impact you made on me as a student, as well as a professional was tremendous. The theories and treatment methods you taught are applicable to this day. Although I’ve forgotten much of the detail, the basic foundations of your teachings have remained intact and have had far-reaching positive impacts on my 13+ year career treating children with speech and language disorders.

When I look through the paperwork from your courses, 13 years after graduation, here’s the heart of what I see. I see a professor dedicated to her career. I see a woman who LOVED her work. I see a brilliant mind, able to deconstruct sounds and words like no other. I see a woman who took extravagant care to tend to every detail. I see a professor who wanted to bring out the very best in her students (and did just that). I see a woman who gave it her all, exerted maximum effort, fulfilled her potential and beyond. I see you. A woman of integrity and excellence. A woman worthy of these words of praise and gratitude.

So thank you Dr. Gierut. The admiration I have for you in my heart hasn’t been completely captured with the words I’ve shared today, but I want you to know you made an impression that will last a lifetime. You’re going down as my most favorite, inspiring, and brilliant professor of all time.

Sincerely,

Amy

*If you’d like to read more from my #31Days Letters to the Unthanked series, click here for the landing page where all the letters are listed and linked!

Dear Jenny,

As I sit down to write this letter, I can still hear your voice, I can still see your smile. I think of you so far away in Denmark, and I imagine the marks you’re making there.

My husband and I lived in Indiana two short years while I was attending full-time graduate school. I kept a part-time job as cashier and service desk employee at Target on evenings and weekends, and you worked at Target too. That’s where we met.

I remember your smile, your confidence, your kookiness, your always-readiness to tell a good story. I vaguely recall that your parents were missionaries, and you were fairly far away from family, just as I was.

But there’s one thing I remember most about you…you were the first person I’d ever met that seamlessly integrated “God” into your every day conversation. I didn’t have to guess you were a Christian, you actively spoke of God’s daily working in your life, so I knew without a doubt He was at the core of who you were.

You didn’t stop there, though. In all your speaking of God during random conversation with me, you also were the first one I’d ever heard refer to God’s “voice.” You talked about how you had “heard His voice,” how you wanted to “hear His voice” about a particular matter.

I’ll be honest, I grew up with a Christian upbringing in a Lutheran home. And I was a deacon at a Lutheran church on campus throughout my undergraduate studies. But Lutherans? Well, at least the variety of Lutheran faith I grew up in? We never spoke of God so freely in our random daily conversations, and we certainly never referred to “hearing God’s voice,” wanting to “hear His voice,” or having “heard His voice.” I didn’t understand what that meant, and I didn’t understand how I could hear His voice for myself. I just didn’t understand.

While I didn’t understand all that “hearing God’s voice” talk at the time, I want to thank you, because I understand now. I think you were the start of something, Jenny.

I know now that hearing God’s voice requires ongoing relationship, it requires active cultivation of faith, and it develops through years of praying, waiting, having a willing and open heart, and listening for answers that make NO sense to the world, but perfect sense in your heart. When all of those tiny puzzle pieces that seemed so random throughout the course of YEARS come together, His voice is there. When you’re seeking clarity and direction, and you’re suddenly bombarded with messages on that topic for days, weeks on end, His voice is there. And that’s just the start.

Having experienced this “hearing” of God’s voice for myself, I’d wish it for anyone. I’d freely give it to anyone, everyone. I truly would. But this speaking of God as if you know Him, as if He’s the center of your life, and this “hearing” of God’s voice is not a gift any human being can give you. It’s the work of the Spirit in you, cultivated through time and relationship. And to get to this place, you must follow, become vulnerable, open, willing to change. Not just once, but over and over again, every single day.

While I know you didn’t give me the gift of discernment, you made me aware it was possible, you made me aware it was real. You lived it like it was real.

And one more thing…there were no Covenant or Lutheran churches in Indiana, so Seth and I were forced to look outside of our familiar denominations when searching for a temporary church home those two years of graduate school. You were the one that led us to a non-demoninational Christian church in the heart of that college town. It was there that I experienced, also for the first time, faith expressed differently than I’d ever seen before. There were no hard-covered hymnals, no liturgy was recited. Hands were risen, lives were surrendered, relationships were cultivated intimately within small groups. From then on, we sought out similar Christian communities, and my faith grew more freely than it ever had.

For the way you spoke of your faith so openly, for the way you demonstrated that God’s voice really can be heard, for the way you inspired me to find community where my faith can grow freely, then and now, thank you.

With respect and admiration,

Amy

*If you’d like to read more from my #31Days Letters to the Unthanked series, click here for the landing page where all the letters are listed and linked!

Dear Tim,

It’s Sunday, and I can’t think of a better day to say thank you.

After all of these years, I’ve held a memory of you close, dear to my heart.

You chose me.

I sat amongst a crowd of students on Sunday mornings in that little Lutheran church on campus. I have no recollection of how long I sat anonymously in those pews. A week, a month, a year? I’m really not sure. But the memory my heart retained all these years is the only one important to me now.

One day, seemingly out of the blue, you approached and said you’d noticed me on Sunday mornings. As you scanned the crowded pews, there was something about me that caught your attention. You noticed the way I intently watched and listened. You saw a light go on in my eyes when you preached, you felt I was processing this faith talk differently, more deeply. You saw something special in me, and you invited me to join a special student ministry as a deacon.

I said yes, and spent the rest of my college years as a deacon, assisting and leading worship on Sundays, participating in regular gatherings with 20-30 other deacons, and building my own grown-up faith.

I’ll be completely honest, I wasn’t a perfect deacon. There were plenty of Sunday mornings I’d come in to church knowing full well I’d been up really late the night before with the Delts and the Delt Girls. Considering my position as deacon and having grown up by what seems a million light years in my faith since then – I wasn’t always the shining beacon (or deacon) of holiness those days.

But there’s something beautiful about my college years as deacon. Something that speaks the real truth of God’s grace, mercy, and sovereignty, something that attests to His unique plan for each of our lives. Faith isn’t a one stop destination, you get it and you’re good to go for a lifetime. Faith is developed over time, grows through experience, becomes grounded as it’s tested through trials.

I wasn’t a newbie to faith when you found me. I grew up in a Christian home and knew what it was to go to church, Sunday school, VBS, youth group, confirmation, and the like. But when I left home for college, it was time to step into my own grown-up faith, start my own faith journey.

I wasn’t perfect, blameless, holy or complete when you found me. God knew that.

But you chose me. He used me anyway. He grew me anyway.

For this, I’ll be eternally grateful.

Thank you for coming alongside, for guiding me the right way, for seeing deeper and choosing me.

With all sincerity and much more grown up in my faith,

Amy

*If you’d like to read more from my #31Days Letters to the Unthanked series, click here for the landing page where all the letters are listed and linked!

Dear Jen & John:

When I think about my college years, you two inevitably come to mind.

We played flute in wind ensemble for three years under Dr. Brock’s direction, chairs one, two and three. We practiced and performed who knows how many hours together. You were music majors, I was a NON-music major. But you welcomed me just the same.

I felt comfortable around you from day one. Period. There was no adjustment period. There was no getting to know you. There was no pretending. There was nothing but authenticity from the start. And I’ll be honest, that’s what I loved about you the most.

It’s incredible, really, how I could be myself around you. Over the course of my life, I’ve met just a handful or two of people with whom I felt 100% at ease. I include you two in that unique group. That gift you gave, the gift of authenticity? It means the world to me.

Whether we engaged for 2 minutes, 10 minutes, 2 hours, or overnight on a wind ensemble trip, I was at ease with you. We laughed, we were goofy and kooky, and others might have even thought we were a little nerdy at times. 🙂 But we got each other, we understood each other, we meshed like mashed potatoes and gravy, peas and carrots, rice and beans. We talked about anything and everything. The hippest and coolest trends were not our gig, the latest buzz words were not in our vocabulary.

We came together to perform beautiful music, but when it came to our relationship, performance was never the name of the game. You were real with me, and I was real with you. No airs were about us, no secrets were held. All the cards were on the table. It wasn’t forced, it just was the way it was.

Our relationship was a BIG breath of fresh air.

A relationship so rare, it’s a gift. So today, I thank you for that gift. Thank you for being you. Thank you for letting me be me. 100%, both ways.

Sitting long and still in the beauty and authenticity of our relationship,

Amy

*If you’d like to read more from my #31Days Letters to the Unthanked series, click here for the landing page where all the letters are listed and linked!