Sending 'Envelope Hugs'

Carol E. Crain of North Carolina

Carol E. Crain of Southern Pines, N.C., sends “Envelope Hugs” to her friends and to some people she doesn’t know.

A retired elementary school teacher, Carol, 61, is my wife and the mother of our two daughters, Janelle and Suzanne.

“I send hand-written, hand-created notes, often including songs and poems I’ve written and quotations I collect,” Carol says. “What I send depends on a person’s situation – whether he or she has cancer, has lost a child, is going through divorce or whatever the need is.

“I write my letters, my ‘Envelope Hugs,’ in longhand. I think this means more in a day of e-mail and junk mail. I hand-make some cards, using magazine pictures. I’ve been doing this off-and-on since I was in college in S.C.”

As a college student, she wrote to friends and relatives who lived in Pennsylvania, where she grew up.

“Steve and I married after we each taught school for a year,” Carol says. “He left for a year in Vietnam only months after our wedding. I wrote him many letters during his time overseas, and I continued writing to college friends and my relatives.”

Carol sometimes reads a news article about someone going through problems, and she writes to that person.

“It depends on what I feel led to do in reaching out to a person,” she says. “After I went through malignant melanoma cancer in 1985, I’ve tended to notice people going through any type of cancer. I know how they feel when they’re told they have cancer. When you’ve been through something like that, you belong to a club you never wanted to join, but since you belong, there’s some good that can come out of it, since you understand.

“I put lots of different things in envelopes. It depends on how well I know the person, as to what I enclose. If I don’t know a person, I’ll tell them, ‘Even though I don’t know you personally, when I heard about your situation, I wanted to share with you, and I hope the things I’ve sent to you will be a blessing to your life.’

“I go through songs and poems I’ve written, especially those written since around 1974, and I think about which one/ones might help them. I’ve learned it doesn’t matter if I hear back from people. If I feel the Lord puts it on my heart to write to them, then that means there is a reason for it. I think the fact that I don’t know them is what sometimes ministers most to them.

“I may read an obituary and call the church where the funeral was held or call the funeral home. (You can send your envelope to the church/funeral home and let a pastor or director give it to the family of the deceased. A church or funeral home probably won’t give you a family’s address.). If it’s local, I look in our phone directory.

“I received a touching response from an elderly man who had been married over 60 years when his wife passed on. He approached me at church after I’d sent him something almost every day for several weeks after his wife died. He told me how much my cards had meant to him. I sent cards with pictures of dogs, boats, lighthouses, nature scenes, etc.”

“I have them standing up in each room,” he said tearfully, “and when I go from one room to the other, and I look at your note cards, they’re like company for me.”

Carol has sometimes written to famous people, but mostly writes to “everyday people.”

“I often include cards with quotes inside bills I pay,” she says. “God may use a devotional quote to encourage someone going through a hard time.

“I wrote to a lady who was going through cancer, and she said that she kept my envelope hugs in a box. When she felt especially down, she’d take my letters out and reread them. She said they ministered to her, again, and even in a different way.

“A day hardly goes by that new contacts don’t come across my path. Here’s one of my favorite poems by an unknown author: ‘It was only a kindly word / And a word that was lightly spoken / Yet not in vain / For it stilled the pain / Of a heart that was nearly broken.’

“I want my envelope hugs to do that – to still the pain of hurting people,” Carol says.

Bobby Richardson and Mickey Mantle

I met Bobby Richardson, former second baseman for the New York Yankees, in Pinehurst, N.C., in 2004, when he, then 68, spoke to a church group about his life and Mickey Mantle’s Christian conversion.

Richardson signed with the Yankees at age 17. He led the American League in double plays four times, played in seven Yankee pennant-winner games, kept a .266 lifetime batting average and led his league with 209 hits in 1962.

At age 31, he retired from the Yankees and devoted himself to family and interests, including a run for Congress and work with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He coached baseball at the University of S.C. (record: 51-6) and Liberty University. He retired from coaching in 1990.

He was a 14-year-old baseball player when his mother invited his family’s pastor to visit their home on a Sunday afternoon.

“He opened his Bible,” Richardson said, “and started sharing verses like when Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me.’”

The pastor pointed out that the Bible says, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” and that there’s a penalty – “the wages of sin is death.”

“Then he shared the good news that Christ died for our sins and was buried and he rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures,” Richardson said. “I responded, and the verse that sealed my decision was John 1:12: ‘But as many as received him, Jesus Christ, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.’”

At age 17, the day he graduated from high school in Sumter, S.C., he signed with the Yankees. Days later, he checked into a New York City hotel and attended practice. He recalled that power-hitting outfielder Mickey Mantle, 5 years older than he, put his arm around him and said, “Come on, kid; step in here and take some swings.”

Richardson said he could name a dozen occasions when Mantle and he talked about “things that matter.” Mantle’s father had died young, and Mantle wondered if his time might come early.“

At 51 years of age, Roger Maris went on to be with the Lord,” Richardson said. “I had a part in that funeral.”

Mantle served as a pall bearer at Maris’ funeral and told Richardson he wanted Richardson to someday conduct his funeral.

In June 1995, doctors discovered cancer had destroyed Mantle's liver. He received a transplant, but cancer remained in his body, and he began chemotherapy. Mantle called Richardson and asked him to pray for him over the telephone. Weeks later, nine years after Maris’ death and after doctors discovered the cancer had spread, Richardson received a call.

“He’d taken a turn for the worse,” Richardson said. “The family wanted us to come. Immediately, Betsy and I were on a plane flying toward Dallas. One more time, I wanted to be bold.”

A smiling Mantle greeted Richardson and said, “I can’t wait to tell you. I’ve accepted Christ as my savior.”

Richardson “went to crying a little bit” and said, “Mickey, let me go over this just to make sure you understand.” He told Mantle, “God sent his son, the Lord Jesus, to shed his precious blood, and promised in his Word that if you would repent of your sins and receive him as Savior, you might have everlasting life.”

“That’s just what I’ve done,” Mantle said.

Richardson said his wife Betsy told Mantle about her conversion and asked Mantle how he knew he would spend eternity with God in heaven.

Mantle paused and began quoting John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

“He had a real peace,” Richardson said. “We found out he’d been listening to Pete Maravich’s testimony.” (Maravich, a pro basketball standout, “found Christ” at age 35 and died at 40 in 1988. Mantle had watched a video of Maravich telling of his Christian conversion.)

Mantle died a few days after he talked with Richardson.

“I had the humbling experience of conducting his funeral on national television,” Richardson said.