The Box:: This being the story of a soldier's wife, and her box

**I posted this on my other two blogs, so, sorry if it's a repeat for some of you! Thanks for bearing with me, though**

I recently came to the realization that my relationship with my deployed husband is dependent on a box. Every Friday, like clockwork, I mail him a box. The box has a variety of things in it. Licorice, cookies, tobacco, magazines, books, pictures of the kids, pictures the kids drew, a letter from me. I try to make each box a little different so that it's like his birthday every time he opens it. And, I try to fit as much love as I can into each one.
But now I'm thinking, when did this happen? When did our lives become so dependent on a box?
As I thought more about it, I imagined a conversation between me and God that went something like this:

God: It's time now, Peggie. Andrew has to go away for a little while.
Me: But I will miss him! What am I going to do without him!
God: It will be ok. I'll be here with you. I will give you something to help you stay connected.

God hands me a box. It's a plain, brown, cardboard box. Not very big and not very small. There's nothing in it and nothing written on it. I turn the box over in my hands and then look at God. "What do I do with it?" I ask.
"Fill it with love," God replies.
So, every Friday I fill my box with as much love as I can get into it and mail it to a far-a-way place. In that far-a-way place, my husband waits anxiously for his box that he knows is filled with love.
But some weeks I'm lazy. Some weeks I don't feel like it, or I'm too sad and I don't get the box mailed out. I wonder what he thinks on those weeks. Is he sad that he didn't get one? Does he wonder why I didn't send it?
On those weeks, God hands me my box and reminds me what it's for.