On my 21st birthday, I bought enough paper and envelopes to write about 50 letters. I'm not really sure why, except that it just seemed to be the thing to do on that occasion. In the last year, I've felt drawn to writing love notes like never before. Sometimes making time to write in the middle of college, work, and chaos helps me even more than it helps someone else.

So I started writing notes that night and leaving them random places throughout my daily life like the grocery store, the library, a mailbox, a friend's suitcase and coffee shops. The words I needed to hear and the ones I was too afraid to say would be read by someone I probably would never meet. It's more than about not getting anything in return, it's about giving something that I would never get back.

It felt like a treasured secret that I carried, then left for someone else to find. I'm starting to think of people in relation to their stories and how I could give others what I find myself needing.

The older I get the more I realize I want to use every day to live and love to the fullest. Status updates, screens and electronic devices are taking away from truly connecting to the people right in front of us. We can easily know about people through their online profile, but are we taking time to really know them?

"Looking back, I wish that everyone could have that sort of moment: a moment where you realize that your hands are so impossibly small and this world is so impossibly big. And the two don't seem to add up. Maybe recognizing the smallness of your own hands is just the very first step to changing anything at all." - Hannah Brencher

It's made my heart happy to be able to help spread hope around the globe and leave love notes for strangers, especially in a tough season.

I may never be able to meet and speak to each one I send a letter to, but I can write words of life for them to be able to read and hold in their hands.

I'm turning 22 this week and once again, I'm writing notes to people. Some I don't know, some I do know. Either way, I love it when I wake up in the morning and someone special is on my heart to write to that day. One of the best gifts I could ever give someone is permission to feel understood and enough, even if it is sometimes just in the form of a letter.

It is small compared to what I would like to do and what others are doing, but it is exactly perfect for what I'm able to do in the here and now. Somehow in the chaos of my life right now, I am calm, breathing, living and delivering love. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Friend, life is too short to wake up in the mornings with regret. Love people genuinely because we all need it. No one ever said it would be easy, but it is worth it to show up for people.

Every story and person is one worth loving.

If for any reason, you'd like a letter of hope, just say so. No explanations needed or questions asked, I will write to you. I'd love some sunshine to be on its way to your mailbox. yourstrulymiriamblog@gmail.com