By Sharon Randall

The birthday card made me laugh. A man and a woman of a certain age (old) are talking. The woman asks, “Wearing that new, hot hearing aid?”

“Yeah,” says the man, “it set me back $4,000!”

“Really? What kind is it?”

And the guy replies, “2:30.”

You might say, for people of a certain age, hearing aids would be nothing to joke about. But to borrow a bit of wisdom from Jimmy Buffett, “If we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane.”

I liked the card for its humor, but I loved it because of the person who sent it to me.

Let’s call her Emily. That’s not her real name, but it’s a good name for a good soul. It’s been decades since Emily came to live with me, my first husband and our three young children.

She was not the only teenager who took shelter in our home over the years. There were a half dozen or so others who stayed with us at various times, from a few weeks to a year, sleeping in our spare room, eating my cooking and suffering all the insanities our kids dished out.

Some of those teenagers were easier to live with than others. A few were nearly impossible. But they were all good kids who, for whatever reasons, needed a safe place to stay for a while. They enriched our lives and taught us more than we ever hoped to teach them. Especially Emily.

Life had not been kind to her. At times, it was unspeakably cruel. But in the 14 turbulent years of her life, she had learned how to survive, how to make the best of bad times and most of all, how to laugh.

I wish you could’ve heard her.

That girl could out-bray a mule. If I ever get hearing aids, I plan to send her the bill. And now that I have her address, I’ll know where to send it.

At the end of Emily’s year with us, she went back to the family and the life she grew up in. For a while, things seemed to go well. When she was in a good place, I’d get a note or a long-distance phone call. When she was in a bad place, I didn’t hear much from her. I rarely knew how to get in touch with her. But she always knew how to reach me.

In recent years, I hadn’t heard a word from Emily. I’d almost given up hope of ever hearing from her again. But two months ago, I got a Christmas card from her, saying that she was well and sending us her love.

It included a return address. So I wrote back with a brief update on our lives. She knew that my first husband died years ago and that I had remarried. So I filled her in on our growing family, complete with photos of our nine grandchildren.

When I mailed it, I prayed it wasn’t too much. I didn’t want to overwhelm her and risk never hearing from her again.

Then last week, she sent me that wonderful birthday card with a few more details of her life and how well she is doing. She especially seemed to like the photos of the grandkids. But my favorite line she wrote was this: “I now know how much God loves me, and it has finally brought me to love myself.”

Sometimes a birthday card can be a priceless gift.

If I could have given Emily anything when she was with us, I’d have gladly given her what she described in that card — the thing she needed most of all — a clear sense of how much she is loved by God, and in turn, a genuine love for herself.

But love is a gift. It can’t be received until it’s accepted. We don’t need hearing aids to hear it. We just need to be willing to risk everything, open our arms and our hearts and let it in.

Love speaks in a whisper, never a shout, sometimes with words, always with grace. It comes on the wind, in the sound of a baby’s breath, in a look in the eyes of one who cares, or in the touch of a healing hand.

It finds a home within our soul and sings a song that all is well.

Listen. Do you hear it?

Sharon Randall is the author of “The World and Then Some.” She can be reached at P.O. Box 922, Carmel Valley CA 93924, or www.sharonrandall.com.