Friendship

The Lord has blessed me with some pretty won­der­ful friends. I have learned so much from them. I just need to prac­tice more of what I have learned, and then per­haps oth­ers will be blessed as well. That’s how it works, right?

One friend declares she’s my BFF when we chat. She’s funny and kind and thought­ful. She shares so much with me. I mean so. much. I have promised to keep things pri­vate. Trust me. It’s bet­ter that way. Oh, how I love to laugh with her. She says that her fam­ily can tell when we are chat­ting online. They just know because she’s laugh­ing. It’s not all silli­ness though. We are able to talk through some pretty seri­ous top­ics as well. I love those talks.

Another dear friend is now my daugh­ter in law. We have been friends for years. She’s one of the most loyal and com­pas­sion­ate peo­ple I know. And she loves me back. How pre­cious is that? We tell our son that we loved her first. And now she’s my daugh­ter. She’s a con­fi­dant. A friend in every sense of the word. How did I find myself so incred­i­bly blessed? I can­not com­pre­hend the depth of God’s love for me, but this is a sam­pling of it to be sure! I always hoped that I would find it easy to love my daugh­ters in law. We are off to a great start! May the Lord be blessed through our future gen­er­a­tions as we build on this love as a family!

But, the par­tic­u­lar friend I’d like to share with you today is a woman I met in Eng­land. She’s actu­ally Irish, just so you don’t con­fuse her with being Eng­lish. Appar­ently, that’s a big no-no. I didn’t know that when we first met her fam­ily.  But I’m a quick study. We have been friends now for about 11 years. She is a witty woman, but it took me time to fig­ure that out. {So much for being a quick study?} She hid it from me for years. I was just so busy soak­ing up godly coun­sel, learn­ing so much from her. Our friend­ship is deep, abid­ing. She is who I think of when I read

A man who has friends must him­self be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Proverbs 18:24

and

A friend loves at all times…Proverbs 17:17

My dear friend, Angela, sends me let­ters and emails as time per­mits. My heart glows with joy when I receive them, even before I open the let­ter and read a sin­gle word. She always sends me words of encour­ag­ment, exhor­ta­tion, love. She doesn’t sugar-coat things, but she gives me such godly coun­sel. She reminds me of what I think the Puri­tans must have been like. Drink­ing so deeply from the foun­tain of God’s Word, able to express it in all she says and does. And liv­ing life with joy. She min­is­ters con­tin­u­ously to those around her: her fam­ily, her church, her friends. And she doesn’t expect acco­lades or praise. She does it all as unto the Lord. She is such a godly woman of virtue. I thank God for her daily.

I desire to be a friend like these friends, and count­less oth­ers that the Lord has blessed me with by putting them in my life. I want to radi­ate Christ to oth­ers as these women do. I could list sev­eral more friends who have touched my life in sig­nif­i­cant ways. As I write this, names rush through my mind along with their strengths and virtues. Women from church who encour­age oth­ers qui­etly, with­out fan­fare. Women who tend to their many chil­dren as unto the Lord. I was going to say they tend tire­lessly, but I know that isn’t true. They are tired, to be sure. But they con­tinue on day after day. The young women who min­is­ter to many fam­i­lies and their own also. And so many others.

Oh, to have a life marked by the title of friend. “She was a friend to the friend­less.” or “She was a faith­ful friend.” To have friends, you must be friendly. I find myself often too wor­ried about my own shy­ness to step out of my com­fort zone to be friendly to the stranger. Am I the only one? Or, I have a list of peo­ple I need to touch base with on a Sun­day after church which ham­pers me from reach­ing out to the stranger amongst us. I fret that time is too short and we only see each other once a week. I am con­victed that this is demon­strat­ing the wrong pri­or­i­ties. Yes, we need to keep up friend­ships, and that takes time and effort. But we also need to min­is­ter to the lonely, the stranger, and the weak among us. We need to be like Jesus would be. Com­pas­sion­ate and other-centered. Not self-centered, which comes so nat­u­rally to me. And prob­a­bly just about every­one else.

I am so thank­ful that we have exam­ples of friends here in flesh and blood. God has given me such rich, deep friend­ships. As they mir­ror Christ’s love, the friend­ships grow deeper, and I learn more and more how to be a friend. I pray that I bless them at least a tiny bit of a reflec­tion of how they bless me. And I pray that the Lord strength­ens them to con­tinue in their well-doing. All for His glory.

Do you have an exam­ple of a good friend? A loyal friend? One who sticks closer than a brother?

I just thought of a few more friends. I could write a novel, I think, with sto­ries of their loy­alty and faith­ful­ness. I am so unde­serv­ing. But may God be praised.