The Thing About Friends

When there are a couple of dozen things in your life that are not making sense, 

and you're taking a few moments to

pause and reflect

about just where you might rank in the great cosmic picture . . . 

you know,

one of those periods when you're stuck at home and you can't drive and you've recently cancelled your Comcast subscription

because . .  . well 

  you know why

I did that . . . 

and you've finished your library book

and it's not time to eat again yet,

and so you just sit in your semi dark room and

 think about life . . . 

yeah,

those times don't occur often, but when they do

(and they are currently),

you begin to assess

where you

rank on the food chain

and perhaps muse about how many years you may still have on earth

and whether you've done most of the things you thought you'd have done by

the age you are now . . . 

and you gauge whether you're likely to get any of the rest of the

 bucket list 

accomplished.

It's good to have these quiet times of reflection 

because I usually get to the point where I have to say

I'M SO VERY BLESSED IN MY LIFE.

While there will always be those who have more things

 and more fame

 and more money

 and more of whatever . . . .

and there will always be those people who it seems

never step in a cow pie . . .

and never get audited

and never get called for jury duty

and never get rear ended at a red light

and never have surgery

or break a tooth,

and never seem to get two of those really annoying flies in the house

that buzz so loudly and will not stop dive bombing your head for 3 days before they finally

go somewhere else . . . 

(they seem to arrive with the cow-pies)

I have to tell you that one of the things I have that makes any difficult time

seem a lot easier,

is my friends.

I have some of the best friends in the world.

Now,

A lot of people think they have friends . . . 

but you really seriously test that group of friends

and you're going to find that most will hang with you for a little while,

some will stand by even longer,

but a few will stick it out all the way through to the

 miserably long drawn out 

end.

A friend like mine will come and get you and drive you around town on errands

and take you out to lunch

even though you occasionally miss your mouth while you're eating

or need to have them hold on to you while you're walking.

My friends have rearranged work schedules 

and skipped their own appointments

and not gone to the gym,

and come, smelly, from the gym,

and brought brownies

and sent flowers

and gone to work for me.

No,

I mean they've actually gone in and done my work

because I couldn't.

They've driven across town to pick up my paycheck and deposit it in my bank.

They've let me storm and cry and shake my fist

when I needed to.

They've listened to me talk for a long time about my 

relationship with Jesus

even when they didn't hold the same beliefs I do,

because they respect my faith and my 

beliefs.

  They've acknowleged my thought process

even when I know they don't agree with it . . .

because they understand I may just need to be heard and understood.

They've been bold enough and secure enough and loving enough

 to risk giving me their opinions,

even when they fear I might not want to hear them.

Even when they fear they might hurt my feelings.

I believe it's a sign of respect

 that they know I won't dump them just because of a difference of opinion.

That's a secure friend.

That's like a family member.

You may get your feelings hurt,

and you may disagree,

and you may even need time to process what they've said,

but you don't stop being family.

I think being a friend is one of the most important things we can do while we're on this earth.

John 15:13

(Jesus speaking) 

"Greater love has no one than this,

that one lay down his life for his friends".

Some of my friends have laid down their lives:

put aside the things they "have" to do,

sacrificed work hours, leisure time, and a bunch of gasoline

 and personal energy and money and thought process

to take up the slack in my life.

I want to say thank you for being a blessing to me

dear friends.

Some of you email me with encouragement

some of you are prayer warriors,

some call, (tho' calls are tough right now),

some come and sit with me

some chauffer me around . . .

and no matter what happens in life,

when I've got friends like you guys . . .

It's going to be alright!

In fact, 

if things

  didn't ever go wrong in life,

and we didn't ever

NEED EACH OTHER

how would we know what

 good friends 

really were?