Pause In Lent #6

Is it really the last one for this year? Where have the last six weeks gone?

On my birthday last Thursday, I was asking myself ‘Where have the last 50+ years gone?’

But every time I go into the lounge, I’ve seen all my cards and they have inspired this post

This week, I have been reminded time and time again just how blessed I am to have so many friends.

Not just the Facebook Friends. They are a strange collection - not least because they might ‘unfriend’ me at any point. Some of them are people I am regularly in contact with outside of FB –but others I hardly know, and rarely meet, and I am not exactly sure why they sent the friend request in the first place [or why I accepted – I suspect in the early days I didn’t want to offend them by refusing, and now I am a coward and don’t want to offend them by unfriending]

No I mean my real friends. This week I have experienced true friendship in lots of ways. Here’s just three examples

• my best friend Chris in Norfolk [she has a key to Cornerstones] Last weekend she went into the bungalow and left a surprise birthday present there for me.
• my church friend Gaz here in Leicestershire, who sent me a really encouraging text message just when I needed it
• my blog friend Kezzie, who said on her recent Lent Pause ‘How can I pray for you?’ I mentioned my aunt in hospital miles away. Kezzie lives near her, and said she would not only pray, but would also try and visit too, if she can.

I could make this list even longer – but the point is, these are people who not only call themselves friends, but show love and friendship in their words and actions. I know I can rely on these friends, I hope they feel they can trust and rely on me.

Being let down by anyone is hard – but to be let down by someone you thought was a good friend is really painful. That’s not really happened much to me – but Jesus knew all about it - the sleeping disciples in Gethsemane, who then fled when the soldiers came, Judas’ betrayal, Peter’s denial…

Jesus has a lot to say about friendship

My command is this: love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last – and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: love each other.

In Proverbs 18 it says

One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother

…which was the inspiration behind the old hymn “What a Friend we have in Jesus”. I thank God for all my friends- whether near, far – or, like Kezzie, only known via Blogland [we will meet one day, I am sure] and pray that each of you will experience true friendship, and most of all, that you too will know the unfailing friendship of Jesus.