Friendship
I was listening to a Simon and Garfunkel CD in the car and I found there was one song even more depressing than all the rest. One line goes “I have no need of friendship, friendship causes pain” and I got to comparing that with a hymn we sang at Elsie’s funeral on Monday, the old favourite “What a friend we have in Jesus”. It includes the line “What a privilege to carry everything to Him in prayer”.
How sad the experiences of those songwriters must have been to cause them to deny themselves all the joys and rewards of friendship just to avoid the risk of being hurt by loss or betrayal.
My best earthly friend (apart from Mark – I put that in for the people who worry if one does not acknowledge one’s best friend is one’s spouse) lives in Plymouth and we have known each other over forty years. She and I trained together and have worked as nurses more or less constantly since, hence when we get together a lot of time is spent mulling over the changes for better but, sadly, mostly worse in the NHS.
Having had a good moan to someone we know will not betray us to those about whom we have been moaning we feel so much better. How would we relieve the gnawing thoughts of righteous indignation if we did not have each other? How would we move on in our lives if we were still smouldering about perceived past problems?
Friends are also incredibly useful if you are in need of practical help. As Pam has just found out in Rwanda, when you have a broken ankle and are confined to a hospital bed, you need someone to get you home, do your shopping, bring you meals or do your laundry.
I have another friend living somewhat closer than Plymouth who was my saviour when I was admitted to hospital for the third time in three weeks some years ago. Our standing joke when people ask about our friendship is that she was the person who washed my knickers when I ran out and Mark did not know how to work the washing machine.
At Elsie’s funeral we saw what a true friend she had been to so many people in her ninety-six years of life. The church was packed although she had obviously outlived most of her own generation. Tribute after tribute proclaimed what a calm and solid Christian she had been, how she had supported everyone who asked for help and had loved everyone she met, she never complained and always made the best of what she had. One of the pastors summed it up beautifully when he said she was a friend of Jesus and that shone out of her every pore; even strangers and non-Christians were touched by her faith.
So do we realise what a friend we have in Jesus and how privileged we are to be able to take everything to Him in prayer?
At the midweek meeting we were speaking about anxiety and fear. If we pray and put our trust in the Lord we should cease to be fearful because we know, if He has told us to do a thing, He will not let us fail.
Our anxiety stems from our belief that we might be wrong, a thought put there by the Enemy when he sees us growing in the Faith. He sits on our shoulder whispering doubts in our ears. To overcome this we have to meet together, check out what we hear with what others are hearing and realise it all fits like a jigsaw.
