Friends

Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.

Our lives are touched daily by people that we know and some that we don’t, but the ones who make a lasting impression are friends. I claim Jesus as my friend and I hope you will too.

The friends which we have around us are those that we have found through work or school or in other circumstances in which we find ourselves. Whether it is through an accident, military, or other types of operations which puts us together, they are the ones that we rely on and miss the most when they are absent. The length of absence doesn’t make any difference between friends, there is always some common bond between you that will be there regardless of the circumstances life throws at you.

I had such an encounter recently with a friend that I haven’t seen in almost thirty years. Yet there was a bond which spanned that time and made it seem as if it wasn’t a concern. This friend and his family are important to me in ways that they do not realize and when the patriarch of their family moved on to his heavenly home it saddened me. But, I still feel joy because of it. I know that we will see each other in Heaven and we will have an eternity of service to our Lord together.

The friendship which Jesus offers to all is closer than those which we have here during our lifetimes. As God’s word says, “ I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6. This is the kind of friend we need, now more than ever in these troubled times. I pray that anyone who reads this will take this message to heart and accept Jesus into their lives so that you will have a friend forever!

Something died in me

I was prompted this morning to write about, of all things, death!  I have never experienced the death of a sister or brother through war or by evil things that men do or even by accidents, but the feelings of betrayal and loss are the same. I have a half-brother and sister and I was very worried when she was serving in the Army because she spent most of her five year enlistment in Europe and some in Iraq. God answered my prayers and protected her, somehow as only He can do.

There are many people who have lost loved ones to the evil and hateful ways of men and I am sure that they question God’s love and His divine love when things go terribly wrong. He is still there and He does care. In fact, He will avenge their deaths in ways that we cannot possibly imagine. “Vengeance is Mine, says the Lord.”

The first death that I experienced was the death of my marriage, then my grandmother and finally my mother, grandfather, and my Dad. A few years later, my mother-in-law, my son’s grandmother, died. I was questioning, searching for the answer when I came to realize that He had a plan in all of this. I did not like nor enjoy how His plan for my life worked out but after a while of prayer and crying out to Him, I came to know Him better than I ever had before. I know that death is something that we all have to come to grips with at some point in our lives, and it is not a pleasant part of life at all but it is necessary. Even the loss of someone by gun or by an accident on the highway or even by drugs is not overlooked by God. He knows when your life will end and how, unfortunately He can’t prepare our family or us for it unless we let Him.

I wasn’t ready for any of the deaths which occurred in my life, but He knew that unless I experienced them I would never grow into the person that He intended for me to be. I know, that seems to be a cruel way to cause someone to “grow-up” but even in the Bible there are times when people would die so that a new leader would be brought into their place.

Bitterness, anger, frustration, feelings of resentment, loneliness, grief, frustration….these are all feelings that we experience when someone dies before their time or before we are ready. God knows and cares about all of us and for those who were Christians, He was there to greet them when they came into His presence. The sad truth is that many people die not knowing Him, but sometimes this is the only way to get another member of the family to come to Him and God knows that. It is not pleasant and it is never easy on the family regardless of how the person died.

God loves you! Give Him a chance to show it by coming to Him and crying to Him about your hurt and your anger. The only way that these feelings will be helpful to you is if you let Jesus heal the damage they have caused in your life. There is no way to bring back the people we have lost except through our memories of them, but those memories can be much sweeter if we will talk with the One who can help. The only One who can truly help spiritually, emotionally and eternally. Give Him the chance to show just how much He cares and you will be amazed.