"He's my friend. . ."

Yesterday as we were preparing for our Chapel services at a local nursing facility, we were moving residents from the sunroom down the hall to the Chapel.  I was pushing one of the sweet ladies there in her wheelchair and my husband passed by us in the hallway on his way back to the sunroom. He stopped to greet Mrs. Martha and as he walked away she looked back at me and said, as if to explain who he was, "He's my friend."

"I know," I told her, "he's my friend, too."

It was so sweet the way she said it as if all she needed to say about him was tied up in those three words. 

She could have said that he comes twice a week to preach at the nursing facility, but she didn't.  She could have said that he plays his guitar and sings songs, but she didn't.  She said the very best thing she could say,  "He's my friend."   To her the most important thing was to have someone that was a friend, someone who genuinely cared about her.

We all have such a friend and even more.  We have a Friend who knows everything about us, even the things we try to hide from ourselves.  We have a Friend who is always with us so that we are never, can never be, alone.  We have a Friend who is always praying for us. 

Have we entered into a difficult or painful time?  Our Friend is and has already been praying for us to His Father.   We have a Friend who has more strength than we can ever imagine, who has more patience than we could believe possible and who is the embodiment of Love itself.  If ever there was a friend to have, this is the One.


"Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you," (John 15:15.)

 Jesus! what a Friend for sinners!

by John Wilbur Chapman

Jesus! what a Friend for sinners!
Jesus! Lover of my soul;
Friends may fail me, foes assail me,
He, my Savior, makes me whole.

Hallelujah! what a Savior!
Hallelujah! what a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
He is with me to the end.

Jesus! what a Strength in weakness!
Let me hide myself in Him.
Tempted, tried, and sometimes failing,
He, my Strength, my victory wins.

Hallelujah! what a Savior!
Hallelujah! what a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
He is with me to the end.