The Impact of Friends

By Rhonda Rhea –

Anytime you trip in front of your friends, the best thing to do is to just bounce right back up and keep on going. To the airport. And then leave the country. Maybe change your name.

Isn’t it a little hard to save face after your face just did a plant? Especially a face plant on gravel. Exfoliation gone so wrong.

The last time I took a tumble I didn’t do a face plant so there was no eating gravel or anything. But I think I do remember the faint taste of linoleum for a while. It was in a busy hallway at church. So it was really more the taste of linoleum and humiliation.

It’s always nice to have friends nearby who will help you up. Well actually, to laugh uproariously for several minutes first and then make merciless fun of you for years. But at least they do help you up somewhere in between.

I love the reminder in Ecclesiastes 4: “Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their efforts. For if either falls, his companion can lift him up; but pity the one who falls without another to lift him up” (vv. 9-10, HCSB).

Proverbs 18:24 also makes a thought-provoking point. “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (ESV). There are times when it’s not enough to simply have someone standing by. Those surfacey kinds of acquaintances will come and go in our lives. But there is a true and lasting blessing in a friend who’s with you through all your ups and downs. Through every victory and through every tumble. And there’s great blessing in becoming that kind of friend to someone as well.

Since our Heavenly Father has so much to say about the importance of our relationships, and since He included this particular bit of friendship information in His Word, I’m taking that to mean I need to be reminded. We need each other—when we’ve just taken a header and just as much when we’re gracefully tiptoeing along. I find myself remembering all the clearer each time a close friend offers godly counsel or encourages me to seek the Lord. I remember it well each time friends spur me on or inspire me to walk closer to Christ by their godly example. And yes, still again each time a friend helps scrape me off the pavement after a spill.

If you’re experiencing one of those seasons in life when your close friends are not as accessible, could I encourage you to keep praying, asking the Lord to send a bud your way? Who knows? He might drop one right in front of you. Maybe even in a church hallway. On linoleum.

Meanwhile, Psalm 37:23-24 tells us that, “The LORD makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him; though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand” (NIV). Whether there is a friend nearby or not, the Lord is never absent or inattentive. Even if there’s a bit of a spill, we’re lovingly held.

True friends? They’re a blessed bonus. It’s amazing how the Lord can use them to impact our lives for Him.

Good impact. Because now we know there’s impact…and there’s impact on linoleum.

Unfathomable Love

By Susan Dollyhigh –

The call came from the emergency room after the crisis had passed with my three-year-old granddaughter. “Mom, Katelyn’s okay, but I just spent four hours in the ER with her,” my daughter said.

Even though Emily said Katelyn was okay, a wave of fear washed over me.

“It was awful, Mom. We were grocery shopping, and Katelyn was sitting in the cart with her baby dolls. I turned away from her for just a second.” Emily’s composure broke, and she sobbed, “She was trying to climb out of the cart and Mom, she fell… face first, onto the concrete floor.”

I closed my eyes, and the image of Katelyn’s fall flashed on the screen of my mind. I dropped my head into my hand, the horror of my own imagining too much to bear.

“The people who witnessed the accident were frightened; someone ran and got an ice pack, while others directed us to the nearest medical facility.” Emily’s family was vacationing at Carolina Beach.

“I was so scared, Mom,” Emily continued. “Katelyn’s head was bruised and bleeding. We took her to a walk-in facility, and they sent us straight to the hospital. I cried all the way there. I wanted to trade places with her, Mom. I wanted to take her place.”

I wanted to take my children’s place when they suffered injury, illness, or heartache. I would have gladly endured their pain in my body rather than helplessly watch them suffer.

I can’t imagine the agony God must have experienced as He watched His Son, Jesus, suffer on the cross. I don’t know how He endured the pain when Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Yet we’re told in The Message version of John 3:16, “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.”

God the Father in His boundless, immeasurable, unfathomable love for us, endured His Son’s suffering so that every one of us, even sinners like me, can be spend eternity in Heaven. Unfathomable.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NIV).

Prayer: Father, thank You for loving us so much that You gave Your one and only Son so that anyone who believes in Him can have eternal life. Thank You for Your unfathomable love. Amen

Sparrows Fall

By Charlotte Riegel –

A friend was helping us remove a rather large tree stump from our back yard. The tree had died and, prior to its death, had also broken through a fence. My husband was reclaiming some valuable yard space and hankering to repair the broken fence.

While taking a breather, Lois exclaimed, “Oh look, a baby bird has fallen from its nest.” It took a long time until I could find it amongst all the pine cones under the evergreen tree where the nest was secured. The baby bird looked as if it hatched only hours before we saw it squirming for life. It was nearly impossible for us to access it and even if we had, our efforts would have been useless in attempting to preserve its life.

We were reminded of a song learned in Sunday School and encouraged each other to remember the simple truths of this song, by Marcus Tidmarsh, based on Jesus’ words in Matthew 6.

God sees the little sparrow fall, it meets His tender view;
If God so loves the little birds, I know He loves me too.
He loves me too, He loves me too, I know He loves me too.
Because He loves the little things, I know He loves me too.
He paints the lily of the field, Perfumes each lily bell;
If He so loves the little flowers, I know He loves me well.
He loves me too…
God made the little birds and flowers, and all things large and small;
He’ll not forget His little ones, I know He loves them all.

Lois had recently moved to a new province, a new temporary home and completely new circumstances and was still feeling challenged by the upheaval. She felt encouraged by the reminder that God knew all about it and was walking with her into this new life.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matthew 6:25-27 NIV).

Parchments, Books & Coat

By Gillis Killam –

We are downsizing and there will not be enough room for my large library in our new home. I know how I feel about my books. They are like old friends to me and I don`t like the thought of parting with them. I want them to go to a place where they will be read and valued by someone.

The Apostle Paul was in a Roman prison awaiting execution when he wrote his last letter to his prodigy, Timothy. Paul’s words to Timothy resonate with me, “When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments” (2 Timothy 4:13 NIV). These are what he missed most.

Think of the changes in the way books are published, and how we acquire them today in comparison to Paul’s time. Books and letters that were written on parchments by hand are now downloaded as digital books and manuscripts on line. The idea that entire books and volumes can be transferred through the atmosphere in a few seconds, to a device that can hold thousands of books would have blown Paul’s mind.

Books were God’s plan to record the way the world was created; and the origin of man. He also chose the written word to have a permanent record of how He sent His Son into the world to save mankind from its sin. God used terms and methods that we can understand. In his vision the apostle John saw God open the Book of Life at the final judgment.

“Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books”
(Revelation 20:11-12 NIV).

Prayer: Thank you, Lord. Because of salvation through Jesus Christ my name is written in the Lamb’s book of life. AMEN

Pursue All You Were Created To Be

By Peter Lundell –

To my daughter—and every child, however young or old.

When I first got you, I held you and sang. You filled a hole in my heart. When Mom and I took you to kindergarten, you and your classmates walked like little ducks behind your beloved teacher. And I often thought, Someday I’ll sit in a grandstand and watch you graduate from high school. On that day I will NOT wonder, “Where did the time go?” I determined that I would be part of your life and share it as much as I could.

And here I am.

Was I more successful or less? Through the years with you I’ve known joy and sadness. And that’s okay because one is incomplete without the other. If I could do things over again, I’d do them the same way. Perhaps that’s as good a definition of success as I can ask.

So pursue all you were created to be. You were not created to be a cog in a vast machine. No one is. Possessions and positions will claim they’re important. Entertainment will claim it’s worthwhile. Others will expect you to do things their way. I pray you see through that.

You have a life to fulfill. Someday it will end in eternity, and until then the two will intersect—every day if you’re looking. God has His hand on you. I have prayed it be so. As you practice your life’s call, never let go of purpose and hope. He has more for you than you now know.

Soon enough you will not have me to tell you what to do. The times it’s hard to stand on your own are when you’ll learn to do just that.

The best years of your life are ahead of you. Explore every open door. And may you find your way through every jungle of emotions and tangle of thoughts.

I will be there behind you.

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:8-9 NIV).

“Lord, my life is in your hands. Work in me to keep me from the maze of things I shouldn’t do. And keep me on the path of what I should.”

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