Saturday, October 8, 2011

Value Your Friendships

How I weep for you, my brother Jonathan! Oh, how much I loved you! -- 2 Samuel 1:26a

Have you ever tragically lost a close friend? I hope you answered no because I truly wouldn’t wish that kind of grief on anyone.

David was king. God had finally freed him from the reaches of Saul. But the battle that took Saul’s life also claimed the lives of his three sons. One of those sons was David’s best friend Jonathan.

Good friends can be hard to find. This friendship was strange, at best. Think about it. David was a shepherd whom God had anointed as Israel’s next king. Jonathan was the crown prince, destined to be the next king until David arrived on the scene. Yet their fierce loyalty to one another withstood Jonathan’s father and David’s fear. Some time later David would seek out Jonathan’s family and find that one son, Mephibosheth, had survived. He took care of him -- just as he’d once promised Jonathan he would do. A friendship that survived death.

Because that’s what deep friendships do. Many years ago my best friend died suddenly of a blood clot exactly three weeks after he’d had a heart attack. There was no warning. Nothing. He’d survived the heart attack. He’d had open heart surgery the next day and was back at his sister’s recovering by the end of the week.

The last conversation I had with him was about rescheduling a trip we’d planned to Sedona, Arizona. I’d been forced to postpone it when he got sick. He wanted to go ahead and reschedule and I wanted to wait until the doctor released him. I wanted to make sure he was okay to drive in the snow because driving in the snow scares me. Sounds silly now. Neither of us had any idea that we’d never speak again on this side of heaven.

Beth Moore tells the store of losing her best friend when they were in high school. The young woman had stopped by Beth’s house to get her to go out to eat. Beth’s family was preparing to leave town and her parents said no. Thirty minutes later sirens permeated the air. All these years later and Beth says she still sometimes visits her grave. That’s friendship. Time eases the pain but it doesn’t dull the loss.

The lesson seems almost too simple. Value the people you treasure most. Tell them how you feel. Let them know that they are special to you. Your family, of course, usually comes to mind. But remember your friends too. My best friend knew I loved him. He knew the special place he had in my heart. I clung to that in the days and weeks that followed. Because deep, true friendship doesn’t die with death.