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Stop! Take the time to ask and listen!

This week I went through a new experience.  On August 1, a college roommate and a dear friend died.  August 1 I began my own journey in grief.  As I am sure you understand I have buried dozens of people as a pastor.  When it's someone who has predated your ministry, who loved you and you returned that love for as young men, its just different.  It effects you a whole different way.

Had the opportunity to connect with several others who fall into this category of friendship.  In my own moments of processing, I realized something.  I was given true gifts, in the friendships I made with these men.  I have never had the like again in 20 years.  Sure I have loved and been loved since then, but it was different.

These guys loved a man without a title.
These men loved a guy who's faults were large.
These men loved a guy they could have easily walked away from.
These men stuck through it - any and all of the events that forced others away.
I am forever in their debt.

Yet pondering over the scene of our friend who passed, I realized that while we all had a great love for each other, we had let life, jobs, family and other obligations get in the way.  We had let the distance and the time constraints cause us to miss the times of deep need that occurred.  We had put the obligation on the other person (s) instead of remembering that God had given us something special and that needed to continued to be nurtured and protected.

I am the chiefest of sinners in all of these things.  My friend went through at times some dark seasons, and I thought primarily of myself.  I didn't initiate calls.  I didn't pursue continuing the relationship.  I justified myself by saying if he needs me he will call me, and I was there when he did.

But looking back I wonder - should I have done more?

Here is my resolve.  To learn the lesson of this event.  If I never have the gift of another friendship like I have with these men, then these men will know that they have a good friend in me.  I will pursue.  I will connect.   I will love them in Christ.   I will ask and answer the hard questions.

The phrase says, "You don't know what you got until its gone."
My reply will be, "I'll treasure what I have right here"

2 "Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ."  Gal 6:2


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