As the year, 1974, was drawing its final curtains of history
over its troubled self, there was a day I set me down to do some
meditating. Because I was created with a contemplative mind, now
and again I have to take time for this. If I don’t I become
frustrated.
I had been writing Christmas notes and letters, for days. They
were climbing toward the hundred mark. Friends had almost become
burdensome to me. And never do I want to feel that friends are a
burden. They are precious, exceedingly precious. I sighed as I
picked up another card, and tried to set the wheels in my head to
turning again. And then IT HAPPENED!
This particular card portrayed all the special joys of the
Christmas season . . . the Baby Jesus in the manger, Mary, Joseph,
The Star, Choirs of Angels. There were others as well. . . holly,
poinsettias, colored lights, pine boughs and cones, Christmas
trees. The list seemed endless.
Through all of these glowed the face of friendship. And with
tremendous impact I came to the realization that for the Christian
FRIENDS ARE FOREVER. This, my dear readers, is an eternal
relationship. We may stand by gravesides weeping, but if both the
deceased and the remaining trust in the eternal truth of Christ it
is only temporary.
While I knew that the manger birth foreshadowed the cross it
never had come home to me with such emphasis before. It may well
have been the difficult experiences of the past months for which I
needed reassurance. But it surely came, pressed down and running
over. God is so good!
During October and November bad news came crashing at us as
though it would never end. It began with the accident I wrote about
in the last column. As I write this, our eldest son, Paul, is still
undergoing cobalt treatments for Hodgkins Disease, or cancer of the
lymph glands. He and his family live two thousand miles from us,
which doesn’t help. His spleen was removed during October as a
precautionary measure. He was dreadfully sick. Doctors are hopeful
of a complete cure, but only time will tell. There are two
daughters, fifteen and thirteen.
Our youngest daughter is having to adjust to living with an
underactive thyroid gland. Goiters have been a problem of some
concern in my family. The results have not always been good. Mary
has a baby, seven months old.
Just before Thanksgiving another blow fell. Our oldest daughter
almost lost her life from an infection when a pregnancy didn’t
carry through to fulfillment. She is six hundred miles from here,
and has three young sons.
About that same time I learned that one of my dearest friends
was also battling a malignancy and had undergone surgery following
five weeks of x-ray treatments. We went to see her in a local
hospital, and she was just a shadow of her usual buxom self. Add to
all of this an aged next door neighbor who is living with heart
trouble and edema day and night. Our dooryards join. Night after
night I see her light. She can not lie down to rest.
So, you see, the world had just sort of caved in around us. I
couldn’t seem to find any cheer from any source, and I hate
being a dragged-out sourpuss. I don’t think I was wallowing in
self-pity. I hope not. But it was the kind of consuming sorrow one
could not get rid of. Those we loved were suffering, and we could
not split ourselves three ways, so we stayed here and prayed and
waited it out.
The Christmas correspondence had to be truthful, and it was a
heavy task. Then it was that the illuminating thought came straight
from God. FRIENDS ARE FOREVER! That goes for loved ones too. They
are the nearest and dearest of all. Didn’t God send His Son,
His only Son to die for us? And the beautiful thought of Him loving
us that much set the joybells of Christmas ringing and
reverberating in my heart.
Last Sunday night we had a church filled with young and older
folks, all singing carols. When we came to ‘Gloria In Excelsis
Deo’ I have never heard anything so beautiful in my entire
life. ‘Joy To The World’ also echoed from rafter to rafter
and ‘Silent Night, Holy Night’ sent us back out under the
stars and going back to our own homes rejoicing.
What can life ever do to us that will completely throw us off
balance? Nothing … if our faith is strong enough. The deeper the
water, the more we need the Eternal Rock of Ages.
One piece of really good news is that I have a new book coming
out this week. It is in the mail now. This manuscript for a
devotional type small book has lain around the house for fifteen
years. It came out of a very hard experience also. The title is
‘LOVE LETTERS TO CHRIST’ and will sell for $3.50 plus 20c
for mailing expense. I will handle them. I trust our editor will
allow me this much advertising. If not he can delete this
paragraph.
True growth only comes when adversity hits the hardest, that is,
spiritual toughness, the ability to withstand. Christ had His
rejection, His unjust trial, His crucifixion, and He condescends to
call us ‘friends.’ Yes. FRIENDS ARE FOREVER to the
Christian. May we all seek for such blessed company.
