With a Little Help From My Friends

I woke this morning with such deep gratitude for the people in my life. It's not easy hanging with me and all of my idiosyncrasies. This past weekend, as I received significant news within our family, the presence of my friends was like a cool front in the middle of August--grace in the midst of the reality of life. And it's the small way of being a friend that make life doable--like making the sacrifice to eat cheese fries at 9 pm with your friend just because comfort food was in order even though it is nowhere in your own nutritional plan.

I have lots of friends who were friends during a certain time of life. I admit that I am not the best at keeping up with friends (which is one of my idiosyncrasies) and I am thankful that those kinds of people who know this about me and yet still find some value in being around me exist. Because I'm not sure if I could exist without them.

I have always loved how Jesus told his peeps that they were friends...."I no longer call you strangers but friends." Jesus called his disciples to follow him. Before he called them, did they know each other or even have knowledge of each other? Here is this group of people who may not have known each other before they left everything to follow. And when it came to the end of their time together, they ate dinner together just like every other day. Jesus was sitting with them, and they were reminiscing about their work together, how they had walked 100s of miles healing people and casting out demons, scraping together food on a limited budget and then he interrupts the conversation and says, "Hey guys, we're friends."

Jesus could not have been Jesus without the people who were around him.

And my thought is that this is true still today. That Jesus can not be Jesus without the people who are around him. And even though it's a different time, I still like to think of Jesus looking at me and saying, "Hey, we're friends."