I have been blessed to have had dear friends all my life. You know, the kind of friends who are there to celebrate the victories and there to share the tears. I’m not exactly sure how I would have survived the ups and downs of life without them. It’s amazing to me how we can continue to maintain friendships over the years, but also add new people into our lives each year.
As a child I learned a little rhyme: “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.” That’s what our members are able to do at the Well Community. They develop friendships that nurture and comfort—friendships with each other, staff and volunteers.
This all came home to me at the Well Community’s recent Thursday Night Life dinner and worship service. I watched as our members gathered with hugs and laughter. I listened as they teased each other and caught up on friendly gossip. I saw our Board of Directors humbly serve food to our members, gently patting shoulders or offering genuine, warm smiles.
Joining us that night were a number of people who were around at the very beginning of the Well, 20 years ago, including Joel Pulis (with wife, Deborah, daughter Grace and little Theo) as well as his brother Josh, and their parents. Kay Frierson, Dan Walston, Kristi and Scott Coleman, Violet Lane, Cerena Fain, Vickie Fisk and Jim Dowsett, faithful volunteers, were also there.
They were all greeted by our members like long-lost friends. As Joel shared with us some of the traditions of the early years, our long-time members laughed and shouted out memories.
In considering the importance of friendship, I pieced together the prayer below for our members. As friends of the Well Community, perhaps you, also, will find this encouraging. Perhaps it reminds us all to be grateful for our friends.
I surely am thankful for you.
Alice
We give thanks for our friends, for connection and laughter, for comfort and strength, for encouragement and unity, for forgiveness and grace, for celebration and joy. Our friends are so many things to us, such a rich tapestry of blessings woven through our lives.
Almighty Father, I give thanks today for our friendships. Lord, this life isn’t meant to be lived alone, so I am grateful for the people who walk alongside us, supporting us, loving us and encouraging us. For we cannot do it all alone but are better together.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 (ESV) says. “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”
Lord, we praise you for friends who share their lives and not just their gospel. We praise you for friends who offer tears and not just their answers. We praise you for friends who give life-giving wisdom and not just mess-fixing formulas.
Father, our all-weather friends turn our hearts heavenward. They simply remind us that the foundation and fountain of all good friendship is found in the gospel. It’s overwhelming, settling and centering to hear Jesus say to us, “No longer do I call you servants … I have called you friends” (in John 15:15). Indeed, Jesus is the friend who sticks closer than a brother (in Proverbs. 18:24).
What wondrous love is this, indeed? “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (in John 15:13).
In God’s name, we pray blessings on all our friends. Amen.