9.10-The joy of longterm friends.

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9.10



The joy of longterm friends.

When Sheila Wishard makes a good friend she sticks with them for as long as she can.  She became a friend of mine over 50 years ago.  About 43 years ago she became a close friend of Sandy Wallace.  They were sitting in a parking lot waiting to pick up her daughter and my son from preschool class in the Dallas area.  For our 50th wedding anniversary we decided to link up with some of our friends who had been close to us during our marriage.  Ray and Sandy Wallace invited us to their beautiful home in the Northwoods between Pagosa Springs and Durango Colorado.  We both celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary within the same 30 day period of time.

Our kids grew up together and we experienced some amazing victories with them and suffered through some hard times with them.   Our marriages over the 50 years have gone through the normal stresses of married life, but with the advantage of the amazing grace of God coming to our rescue.  They have never given up on us and we have never given up on them.  They are friends of Jesus and so great friends for us.

We had some dreams of perfection that crashed.  These deepened our friendship.  We don’t have the same family background, the same kind of hobbies or the same opinions on everything.  We have this in common, we all four love Jesus and His creation.

We spent four nights and three days in their lovely home.  We didn’t watch television.  We watched hummingbirds, a woodpecker, a skunk, a chipmonk, some wild turkeys and numerous cows and horses.   We didn’t see the news, but we saw some amazing sunsets and a harvest moon.  We didn’t hear what the hateful politicians or news people were say, but we heard some crickets.  Yes, crickets.

We got up when we wanted to.  We slept when we wanted to.  We ate what we wanted to eat when we wanted to eat.  We didn’t make up our bed.  We talked about deep, important things from the time we got up until we went to bed.  We took breaks from this by watching their cats open doors and jump from the floor to the top of windows and get down to wrestle playfully.

We experienced this part of Jesus’ prayer.  “Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”  

John 15.
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

Larry Wishard
9.10.17

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