A true friend

A true friend is the greatest of all blessings,

and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.

-- Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680)

My husband is a real friend.

Last night he received a call from an old friend, someone he's essentially not been "pals" with since, well, since we married. Of course he's married, too, and you know how it is. He has a family, Husband is a husband. They have jobs. Life.

But the boyhood friend called last night in an hour of need. His father died yesterday.

He asked my husband to be a pall bearer.

I admit I was surprised by the request, this call from an old friend at 9 at night. Husband graciously agreed to help without even so much as thinking about it.

Old friends, these two. Old and dear and deeply connected, even if it's been 20 years since they last drank a beer together.

I was deeply touched. This kind of bond, this low but abiding brotherly love, is the stuff of true friendship. Agape love, a minister once called it. Love for one another that goes beyond the physical. A deep and abiding respect for each other. The noblest of loves, it is the principle by which one lives: to love, without condition.

It is discussed in 1st Corithians, Chapter 13. I've heard these passages most often in relation to marriage, but I think they mean so much more.

I think these are truly the words that Christians are supposed to live by. I am honored to be married to someone who truly is a man of God even though he would never consider himself in that manner. I wish with all my heart that more of us, myself included, could take these words and pour them over our souls and live good and true lives.

From 1 Corithians:

(4)Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

(5)It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

(6)Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

( 7)It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

( 8)Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

( 9)For we know in part and we prophesy in part,

(10)but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.

(11_When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

(12)Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
( 13)And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.