I’ve got some really great friends.

I don’t see them nearly as often as I’d like, as most of my closest friends live far away. It stinks, but I’d rather have it this way than not have them in my life at all!

Today, I pick up a friend at the airport who is coming to visit me from Iowa. We met through our kids about 16 years ago (gasp!), and since, we’ve become very close, also having the rare joy of our spouses joining in the friendship party! It’s not often you find another couple with whom you can travel, and where all four people genuinely like all four people. Amen?

I’ve been preparing for her arrival, and thinking of all the things I want to show her, since she’s never been to this house before, or Texas, really, for that matter. She knows how I feel about my Texas, so she’s excited to see it through my eyes. We’ll be traveling to my favorite part of the state this week, and I can’t wait to enjoy it with someone who’s seeing it for the first time.

Friends are so important. I ache for mine sometimes, when life gets insane and I feel like it is living me, instead of the other way around. Christ felt that way, I think. There toward the end of His time here, when the heat was turned up and He knew that time was short, He stole away often with them. I wonder now, if, when they arrived in heaven, He showed them around His home with great joy and excitement. I imagine them walking for long hours together, then talking intently under His favorite tree; it makes me smile.

The Bible says that there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. That is so true. My closest friends are like that, and probably yours, too. I’m thankful to remember that when I head to heaven, Christ will be as thrilled to see me is He was to see His beloved disciples. Friends closer than brothers, yes. But with Christ – in Christ – I’m friend AND brother.

It’s hard to get closer than that.

“A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” Proverbs 18:24 ESV

“This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.” John 15:12-15 NLT

“For his Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we really are God’s children. And since we are his children, we will share his treasures—for all God gives to his Son Jesus is now ours too…” Romans 8:16-17 TLB