I noticed my good friend Vivienne had pulled out and stopped in the parking lot as I was leaving Bible study last Friday. Then I noticed she was trying to tell me something. Then I noticed that I was standing in front of my good friend Annie’s car and Annie was inside at the wheel. Then I saw that Annie’s door wasn’t closed all the way. Then Vivienne had her window down and in a loud voice she saith unto me, “Tell Annie her door isn’t closed!” 

So I opened it and gave it a snug click shut. Then Annie opened it back up. Annie is prone to do things like this. She has a mind and spirit all her own. She is a “force of Nature” as they say. Apparently there are four forces (gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and weak nuclear.) Annie is all four and more. 

Annie was trying to tell me something.

“I wanted to tell you something,” she said, then with that little laugh she has that lights up the moon, “Oh, I just think about you all the time…” Annie has said this to me many times before, but she never tells me what she thinks about. It could be that she’s greatly concerned about me in one way or another. I don’t know that for sure, but why do you think about certain people all the time? That’s what I’ve been thinking about. 

It’s like a strong nuclear force. We can choose our thoughts. And what is strong might be all wrong.

Honestly, my tall red-headed husband had to say to me, at one time, “Now, we’re not going to bring that name up again in this house.” That would be an example of a strong, wrong nuclear force type of thinking. Setting boundaries like that can be helpful in shifting thoughts from negative to positive. It helped me. When certain people popped into my head, stirring things up and riling my spirit, I remembered to turn that switch off. 

Annie, Vivienne and I had all just come from our study on “True Friendship”. It was a beautiful dive into the friendship between David and Jonathan revealed in 1 & 2 Samuel. Mostly, we focused on 1 Sam 20:1-17. But it’s hard not to move throughout the two books to see the full breath and depth and scope of what their friendship was truly about: spiritual kinship, energized by affection, sealed by covenant. It was an unlikely friendship, David a young shepherd, Jonathan a prince in line for the throne and twenty years older than David. But it was the most beautiful friendship.

It’s fascinating and wonderful and it really makes you think hard about what kind of friends you have and what kind of friend you are. Needless to say, it was an uncomfortable study for me, personally. I have some truly wonderful friends, but I had to sit hard with the question: What kind of friend are you? I felt better after we finished our discussion. Apparently, though, it wasn’t completely finished because Annie had her door open. 

“We have to guard our hearts!” She said, as she has said many times before. I could see her breath through the cold air that didn’t seem to faze her. “Don’t allow hate in! My neighbor said she hates the man! I told her, ‘No, you can’t hate him.’ I don’t hate him. Why no, I can’t let myself hate him. I told my neighbor, ‘We need to pray for him!’ Hating him is only hurting myself. We have to learn to pray for him!” 

Honestly, I just have to say, this group of women have prayed for me over the past four years and healed my heart in many, many ways. Hate is such a strong word. I can’t honestly think of anyone I have ever hated. Maybe that’s part of the healing process. As God heals our hearts, he removes the negative ramifications of hurt and betrayal. But it’s hurt that holds on. Hurt clings to the point you might feel as though everybody hates you. And that’s a lie. How many times has the tall red-head heard me say, ‘Everybody hates me.’ ‘They don’t hate you,’ he has always said back, until one day, I realized. I’d stopped saying that kind of thing about myself. 

Maybe Annie was pointing that out to me. Or maybe she was reassuring me that she has come to accept and believe the same thing. Hate is evil. We don’t want it in our hearts. It poisons us. She was making sure I was assured that she didn’t hate “the man”. 

She prays for him. 

“Oh what needless pain we bear.” Bare? Bear. What happens to us when we allow hate to fester in our hearts? It becomes the strong force, weakening our spirits, dulling our light, stealing our joy. We might miss out on the people God places in our lives that need us and that we need. True friendships might be lost. 

One look at David and Jonathan and I’m reminded of my unlikely friendship with Jesus. Me, who did it all wrong for so long: living in my own strength, year after year of thinking I needed to prove myself to this person and/or that person, lugging along the weight and burdens of trying to fix situations, fix things in others they could only fix in themselves, of not speaking up or speaking up about all the wrong things. Oh, I got so tired. 

But God places people in our lives…people like Annie and Vivienne to name just two, and you—people that point me to God. The Healer, our Redeemer and Refuge and Strength and so much more. The greatest Friend ever. He is faithful and honest and true. We’re an unlikely pair, Jesus and me, but the more we hang out together, the more he rubs off. And this is a good thing. 

Remember that old hymn, “What a friend we have in Jesus”? 🎵…All my sins and grieves to bear. What a privilege to carry, everything to God in prayer…🎵

Never be discouraged…sorrows are shared…he knows our weak (nuclear) force and links us up with him and others who make us strong (nuclear) forces! Yes, a force of Nature. Like Annie. And Vivienne. And you. ❤️

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A few photos from Annie’s 90th Birthday party