A Divine Friend

     This is a very lonely job. Sometimes I feel pretty cut off from friends and friendship. Our church situation does not help to keep us connected as a community and every time I drive past the building my heart sinks a little deeper because the construction is moving along so slowly. People are busy. It's summer. Life changes, friendships change. You gain, you lose. We chose to step out and be different and lost friends over it. It still stings. It's still uncomfortable. And it is still happening. 

    
     I remind myself that I still have lots of friends. They are busy. It's summer. I just don't run into them much and I lack time and energy to be intentional. We still have lots of family. They are just far, far away. It isn't looking like Africa will let mom come home as planned... what a bummer. I still have a couple of friends who call and they take the time to talk when I call. It means a whole lot. It's encouraging on hard days. I certainly hope and pray that I can be that for others when they need it.

   Through everything I have Christ and that means more and more every day.

Your compassionate Redeemer is watching you with love and sympathy, ready to hear your prayers and to render you the assistance which you need. He knows the burdens of every mother's heart and is her best friend in every emergency. His everlasting arms support the God-fearing, faithful mother. When upon earth, He had a mother that struggled with poverty, having many anxious cares and perplexities, and He sympathizes with every Christian mother in her cares and anxieties. That Saviour who took a long journey for the purpose of relieving the anxious heart of a woman whose daughter was possessed by an evil spirit will hear the mother's prayers and will bless her children. 

 . . . .He is woman's best friend today and is ready to aid her in all the relations of life. 

No work can equal that of the Christian mother. She takes up her work with a sense of what it is to bring up her children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. How often will she feel her burden's weight heavier than she can bear; and then how precious the privilege of taking it all to her sympathizing Saviour in prayer! She may lay her burden at His feet and find in His presence a strength that will sustain her and give her cheerfulness, hope, courage, and wisdom in the most trying hours. How sweet to the careworn mother is the consciousness of such a friend in all her difficulties! If mothers would go to Christ more frequently and trust Him more fully, their burdens would be easier, and they would find rest to their souls.  

AH 204