By Marylin Kilsby

In the United Kingdom more people live alone these days than has even been the case previously. This has led to more loneliness than ever before, and not just among older people.

We may or may not have marriage partners or families to whom we can turn to for support – or to whom we can offer our time and energies – but we can all have friends.

One definition of a friend is “a person which whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations”. What do you see as the characteristics of a good friend? Someone who accepts you as you are?

Someone who you could contact at any hour of the day or night and they would be there for you? There’s a birthday card that says “It takes time to grow an old friend”. I don’t think this just mean time in terms of years, although that is certainly part of it. It also means the time that the friends spend together. And true friends enjoy spending time together. True friends also know what will make their friend happy – their favourite food, music, interests and so on. It’s such a blessing to have friends, people to whom you can turn in times of need, people who love you for who you are, warts and all.

Jesus said “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends”. He also said to His disciples (and we are also His disciples) “You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you”.

How amazing to know that Jesus wants to be my friend and yours! He accepts us as we are, even though He knows all our sin and imperfections. We are so privileged to be His friends.

[Bible quotes are from John 15vv13-15, ESVUK]

View previous Reflection articles

Sticks and Stones
Beauty in the Chaos
God and Creation
Perfect Timing
The Lord is near
Having fun and taking new steps with our friends
A friend who stands where we stand, and weeps with us
Remain in Me