John 15:12-13 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.   Greater love has no man than this . . . that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

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© Jeanne E Webster.  All rights reserved

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“Lord, give me eyes that I may see, lest I as people will,

Should pass someone’s Calvary and think it just a hill.”

~unknown

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“He what?  He committed suicide?  Oh NO!  Why didn’t he say something?  I would have been there for him.”   

This was a true story played out last week in the life and death of a famous retired baseball player, supposedly happy with his job as announcer for a major league baseball team.  Interviews with scores of friends and admirers all related that they knew nothing of his problems.  Reality showed they had been blind to his financial troubles.

It wasn’t a hill he faced; it was his cavalry.  His body was found in his back yard; he had shot himself in the head…and died.  Oh God…!

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Oh Lord, we are so busy these days, running here and there, feathering our nests, getting a leg up, or just plain living for the gusto of life.  We are blind to the red flags popping up around our friends: the panicky stares, the desperate inflections in their voices, the surety in their steps now wavering down the path.  We gave them fly-away thoughts.  That’s all.

If only, Lord…if only we would linger long enough in the lives of others, so they would feel comfortable sharing their troubles.  Give us eyes to see their needs, ears to hear their cries of desperation, and mouths to speak words of relief and peace.    In today’s fast paced society, Father, the world’s all like one big blur…zoom, zoom, zoom.  Use us for your purposes, Lord.  Open our eyes so we may distinguish between a hill and a calvary.    A friend’s life may depend on it.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.