What a friend we have

Yesterday was a day of reflection. Mary was gone to pay final respects to her late brother, Mark, in their hometown of Natchez, Miss.

I was left to try to help our very, very sick Harry. Now, we have other cats. We have dogs. But Harry has always been truly special. Turns out he is even in his sickness, as he has been diagnosed with diabetes. It requires insulin injections twice a day for the rest of his life. But he won't eat or drink and we don't know how much longer he can go like this. Or us, for that matter. Tears were shed yesterday at his condition. But he's hanging on.

Then while I was eating lunch, the doorbell rang. It was a man, a drunk man, on a bicycle. When I went outside and had him sit down in a rocking chair, I asked him, "What do you need that I can provide?" He said, "a friend."

I couldn't get much more from him, the conversation lapped at times. But eventually I prayed for him, he shook my hand, and I sent him off into who knows what.

But that expression stuck.

"A friend."

Seems to me, that at the bottom of it all, all the muck and the flotsam of our lives, all the brokenness, all the pain, what we really, truly need is a friend.

I'm reminded of the old hymn, "What a friend we have in Jesus." There's a story there (and isn't it always?).

Joseph Scriven, the author of the words of the hymn, was a man truly acquainted with grief. He tried to join the Royal Marine, like his father, but his poor health made it impossible. He fell in love, was engaged to be married, but his fiancee drowned before the wedding.

He moved to Canada, became engaged again, but his fiancee became ill and died before they could be married.

In his grid, he devoted himself to a life of service.

At one point, he received word that his mother was ill. He couldn't afford to return to his native Ireland, so he sent his mother a poem in the hope it would comfort her.

The pen began, "What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!"

Later it was published in a religious journal. He died in 1866, before it became a hymn.

Ira Sankey, musician who worked with the great evangelist D.L. Moody, published it in a book of hymns and Moody had it sung at his revivals. It is one of the best-known hymns in America.

What we all need, frankly, is a friend. Someone who will listen to our ramblings and not judge. Someone who will help when help is needed. Someone who will change the way we perceive things around us, lift us, strengthen us, encourage us.

That friend, as I told my new friend Jessie yesterday, is Jesus.