“We need someone who cares to be present with us, someone to listen to us vent or hold us while we cry.”

A thought by Craig Groeschel from his book, Divine Direction: 7 Decisions That Will Change Your Life (p. 144). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

I remember when we were living in Las Vegas and I was sitting with my kids waiting in a hospital for Cancer surgery on Margaret, my wife, and their mother and looking up and seeing a very good friend from Phoenix walking in to be with us.  I don’t think he really realized what that meant to me.  Real friends are so important.

Craig said, “Who do you call in those moments? Who do you want to confide in as you enter the valley of the shadow of life’s most heart-wrenching events?

“Other than family members, most people either call a close friend or wish they had someone they could call. In those moments, we desperately need each other. We need someone who cares to be present with us, someone to listen to us vent or hold us while we cry. We need trusted friends to love us and remind us of God’s peace and presence in the middle of life’s unexpected storms. And not only do we need this type of friend, we need to be this type of friend to others, the kind other people trust and respect, confide in and love to be around. But I fear such connections are becoming rare.”

Later he said, “A number of years ago, I preached about secrecy and confession, and our church set up a temporary companion website. On this website, people could post their most carefully guarded secrets—anonymously. In the first two months alone, more than three hundred thousand people visited the site. Tens of thousands revealed the terrible burdens that were weighing them down, including sexual abuse, physical and domestic abuse, affairs, violence, and just about every addiction you can name.

“While I was grateful that so many people had that opportunity to unload their heavy hearts, I was equally saddened that they felt they had no one with whom they could share those burdens. I get it; there’s no risk when you share something anonymously online. But any sense of relief you could get from something like that is temporary. People’s lives are messy—mine, yours, everyone’s—so if we’re going to connect with others, we have to help each other clean up some of the messes. That’s why it’s absolutely essential to have real friends (and the right friends) in your life before your life derails in some way. Real friendships, though, take time, which is part of what makes it so difficult for us to connect.”

So, who is it who is a real friend to you or who you are going to reach out to and strive and take the time to make a real friend?