“Two are better than one…For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!” Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.
I still remember the refrain of that song I belted out ages ago in Girl Scouts!
Surrounded by my fellow troop members, little did I know that half a century later I might have trouble making new friends and that many of my old friends would be gone from Earth and living in heavenly glory.
The results of a recent poll confirmed what I was experiencing; but, even so, the data was unsettling: Most Americans have not made a new friend in five years and nearly half the adults polled have difficulty making friends.
That’s a sad state of affairs. If, as the saying goes, friends are the spice of life, we all must be living un-flavorful lives.
Enter Sweet Monday. This ministry was founded by Kim Newlen on the principle that friendships matter; people need people. And when we gather in Christ-centered ways, our lives are always sweeter.
As a young stay-at-home mom, Kim found herself alone with her child, and she craved companionship. She correctly figured that many of her neighbors were in the same boat. So, she opened her door and invited them in. She knew what Christ had said; “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
Sweet Monday spread. Women began forming bonds and lifting one another up. Fulfillment of God’s Great Commission was unfolding: Women began making disciples in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Each one of us was created in the image of a God in three persons. And He designed us to live in connection with all others created in the same image.
Here’s to friendship! Such bonds are more precious than all of creation’s gold and silver.