Jeff and Kim Puckett biked with us 10 miles on the Tunnel Hill Rail to Trail route in southern Illinois. We started at the parking lot that was closest to the tunnel and then biked down to Vienna — down being the operative word in this sentence! Solomon, their 5 year old, didn’t want to ride back to our starting point so Kim and I stayed at the park to let him play on the equipment while Steve and Jeff rode 10 miles uphill back to the vehicles. Such loving, gallant men our husbands are! About an hour and a half later here come our valiant, albeit weary warriors with; “next time you go get the vehicles and we’ll stay behind and watch Solomon play!”

I love all the friends YHVH has put in my life! For many years I prayed for friends, real friends of the heart. But as the years rolled by I became more and more cynical and depressed because no such people existed, or so I thought. I couldn’t tolerate superficiality, but I became superficial to deal with superficial people and then despising that expression of myself I isolated from people or worked very hard to control people who entered my environment. A lousy life really!

But, one day in 1992, I met my Bridegroom, Yashua, and He changed my heart. Little by little, bit by bit He crushed my hard heart and gave me His heart. He became my BFF, my Best Friend Forever! I still longed for friends of the heart, but without those years spent learning to be His friend of the heart, learning to listen to His voice, learning to speak from His point of view, learning to love others as He loves me, learning to love others as He sees them — I wouldn’t have had any idea of what a heart friend is or does!

Friendship is like the Tunnel Hill ride — a long, graveled trail that as long as you stay mostly centered you won’t fall off the edge and slide into the ditch. It is shaded from the hot sun with beautiful green, leafy trees and gently, babbling streams meander along the trail; a thoroughly enjoyable ride until you see a tunnel ahead; a long, dark tunnel. I can see the light at the end, it doesn’t look too bad, besides I have a flashlight — let’s go. But your friend cautions, it’s deceiving — when you are in the tunnel even though you can see the light at the end it is very dark in the middle and it is longer than it appears! My flashlight is useless in the inky darkness of the tunnel — it is true that I can see the tunnel’s exit, but without following the lights woven into the spokes of my friend’s bike wheels I would have quite possibly run into the tunnel walls as many who have done this ride have cautioned. 

Friends help each other through the dark times in each others lives!

Friends of the heart support each other in the scary places of our lives and help each other to remember that even if we have to “let go and let God” it is amazing to “fall into the arms of Yashua!”

And when we are tired friends go the extra mile to let us rest while they return for the vehicles! Friendship is a sharing of the heart, a give and take, an attitude of, I am so glad to be with you, I will hold you while you cry, I will laugh with you at a funny; I am just glad to be with you! In the hurts and pains, the joys and sorrows of life are you a friend of the heart?!

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” (1Cor 13)

John 13:35, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

I thank YHVH for ALL my friends of the heart! You are, each one, a blessing!