Proverbs 18:24---A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a Friend who sticks closer than a brother.

          Actually, I had my doubts about that once upon a time. It only took one lesson for me to learn that He always has me on His heart and mind. But there was that time………

          January 1976. There was a lot going on that January. Marsha and I were still newlyweds. It had only been five months. We were living almost 700 miles from where we had grown up. I was a Bible college student and Marsha was working to put me through school. I was serving a church as interim pastor 85 miles away from where we lived. I was 20 and she was 19 years of age. It was a frantic time, a time when I always felt I was a little boy trying to catch up to the big kids. And then Marsha got sick one night. I took her to the ER where they checked her out. The doctor came out and told me that Marsha was very sick and needed surgery right away. If not, she would die. What did I want to do? Well, what I really wanted to do was wake up and find myself back in Ohio in my old bed at a time when my responsibilities were not so overwhelming. At that moment, I did not want to be making life and death decisions, I didn’t want to have people depending on me, I did not want to be almost desperate for money and I did not want to be living in Chattanooga, Tennessee. But I told the doctor the only thing I could tell him. Do the surgery.

          The surgery was a success. That was a Monday night. Back then you were kept in the hospital for more than a day or two. Saturday came and Marsha was still in the hospital. She was doing well and would be released on Tuesday afternoon. I had to go up to where the church was and do my Saturday visits and spend the night so I would be ready for church on Sunday morning. Actually, I would be going up to the church without enough gas to get home, so I was worried. I stopped at the hospital on the way out, gave Marsha the all happy act, then got in the car and took off. All the way up I felt the burden of everything that was going on. I questioned God all along I-75. He had either completely forgotten me or He figured I was such a sad excuse for a servant that He was tossing me out. I was alone and in trouble.

          I got to the little town the church was in and did my visiting. It was cold in the mountains that day. Snow began to fall around dusk. I slept on the floor of one of the Sunday school rooms and it was a miserable night. The wind howled, the windows leaked and it was really cold. Sunday morning was dreary and heavy snow covered the streets in the little town. Only a small handful of people made it to church that morning. When we took the offering, there were a few pennies over five dollars. That was the money that was to pay for my gas to go home on, which was enough. Gas was less than sixty cents a gallon. But I had eaten the last of the food I had brought from home the night before and I had no way to buy more. The one family we usually ate with on Sunday afternoon was snowed in and no one else offered. Normally, we had church on Sunday night, too, then we headed home. But we cancelled the night service and I planned to leave right after church. Then I found that I-75 was closed for the day in the mountains. Truly, God was ignoring me. I was forgotten.

          Just before church ended that morning a lady walked in whom I didn’t know. In her 50s and well dressed, she looked totally out of place in our little store front church. Within five minutes of coming in we were singing the final song. She came up to me and introduced herself as Mrs. Miller and explained that she was a member of the Methodist church, but when she got there she found that they were closed. She drove to every church in town and found that all of them were closed. Then she remembered hearing about the little store front and she plowed her way over. We were opened. She was just grateful to be in church that morning. She asked about me and I told her I was a student and lived in Chattanooga, my wife was in the hospital and I needed to get home, but that would have to wait till morning. Well, she told me, I would have to come to her house and have dinner with her and her husband. I tried to say no but she said I had to go. There was no way she could drive in the snow now that it had snowed more. I agreed and drove her Lincoln across town to their beautiful home. At least, I told God, today I won’t starve.

          The Super Bowl was played that day and they insisted I stay and watch. They let me call Marsha and tell her I was alright, not to worry, then settled in to watch the game (which back then was played at the decent hour of 2 in the afternoon). After the Steelers beat the Cowboys I asked Mr. Miller if he would drive me back to the church. It had quit snowing and the roads were passable. They wouldn’t have it, though. I still couldn’t head for home until the next morning and so I would just have to spend the night. That night in bed I finally thanked the Lord for a good day.

          The next morning Mr. Miller was out early. He had a car dealership and had to see to it that it got cleared of snow and opened. Mrs. Miller made me eggs and bacon and talked a mile a minute. After I ate we started to put our coats on to head back over to the church. Then she nodded her head, looked at me and asked me to sit back down at the table. She had something for me. She came back with a box in one hand and a ten dollar bill in the other. The money was for gas, she told me. What was in the box was for me.

          I opened the box, which was the size of a book. Inside was something wrapped in what looked like butcher paper. Lying on the paper was a new, yet old, one hundred dollar bill. I jerked my head up and looked at her, but she just said for me to open the paper. Inside the paper was a brand new, though not new, Bible with the richest leather cover I had ever seen. She sat down across from me and told the story.

          In 1945 the war had ended. She and Mr. Miller were not married yet, but would be once he got home from the Pacific. She had put money away and was very excited that she would soon be Mrs. Miller. But one morning when she woke, she had a heavy heart. She went to the Lord in prayer. She had a strong feeling that she needed to go down to Knoxville that very morning and buy the best Bible she could find. She felt the Lord impress on her that He would show her who was to have it. After she bought the Bible she again felt the Lord impress on her to put the one hundred dollar bill in with the Bible. In 1945 that was a big deal. To me in 1976 it was a huge deal. She had put the Bible away and never opened it again. And that morning, over eggs and bacon, the Lord impressed her to give it to me.

          I had felt the Lord had forgotten me. But back in 1945, eleven years before I was born and 31 years before this very day, He was taking care of a servant who thought he was forgotten. I have never forgotten the lesson of the day.

          On July 6, 2013, I retired my old Bible. Tattered and worn and frayed, the cover has lost its richness. Pages fall out when I open it. It has been my companion all these years and deserves the rest. But this last Sunday morning as I got ready for church, I glanced at it and thought, why not? So, my old cohort and I went to church together once again. I was blessed. And, like always, it reminded me that there is a Friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Blessings.