InTheWeeds

When Friends are More than Friends

This week I received an email from a friend of mine in Germany. I had sent him a birthday e-card to wish him well and his response left me speechless.

Stefan and I met in 1999 while working together on a project in Germany, Holland and Sweden. We became friends, and just now in February I think of the evening we spent with many others during Carnival in Dusseldorf. It was something of an evening.

Since then, whenever we can we try to get together.

Stefan has become a huge baseball fan, and a fan of the Houston Astros (of course, as that is my team too! ) and one he came out to Los Angeles and we went to a weekend series with the Astros and the Dodgers. What fun.

Stefan knows of some of the challenges in my life after cancer and surgery.

In his birthday card response, he said he would give up his birthday wish to wish that I did not have to live with the struggles that are in my life. As an Australian friend would say, I was gobsmacked. A better friend no one could have that would give up his wish for someone else.

Christ gave up all for someone else, in fact all of us. Stefan is more than a brother to me, not only a brother in Christ, but a brother in friendship.

It is my wish, birthday or not, that we will be able to spend a week at Astros training camp in 2007 in Florida. It is also my wish to have Stefan understand that the challenges I have, though incurred through the negligence of a doctor, are livable in their own way.

I cannot travel like I want to or I would go to Germany and see him.

But I wake up every morning and am thankful that God has let me live. That I can still be part of the continuous creation that is God's handiwork every day. And I can still pray for Stefan and he is blessed with good health, happiness and as God's Word says, more than he can think or imagine.

Bless you my friend,

Livingthedream

posted by livingthedream @ 1:15 PM