Losing a Friend in Christ

We lost a friend this weekend to cancer. (I'm omitting his name for the sake of privacy.)

My friends know me as stoic and emotionally even keel. Hence, sadness when losing a friend or family member (an event that has happened more in the last few years) rarely brings me to tears but it did this time around. I wondered, "Why?"

My friend and I spent no more than 2 hours combined speaking one-on-one in 3 years. We've spent maybe a few more hours combined speaking together amongst others. He and his family have been to our house once and we have been to theirs also only one time. Our children don't go to school together or play at church together (different ages). Yet, I found myself in tears when I heard the news. I wondered, "Why?"

I've lost family members that I've spent significantly much more time with. I have friends that have been to our house dozens of times and I've spent hundreds of hours with which I no longer see and don't expect to yet sadness does not overcome me when thinking of them. The loss of my friend this weekend brought me to tears. I wondered, "Why?"

I look back at the short discussions I had with my friend and the time our families spent together. The memories are overwhelmed with discussions about our Lord, His work in our lives, our honest sinfulness and need of Him and our desire to know Him more. I knew very little about his professional life, but I knew about his life in Christ. I heard very little detail about his children and wife, but we often talked about our common desire for our families to grow in Christ. I never heard about his feelings, but we often shared about the joy of knowing our Saviour.

I knew my friend during his latter months when he would bear the strength to come to church to hear and gospel of our Lord preached. I would ask him, "How are you holding up?" With a genuine smile but with an honest admittance of the pain and troubles in his face, he would respond with, "Blessed to keep seeing Christ."

A few months ago, as he was walking out of the children's church having just shared the gospel with them one last time, he told me that the Lord has made His grace more evident and his own sinfulness more real. "I must decrease and He must increase," he once told me.

My friend has magnified Christ more at the end of his life. I did not know him well, but our Saviour did. And since we are in Christ together, we are intimate, close friends. And so, I cried when I learned of his passing this weekend.

Farewell, friend! We will see each other in glory praising our Lord together.