do you need a friend?

Proverbs 18:24 A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Joseph Scriven was born on September 10, 1819, in Ireland. His parents had the means to afford him a wonderful education and he graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. 

Why does he matter?

This excellent young man loved to help people who were in need and people loved him. He met a young woman and they fell in love and planned to marry…was there a happy ending?

The day before they were to wed, she fell from her horse on a bridge falling into the river below where she was drowned…with Joseph standing on the opposite bank watching in horror as his young love lost her life.

He was devastated.

Long story short, in trying to overcome his grief, he wandered about and finally settled in another place where he began to work helping people, gaining their love and respect. 

Again, he fell in love, and they had exciting plans to get married, but tragedy struck, she took pneumonia and died. 

One day he got very sick, and a friend came to see him. He was bedridden. The friend saw a poem laying on the table next to his bed and read it. He asked him who wrote it, Joseph answered, “The Lord and I did it between us.”  He had written the poem for his mother, hoping it would give her a little spiritual strength, no one else was supposed to read it.

On August 10, 1886, Joseph’s body was pulled from a body of water near Bewdly, Ontario.

There were two monuments erected in his honor, both have this verse on them, Charles Converse, an attorney, and composer wrote the music for it the way we sing it today…

What a friend we have in Jesus,

All our sins and griefs to bear!

What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!

Oh, what peace we often forfeit, oh what needless pain we bear,

All because we do not carry, everything to God in prayer.

“Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, “How can I help?” Romans 15:1

*I got this information from an article posted by Lindsay Terry, April 23, 2015