Endurance for the Journey, Featured, Relationships

“No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
JOHN 15:13 (WORDS OF JESUS – NRSV)

When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not-knowing, not-curing, not healing, and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is the friend who cares.

HENRI NOUWEN
(DAILY MEDITATION – HENRI NOUWEN SOCIETY)
henrinouwen.org

On the journey with you,
Jan & Dave Dravecky

Endurance for the Journey, Featured, Relationships

My beloved friends,
let us continue to love one another
since love comes from God.
Everyone who loves is born of God
and experiences a relationship with God.
1 JOHN 4:7 (THE MESSAGE)

Before I went through my own season of suffering, I had friends, but I didn’t understand how important those relationships really were. Sure, I enjoyed my friends – it was nice to have them but it certainly didn’t seem to me that I NEEDED those relationships. Boy, did that ever change!

I learned that you cannot get through pain and suffering on your own. You eventually come to the end of yourself and you need another person there to stand beside you and lift you up. We all need to have a friend who is willing to make the personal sacrifice to be with you so that you are not alone – what a powerful sacrifice and expression of true love.

When I was struggling, it was important for me to know that my true friends really were willing to sacrifice their time and hearts for me. Their sacrifice was a demonstration of God’s love for me.

This is how we’ve come to understand
and experience love: Christ sacrificed His love for us.
This is why we ought to live sacrificially
for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves.
If you see some brother or sister in need and
have the means to do something about it
but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing,
what happens to God’s love?
It disappears. And you made it disappear.
My dear children, let’s not just talk about love;
let’s practice real love.
1 JOHN 3:16-18 (THE MESSAGE)

On the journey with you,
Dave Dravecky

Endurance for the Journey, Featured, Relationships

Bear one another burdens,
and in this way obey the law of Christ.
GALATIONS 6:2 (NLT)

Cancer is a life-changing experience. It changes how we view ourselves, our future and our view of life itself. It changes our daily life – perhaps for a few years, perhaps for the rest of our life. It may change the kind of work we do and our recreational choices. And, as is true for all long-term trials, cancer changes our relationships.

Of all the discomfort, turmoil and uncertainty that accompany cancer, the struggle to deal with changing relationships often brings us the deepest pain. All too often it seems that just when we need people the most – just when our suffering becomes more than we can bear – people that we thought would be there for us, they scatter. This is why we started the ministry of Endurance.

Through our own experiences and the suffering we have witnessed in the lives of others, we have learned that WE NEED ONE ANOTHER. God never intended for us to go it alone. At the very beginning of the human race, God said, “It is not good for man to be alone,” so He made Eve.

Thousands of years have passed, but our need for one another hasn’t changed. We still need family and friends to help us bear life’s burdens. In the face of cancer, amputation, loss of a loved one, depression and any other kind of suffering, it can be a real struggle for both the person who is suffering and the family member or friend who comes alongside. If this has been your experience – you are not alone.

On the journey with you,
Jan & Dave Dravecky