Many pastoral situations involve change: a new life or a life passing away; the arrival of a new love or the loss of love; the launch of a new job and career or the dwindling of powers and opportunities, being laid off, laid aside, passed over. As the Preacher said, “A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; . . . a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing” (Eccles. 3:2–5). Wisdom recognizes that human life is full of transitions.
What remains constant? What endures?
This book about friendship is about something that lasts. You can lose your job, but that need not make you less human. You can lose your spouse, your bank account, your country, your digital identity, your health. None of these losses need diminish your humanity. Because through every transition of life, friendship is the heart of who you are.
Friendship is why we exist in the first place. Friendship is also our final end in the kingdom of God. Out of friendship God has made us, for friendship he has died for us, to friendship he ever draws us.
Let us pray. Dear Lord Jesus, only Son of the Father, we entrust unto thee all who read this book, that thy Holy Spirit would preserve in their heart whatever is true herein and drive from remembrance anything that may be false. In every transition of our life, we, children of dust, place our trust in thee: our never-failing, ever-merciful, tender, and firm to the end Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend.1