"PHIL"

Last night I met my friend PHIL (in Yankee shirt) at a diner.  Phil was my first Christian friend (since early 1972*) that I still have contact with.  I do have two other "active" friends (all from Newark, NJ like me) that I've known two years LONGER than I've known Phil, but those guys aren't Christians yet, you see.

Yes, 46 years ago I met Phil at a Christian Coffee House he invited me and a mutual friend to.  We were two scraggly teenage hippies and me and the other guy actually performed a "concert" (consisting of one song I wrote called "Johnny Whiplash," Lol.)  I played "one-string guitar" and our mutual friend George "sang," trying to sound like Robert Plant, Lol!!  Anyway, THAT is where I met Phil....I wasn't even a Christian yet, only a Catholic Charismatic. (I got saved 3 years later.)

Though Phil and I hold some different doctrinal beliefs about "minor" points of theology, it has NEVER affected our friendship in the least, and for that we praise GOD because our friendship has been mutually edifying..  It's been many years since Phil and I got together face-to-face and talked, and it's amazing how, as we saw last night in the diner, it's almost as if there was never a GAP since that face-to-face occurred!! Both of us have recently become widowers....in my case it was just over a year-and-a-half ago, in Phil's case it was far more recently.   I believe I was able to encourage Phil by sharing how God has blessed me in my REmarriage, and for that I'm grateful.  Phil has ALWAYS encouraged ME as I've seen how God saved him from alcoholism and made him into a mighty man of God who knows, lives and preaches The Word (with his lips AND by his life.)

As we parted from the diner last night, I finally told Phil something I should have told him years ago (and he said the same thing to ME.) I told Phil that I love him like a brother. Who knows how long it will be till we see each other face-to-face again, as we live in two different states.....so if you have a friend like Phil, PRAISE GOD for him or her and tell them how you love them (if you haven't already!!) You won't regret saying it, but you MAY regret it someday if you don't.



*Phil, if you're reading, we actually met in early '72 and not 1971.
I looked up when Paul Simon's first solo album came out because I remember I just bought it the day of the Christian Coffee House. It was early 1972.