To my Best Friend

For all of you who read Lara and Mel's blogs, you'll see that I'm obviously copying their idea. Their posts just reminded me of the huge blessing of having siblings be your closest friends.

I’m glad that most of you guys didn’t know me when I was younger. Ah, I was such a pest! Chris tolerated me though and we had some great times together. I remember the day he cut my hair like it was yesterday. Or the time we made a pirate's ladder out of our bunk bed! Wow, we got in too much trouble together. We argued a lot when we were younger though. Yes, I was the problem! J

When I became a Christian, about two years ago, we started developing a relationship beyond tolerating each other. We'd talk about everything the Lord was teaching us. We went and shared the gospel with people together. We would vent our frustration to one another. More than once we confronted each other about sin in the other's life that they needed deal with in order to be obeying the Lord and be a pure vessel for His service.

One of my favorite quotes is, "You will be the same person two years from now that you are today. The only thing that will change you is the books you read and the friends you make." It's so true! If it wasn't for Chris and his influence in my life I know that I would not be the same person that I am today. He has challenged me in every area and forced me to say over and over again "What does Scripture say about it?"

If you would have told me four years ago that I would have the views on issues that I hold today, I would have said you were crazy. Chris will present something to me that he's been thinking about and my first reaction is to tell him how crazy it is. Then I'll pray about it and look at what the Bible has to say about it. Guess what? I end up having the same crazy, fundamentalist, radical view. I love how radical my brother is. He's on fire for the Lord and committed to following His ways. A few months ago I was talking to my cousin, who is unsaved, about Chris. She remarked, "It's his way or the high way." Chris' gracious response was, "True, but it's not my way." You see, it's God's way and what the Word of God says that Chris lives by. That's what challenges me and that's why I love him. He loves my Lord.

Does my bro have weaknesses? Yeah, and he knows it. Just three weeks ago Chris said to me, "You know, all of those times I downloaded JAG and watched it? That was wrong. I'm going to take all those DVDs and put them in the trash." So that's what we did. We carried arm loads of DVD cases down to the trash at 1am! That kid knows the areas that he falls short but I love how he freely admits it and changes by the grace of God.

Ok, now that I’m crying . . .

I'll post a picture of the two of us taken last summer on a camping trip. It's one of my favorites.