[Tuesday's Devotional] - For a friend

Sometimes it takes a friend to show us that God is there.

 

Today’s song, takes us away from Motown, to1980’s Electronic Pop with a conscience.  In the 1980s Jimmy Somerville and Richard Coles were “The Communards”.  Very successful with cover versions, their own songs were not great chart hits.  But this does not distract from the beauty of one of their songs.

 

You can listen to it here: YouTube video “For a friend” [4:51 mins]

 

The song was written by Jimmy and Richard after they received a phone call that their friend (Mark Ashton) had died of complications from Aids.  Richard Coles writes beautifully in his recent Autobiography about this time in his life, and I was reminded how this song also played a small part in my life.

 

The period between Jan 2002 and Feb 2003 were the worst 13 months of my life.  I had lost my dream job in America and had to come home, my only Grandparent I had known, my grandmother died in March and then in January 2003 when I was at nearly 19 stone and in the grip of a deep depression my first wife left me.  I cannot describe that pain, other than a combination of awful and pitiful.  Without friends I think I would not have climbed out of the circle of depression.

 

Within 10 months, I had lost 7 stone, bought a flat, met Lucie and taken a round-the-world trip, that I had bought in despair back in May.  Part of my trip was a three day stay in Hawaii. On my last evening, I made my way to a beach on the west side of the Island and sat there with a few beers and listening to my iPod on random.  It would be poetic to say the sun was setting as this song came on, but it didn’t.  I felt prompted somehow to find this song and I played it non-stop as memories of my Grandmother, my friends, the good times with my first wife all came flooding back to me.

 

I didn’t know it at the time as I was just beginning to dabble with going back to Church, I was still unsure of my faith - but I now feel God was using and prompting me to listen to him through this song, although I certainly didn’t recognise it at the time.  And instead of saying goodbye to friends who had cared for, prayed for, cried with and lifted me, I knew that my friends were a huge part of my life and they were there to help me through anything in the future.

 

Steve Fogo