When I was in college, I had a good friend who was a few years older than me who was in police academy. He was struggling, and even though I was in school 3,000 miles away, I tried to encourage him from a distance.
When he told me that he had to do ten push-ups for every piece of mail he received, I had a brilliant idea. I had all the girls on my wing of the dorm (24 in total) to each write him a letter. When we finished the notes, we put them in individual envelopes, then applied red lipstick and put kisses all over the envelopes.
When he got the letters, not only did he have to do 240 push-ups, he also had to put up with the ribbing from his drill sargeant and comrades. But it he’ll never forget it. (They wouldn’t let him if he tried.)
I was talking to him the other day, and he told me that he still keeps a poem I sent him in his Bible. I couldn’t remember what I’d sent him, so he began reading it to me…
“O Long and dark the stairs I trod with trembling feet to find my God
Gaining a foothold, bit by bit, then slipping back and losing it.
Never progressing, striving still with weakening grasp and faltering will.
Bleeding to climb to God, while He serenely smiled, not noting me.
Then came a certain time when I loosened my hold and fell thereby.
Down to the lowest step my fall, as if I had not climbed at all.
Now when I lay despairing there – Listen, a footfall on the stair
On that same stair where I afraid, faltered and fell and lay dismayed.
And lo, when hope had ceased to be, my God came down the stairs to me!”
(an anonymous poem from John MacArthur’s commentary on Romans)
And I thought about how precious it was that he was encouraging me with the same poem I’d sent to encourage him more than a decade ago. Sometimes that’s the best thing a friend can do for you – remind you to remember.
