When I got up on Saturday morning (sorta early), I went to see my friend Brad, and we talked.

I hadn’t seen Brad for probably 2 months, and so I hadn’t talked to him since before Christmas and New Years and Kwanza and my mom’s birthday.  Brad looked great, and yet  the same to me.  Older than me by 20 or 25 years, Brad greeted me with his characteristically smiling eyes, which sit over his trim white Santa’s beard.   He wore a familiar USMC Veterans cap and a green camouflage hunting coat, which mostly hides a flannel shirt.  He was reading about Navajo code talkers from World War II when I showed up at Einstein’s, and he stopped and we got some food and we talked.

Brad is a good friend to me because he is gentle and firm with me, and we talk about God and projects and decisions and faithfulness and life.  We talked for a short while about the last few months and what was up in life.  He had been busy with family projects and honey projects and spending time with the kids.  He was good.  And then he asked me how I was doing.

I started meandering about my last few months of life on the inside, and inevitably I talked to Brad about the girl again- an involuntary report from my side about the slow but swift demise of that friendship, and how the end of that friendship was like living through a winter blizzard that sat over you for five months and then all of the sudden just stops one day, and when it did, the sun came and burned away all of the snow in 12 hours and if you were new visiting the area, you wouldn’t realize a massive storm had just come through, but if you lived there, you know what the storm was like and you felt it still,even if the stranger couldn’t.  Brad listens to me talk for a while about her, the end, the lack of closure, and being stuck, and then he speaks back to me about two women from his past that he cared a lot about who didn’t reciprocate with him, and then he tells me “Get off of first base.”  “You can’t go to second base if you are still on first base.”

I was a little confused for a few moments because my adolescent mind kicked in and I struggled with what he was suggesting until I realized he was just saying that you have to let go of one thing to move on to the next.  Let go, Bruce.  Let go.  God can’t take you to the next possibility unless you give up the last one.  But Brad, I don’t want to let this one go, I think.

I change the topic and ask him, since he is a a former Marine, a question I have been thinking about a lot:  what does it mean, to him, to be a man- to be strong.  If you are around Brad for any amount of time, you know he is an independent thinker, and that he is not afraid to voice his opinions.  He is not a mean man.  He is not a macho man.  But he is a former Marine, and he says what he will and does what he says he will.

“Strength.  I think to be strong, you have to have convictions, and that you let yourself live by your convictions.”  You have to decide what you believe, and you have to stand by those beliefs, no matter what.  Conviction.  Yes- this is a good foundation for personal strength.  In conviction, you know who you are and what you are about.  And in conviction, you practice integrity, living out what you believe.

Brad says that strength is a product of your flexibility and your discipline working together.  You have to be disciplined to develop strength, but you also need to be flexible to deal with life.  He compared strength to a fabric.  If the fabric is not rigid and reinforced enough, it will tear in basic use.  But if the fabric is also not flexible enough, although it is made of superior materials, it can be sheared and shredded when used under certain circumstances.  An inability to bend in special situations could make its intrinsic dependability useless. Be disciplined.  But be flexible.

“How’s your walk with God?” he asks.  “Where are you reading in the Word?”  Yes, Brad, yes.

This is why I love to meet with him. Brad reminds me that the starting point for hope comes from God and His word, and not my sideways aspiration to somehow make some woman love me with a magic trick or through some serendipitous change of her heart.  “Stay in the Word.”  Yes, Brad- thanks.  You are so right.  He knows what I need, and I need to stay with Him.

Brad and I agree that regardless of what is going on in life, we need life in the Word, and we both agree to spend more time in it.  Brad is gracious in that when he gives me advice and suggestions, he always softens them with “Well, I am talking to myself here also, Bruce.”

After wandering around in talk about women and strength and the Word, we talk a bit about the upcoming year.  We cover some goals, some hopes, some things on our minds.  Brad shares about developments in the church he is involved with, a plant which he is trying to help start, about possible participants and concerns and thoughts.

The time has passed.  He has some errands to run, and I another connection to make, and so our conversations peters out.  “Well, let’s say a word of prayer, shall we?”  “Sure, Brad.”

The breakfast ends with me and this former Marine sitting at a central table in a bustling Einstein’s Bagels, bowing our heads and lifting some praises and requests to God.

Most of my breakfasts with Brad are like this.  I always leave seeing him refreshed within, encouraged to keep my eyes on God, and to move forward in life.  We’ve been getting together like this off and on every month or so for a year and some, and they have been such rewarding times.

Thanks, Brad.