“Praying to Find a Friend,” New Era, June 2019, 22–23.
Praying to Find a Friend
When I prayed to have a friend, what came next turned out to be the answer to two separate prayers.
It was hard being the only Latter-day Saint at my school. It was hard to make friends—and harder still to make friends with the same high standards. So I prayed, and the Lord blessed me with a good friend.
Will became that friend. Once we started hanging out and having a great time, other people began to join us. And we soon found ourselves surrounded by friends.
Will got his driver’s license first in the group, and the rest of us always used to joke that where there’s a Will there’s a way. Will and I and all our other friends went everywhere and did everything together. My teenage years were awesome because of my friendships.
Will wasn’t a Latter-day Saint, but he respected me for my standards. On the rare occasions that a bad word came out of his mouth, he would apologize. If we were with other friends and one of them cursed, he would say, “Hey, we don’t cuss around Jacob.” It felt good to know that I didn’t have to stick up for my standards all by myself. It was good to know Will would stick up for me.
One time we went to watch a couple of movies at somebody’s house. My friends and I picked out one movie that was fine, and they also picked out another movie I knew was inappropriate. I mentioned something about not wanting to watch it, but everyone went ahead and rented it anyway. Will noticed I was quiet as we were driving away from the rental place.
“Hey, Jacob, is it really bothering you that we got that other movie?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “But it’s OK. I’ll just leave for that movie.”
Will didn’t think it was OK. He turned the car around and drove back to where we got the movie. Will and I went back and exchanged the inappropriate movie for something better that everybody still wanted to watch. I was always glad to have friends who helped me live my standards.
Years passed, and I got my mission call. Before leaving to go to Argentina, I dropped by Will’s house to say good-bye and tell him I’d miss him. He wasn’t home at first, but his mom was. Surprisingly, she shared with me how much she appreciated the friendship I had offered Will. His dad had abandoned them when Will was two, and with no male role model for him, she felt helpless as she watched him grow up. She felt she was losing touch with her son. After her husband had left, she had prayed that her son would make a friend, a friend who would help keep her son out of trouble.
“You were that friend,” she told me. “Thanks for helping me raise my son. Thanks for answering my prayers.”
I couldn’t help but hug her. She was the mother of my best friend through high school. The mother of a friend who had always been there for me. All this time she thought Heavenly Father had answered her prayer, and I thought He had answered mine. I know God hears our prayers. And sometimes, some very special times, He uses us to answer them too.
The author lives in Virginia, USA.