I miss Buddy Midkiff. He was my closest friend for 61 years.

On Nov. 15 2011 he left to spend eternity with Jesus.

If he was still hanging out with us he would be 80 today.

If he was still here he would have called me at least once

every day in this past week,

If he was still here he would have called me at least once

every day over the past month.

If he was still here he would have called me at least once

every day over the past year.

In fact, if he was still here, for the last 9 years we would have

visited every day & usually many times a day.

That was the closeness of our bond

There wouldn’t be a problem or challenge that I was having

that he wouldn’t know about.

There wouldn’t be an issue that I needed fixed in my life that

he wouldn’t want to be 100% involved in helping me fix it.

Every sentence I’ve ever written on my blog, on FB or on Twitter

and even before these other media sources existed.

Any composition I sent him by email he valued.

Buddy made me feel admired no matter what written expression

I made.

He would print everything out with his printer, each formulation

of words I construed together.

Year after year wherever & whenever I put pen to paper & scrawled

out some jangled structure of words to babble, chatter & jabber on

about in my constant monotonous manner.

He always treasured it & put it in his file.

He was my closest friend & companion for 61 years & the loss I’ve

felt over the past 9 years is impossible to express.

My heart grieves his loss to my life.

No one could ever come close to putting me on such a pedestal of

care over each concern I had or feeling & expression I combined as

He did. He made me feel as if he searched out every articulation of

my soul.

He was my brother & closest companion.

He was the shepherd of shepherds to me

He was the pastor of pastors to me

He was my truest friend

He was a living example of Jesus in my life.

A man who has friends must himself be friendly,

But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 18:24

A friend loves at all times & a brother is born for adversity.

Proverbs 17:17

Friends come & friends go, but a true friend sticks by you like family.

Friends love through all kinds of weather & families stick together in

all kinds of trouble.

In life we have various acquaintances, we have family members,

we have what we think are even friends & close companions.

But, unfortunately, they are often a bogus mirage.

It’s heart rending to discover the pretentiousness of who we

thought we could trust & confide in.

The shock & ruin caused by imitation people & their vacuous

involvements in our lives is a tragedy

What we thought was there never existed. We are nothing to them in reality.

But Buddy was solid, dependable, trustworthy & faithful.

Yet, I have Jesus.

He’s even closer in his unfathomable love & compassionate nearness.

He is closer then a brother

Jesus is that amazing Someone who is intriguing in His intimate

involvements in me

He chronicles every thought I’ve ever had.

He records my every feeling.

He archives every word I utter.

He is the lover of my soul.

How precious also are Your thoughts to me,

O God! How vast is the sum of them!

Psalms 139:17

Your eyes saw my unformed body when You designed

me in my mother’s womb

all my days were written in Your book & ordained for me

before one of them came to be.

Psalms 139:16

How precious is Your loving devotion, O God,

that we take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.

Psalm 36:7

Many, O LORD our God, are Your wonderful works

which You have done & Your thoughts about us:

they cannot be reckoned up in order to You:

if we would declare & speak of them,

they are more than can be numbered.

Psalm 40:5

How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God!

therefore we put our trust under the shadow of Your wings.

Psalm 36:7

Jesus holds us so close. Jesus holds everything in us & from us so tight

He stores every tear we shed in His eternal bottles

Psalms 56:8

For our LORD has heard the voice of our weeping

Psalm 6:8

He never tells us to dry it up. Every drop of tear he stores

Each of our hurts He values

Whether they are tears of joy, tears of sorrow, or tears of pain or lament

not one teardrop is lost to our God

How can we not have the deepest love for him & confide our all to Him