A few years ago my parish priest gave me a booklet about praying and listening to the Lord.   I wanted to give it a try so I got up early one morning when no one else was up.  In my thoughts I asked the Lord if he had anything to say to me.  Things got really quiet and all of a sudden a song began playing in my head.  This sometimes happens when I’m tired or when I let my mind wander.  I listen to a lot of music and I write songs on occasion and this can be a blessing or a drawback of those activities.  It can be a very annoying experience when you are trying to concentrate or focus on mundane tasks.  I tried to quiet my thoughts again, but the song kept creeping into my thoughts.  The normal process for me to get something like this out of my head is to play through the whole song.  I didn’t really like this song and I also didn’t know it well, but I figured I would give it a try.  As I started to recall the lyrics of the song I was immediately shaken by what the words were saying.  I ran downstairs to my computer and I pulled up the song and read through the entire thing.  It was as if I was reading a letter from Jesus.

The name of the song is, “You’ve Got a Friend”.  The version I’m familiar with was recorded by James Taylor, but the song was actually written by Carole King.

This song chokes me up now which is strange because I used to shut it off before.  The other day when I was driving to work and praying the song came on the radio.  When I heard the line, "You just call out my name..."  I called out to Jesus.

I did it softly in my car and prayerfully and then a little louder and then I yelled it out.  Just as I did the sun opened up in my rear view mirror in amazing fashion, but it didn't blind me.  It got more and more powerful.  It was amazing and then it faded out with the song.  It really made my day.

Carole King gets a special prayer from me for writing those words, but I know they came to her from someone she may not even know.  Then again, who knows…

Take a look at the lyrics for yourself when you get a minute.  It’s really a great song, but it didn’t ring true for me until after this experience.  I had a lot of friends growing up, but none were friends to the degree of the commitment written about in this song.  No one is that good or loyal, not James Taylor or Carole King.  No one is that perfect a friend except for Jesus.

God Bless,

Dan Dufresne

March 31, 2010