Maintaining Friendships With Chronic Illness Struggles
Friendship, in biblical understanding, involves steadfastness and loyalty, particularly during times of adversity. The book of Sirach emphasizes that a true friend remains constant, acting as one's own self and being trustworthy within the household [1]. This fidelity should extend to a friend's poverty, allowing one to rejoice in their eventual prosperity [2]. Proverbs similarly suggests that genuine friends prove reliable even when facing difficulties [3].
The experience of chronic illness can test these bonds. The biblical narrative of Job illustrates how friends and acquaintances may distance themselves during affliction [4]. Job's "lovers and friends" stood "aloof from his sore," as if fearing contagion or unable to bear the sight of his suffering [7]. This highlights a common challenge for those with chronic illness: the potential for social isolation when others find it difficult to engage with their pain.
Despite these challenges, the expectation for friends is to show pity and support to the afflicted [8]. Matthew Henry, commenting on Proverbs, states that true friendship is constant and not subject to changing circumstances or self-interest [10]. He advises that to cultivate and maintain friendships, one must "show ourselves friendly," demonstrating love through various expressions, including offering good offices and serving them [6]. This implies an active role in maintaining the relationship, even when one's capacity is limited by illness.
Augustine, in City of God, acknowledges the difficulty of discerning true friends in a "wretched condition," where one might mistake a friend for an enemy [5]. However, he also identifies the "unfeigned confidence and mutual love of true and good friends" as a significant solace amidst life's misunderstandings and calamities [5]. This suggests that while illness can complicate friendships, the presence of genuine, supportive friends remains a vital source of comfort. The New Testament also records instances of individuals, like Epaphroditus, who became "sick nigh unto death" but were still cared for and valued by their communities [9].
Sources
- Sirach “Sirach 6:11 (DRC) — A friend if he continue steadfast, shall be to thee as thyself, and shall act with confidence among them of thy household.”
- Sirach “Sirach 22:28 (DRC) — Keep fidelity with a friend in his poverty, that in his prosperity also thou mayst rejoice.”
- Proverbs (Protestant academic) “Tyndale House on Proverbs 20:6: 20:6 True friends are reliable even in difficulties.”
- Job (Baptist/Reformed) “John Gill on Job 42:10: Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters,.... Which may be taken not in a strict sense, but in a larger sense for all that were related to him; the same with his kinsfolks, Job 19:14; and all they that had been of his acquaintance before; that knew him, visited him, conversed with him, and kept up a friendly correspondence with him; the circle of his acquaintance must have been large, for wealth makes many friends: now these had been shy of him, and kept at a distance from him, during the time of his affliction and distress; see Job 19:13; but he”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 2: Augustine — City of God, Christian Doctrine — CHAP. 8.--THAT THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOOD MEN CANNOT BE SECURELY RESTED IN, SO LONG AS THE DANGERS OF THIS LIFE FORCE US TO BE ANXIOUS. (part 1): In our present wretched condition we frequently mistake a friend for an enemy, and an enemy for a friend. And if we escape this pitiable blindness, is not the unfeigned confidence and mutual love of true and good friends our one solace in human society, filled as it is with misunderstandings and calamities? And yet the more friends we have, and the more widely they are scattered, the more numerou”
- Proverbs (Nonconformist/Puritan) “Matthew Henry on Proverbs 18:24: Solomon here recommends friendship to us, and shows, 1. What we must do that we may contract and cultivate friendship; we must show ourselves friendly. Would we have friends and keep them, we must not only not affront them, or quarrel with them, but we must love them, and make it appear that we do so by all expressions that are endearing, by being free with them, pleasing to them, visiting them and bidding them welcome, and especially by doing all the good offices we can and serving them in every thing that lies in our power; that is showing ourselves friendly.”
- Psalms (Baptist/Reformed) “John Gill on Psalms 38:10: My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore,.... As if it was a plague sore, lest they should be infected with it; or because they could not bear the stench of his wounds, and the loathsomeness of his disease, or to see him in his agonies, and hear his roaring and his groans, Psa 38:2; or as taking his case to be desperate, as if he was just dying, and no help could be given him, Psa 38:10; If it was the leprosy, as some Jewish writers have affirmed, the word translated "sore", being used for the plague of the leprosy, they were obliged by the ceremonial law to”
- Job (Baptist/Reformed) “John Gill on Job 6:13: To him that is afflicted pity should be showed from his friend,.... An "afflicted" man is an object of pity, one that is afflicted of God; either inwardly with a wounded spirit, with a sense of God's displeasure, with divine desertions, with the arrows of the Almighty sticking in him, the poison thereof drinking up his spirits; or outwardly with diseases of body, with want of the necessaries of life, with loss of near relations, as well as substance, which was Job's case; or afflicted by Satan, shot at, sifted and buffered by him, distressed by his temptations, suggestio”
- Philippians (Baptist/Reformed) “John Gill on Philippians 2:26: For indeed he was sick nigh unto death,.... It was not a mere rumour, or a false alarm, but was real matter of fact; and it was not a light disorder, a slight indisposition, but a very dangerous illness; though the sickness was not unto death, yet near it. Good men, such as Christ loves, as he did Lazarus, are sometimes sick; though their spiritual diseases are healed, and their sins forgiven, so that the inhabitants of Zion have no more reason to say that they are sick, since Christ has took their infirmities, and bore their sickness, yet they are not exempt fro”
- Proverbs (Nonconformist/Puritan) “Matthew Henry on Proverbs 17:17: This intimates the strength of those bonds by which we are bound to each other and which we ought to be sensible of. 1. Friends must be constant to each other at all times. That is not true friendship which is not constant; it will be so if it be sincere, and actuated by a good principle. Those that are fanciful or selfish in their friendship will love no longer than their humour is pleased and their interest served, and therefore their affections turn with the wind and change with the weather. Swallow-friends, that fly to you in summer, but are gone in winter;”