When was the last time you actually visited someone? I’m sorry to say for me it has been a long time. There are some practical reasons for this, but that doesn’t negate the fact that in-person visits are of value.
Living with chronic illness makes it unsafe for me to drive. That combined with difficulties traveling by myself, limited stamina for outings, my husband’s busy schedule, and financial pressures have made me basically a stay-at-home person. With my husband’s help, I make it to doctors’ appointments and to our church most Sunday mornings, but otherwise I’m home bound. Most of my friends are ladies I either haven’t seen in years or have never actually met in person.
With today’s technology, I’ve become accustomed to online relationships, and that in itself isn’t bad. In fact, many times my online contacts are my main source of both daily encouragement and of encouraging others. But the value of actual in-person visits can’t be totally replaced by typing a message into a text, Facebook post or email. I long for a way to visit extended family and friends more often.
The apostle John understood the importance of visiting the people he was called to minister to. He used letters to send messages to the churches, but he recognized this was not a substitute for actually seeing others face-to-face. In 2 John 1:12, he made it clear that sometimes we really need to make a way to visit others in person. To fail to find room for this in our lives is to miss one of the major joys of the Christian life.
Right now, infrequent visits are a fact of life for me. But my hope and prayer is that this won’t always be true. I long to meet some special friends I’ve grown to love and yet never actually had an opportunity to visit with. But until that happens, I choose to rejoice in the few local friends I’m able to have contact with and my circle of online friends. And I never want to forget my “friend who sticks closer than a brother,” the Lord Jesus Christ.
HOPE & LIGHT 
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