Have you ever heard the idiom “fair-weather friend”? A fair-weather friend is “someone who is a good friend when it is easy to be one and who stops being one when you are having problems.”*
God gives us special blessings during our cancer journeys. One of the sweet surprises I received was the group of women God brought alongside me during my cancer battle. In effect, these ladies became my foul-weather friends. Their friendship was a gift I did not expect but still cherish today. My cancer battle shed a new and deeper light on the last part of Proverbs 17:17:
“A friend loves at all times…” Proverbs 17:17 WEB
Friends Born for Adversity
Like many people familiar with this verse, I focused on the idea that friends love at all times, studying 1 Corinthians 13 to understand what it means to be a loving friend and how to recognize one. But the second half of Proverbs 17:17—the part about a brother being born for adversity—did little more than complete the sentence for me.
Once cancer entered my life, the second half of Proverbs 17:17 became a living word. These women ran into the storm and faced it with me. God’s Word always holds treasures and blessings, waiting for us to discover them during our most challenging seasons.
“…and a brother is born for adversity.” Proverbs 17:17 WE
True Friends
I am particular about what qualifies someone as a friend. I define “loves at all times” using the standard found in 1 Corinthians 13:
“Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:4–7 WEB
It is a tall order, and none of us fulfills this standard perfectly. You may unfortunately find that some friends step back during your cancer battle. That does not automatically make them fair-weather friends. Some may have walked with you through thick and thin but find cancer especially difficult to face. Those closest to us may even pull away because they love us deeply and feel overwhelmed by the possibility of losing us.
Yet when adversity strikes, God has a way of bringing someone into our lives for that particular moment of need—a spiritual sister or brother who appears at exactly the right time. When others cannot walk through the storm with us, God can fill the gap by giving us a Proverbs 17:17 blessing: a friend who becomes a sister or brother born for adversity.
Friends to Sisters
Before my diagnosis, I had a circle of acquaintances—people I knew through church, business, or the entertainment industry. In the middle of my storm, however, something transformative happened: several of these peripheral friends came alongside me and became my sisters. They shared their cancer stories, encouraged me, and helped me without waiting for me to ask.
That was when the second half of Proverbs 17:17 came alive for me. The verse says that a brother is born for adversity, but in my experience, God also used adversity to reveal the sisters He had placed within my life.
“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28 WEB
Running Into the Storm
During our darkest moments, Romans 8:28 can feel more like a statement of faith than a present reality. However, its truth often becomes crystal clear after the trial has passed. Many of the women who became my sisters had experienced cancer within their own families. God used what they had learned through their pain to bring comfort and goodness into my life.
Some of those women remain close friends today. As my health returned, others gradually moved back toward the periphery of my life, and I lost contact with some of them altogether. Their presence during that particular season underscored one of the hidden blessings God reserves for our most difficult times: adversity not only reveals our true friends; sometimes, it creates them.
I am forever grateful to these women for the roles they played as sisters during my darkest hours. I have also felt deeply blessed to be a sister to others who are now embarking on this battle themselves. It is a joy to become a foul-weather friend for the women God brings to me. Even in our darkest times, God is so good. When He brings us through our trials, He blesses us with the opportunity to become a foul-weather friend for someone else.
