Verse of the Day for February 20

Proverbs is mostly practical and occasionally devastating in a single line. This is one of the short ones and it makes two claims.

A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

At all times is the test. Not at convenient times, not during the interesting part of your trouble, not for the fortnight when everyone is rallying.

Most support is intense and brief. The proverb is describing the person still there in month nine, when the crisis has become a condition and nobody is asking about it any more.

The second half turns it around. A brother is born for adversity — the relationship exists for the hard part, not despite it.

Which raises an uncomfortable question, since the verse can be read as a description or as a job specification.

Think of somebody whose crisis stopped being news. That is where this proverb is asking you to be.

Adversity is what the relationship was born for. It is not the interruption to it.