Nothing

Nothing

I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.

“I BROUGHT YOU BACK A GIFT,” Li said, handing me a tightly rolled scroll. It was our reunion BBQ, celebrating her return to the US for her second year of teaching. Li was part of an exchange program in which teachers come to the States to teach middle schoolers.

As I unfurled the scroll, I gasped in delight at the hand-painted Chinese calligraphy with the roughly translated phrase, “I’ll love you until the rock rots and the oceans dry up.”

With misty eyes, I hugged my dear friend, laughing as we remembered one of our dinner conversations about expressions of love in our respective cultures. She’d asked me about our phrase “I love you to the moon and back,” and I’d fallen in love with the Chinese equivalent she’d had commissioned for my scroll.

But my very favorite expression of love is Romans 8:38. Nothing separates us from the love of God. Not our actions, not the things done to us, not even the powers of hell. In a culture made up of shades of gray in which absolutes like always and never come with caveats and loopholes, situations in which someone, somewhere finds the one time it doesn’t apply, today’s word brings a breath of reassurance.

When God tells us that nothing will separate us from his love, that is a promise we can take to the bank. And when we grasp that promise with both hands, absorbing it fully, it brings healing to our deepest wounds, and to all the secret shame we carry. It makes me wonder what this world would look like if we believed, wholeheartedly, this promise.

Lord, reveal to us the ways we have hedged our bets, not fully believing that nothing separates us from your love. Amen.

-Julie

One Good Step: What things have you imagined separated you from God’s love? Make a list of those lies you’ve believed. Rip up the list, and write the word nothing on the palm of your hand to remind yourself of God’s promise.