In these fraught and frightening times, I need to remind myself of the familiar and stunning promise in the concluding verses of Romans 8: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Nothing can separate us from love. 

Nothing in death or life. 

None of the forces and people who strut with power, threatening the weak and the vulnerable. 

Nothing that’s happening now or will happen later today or tomorrow, or all the tomorrows after tomorrow.

Nothing in the heights or depths. Nothing in all creation. 

Nothing. Nothing at all will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

The promise isn’t that life won’t be hard or that we won’t feel pain and grief. We’d like that to be true, of course, but we know that none of us makes it through life without wounds and scars to the body and the heart. The promise is that God will not abandon us, that Jesus will stay at our sides. 

Our fears do not have the last word. God does. 

Tears are real, but God will wipe them from our eyes and turn our weeping into laughter and our faltering steps into dancing. 

Death does not enslave us; life is eternal, free, and glad.

Do not be afraid. God will not let us go. There is no separation.