No Separation
/Chapter 8 of the Letter to the Romans ends in the most glorious benediction (that means blessing). NO THING happens that is outside God’s love for you or for your child. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?...
38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[m] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35 and 38-39.
Since you are a bereaved parent, you have known danger, trouble and maybe hardship. The author declares those things can’t separate you from the love of Christ. Not even death can’t separate you. Nor can surviving separate you. No spiritual creatures in heaven or hell can separate you, though they may be trying very hard to do so. No time in history. No place in geography. In case he forgot a specific category of things people might think could come between them and God’s love, Paul, the author, mentions some generic catch-all catagories: powers and “anything else in all creation.” There are no things left off the list that might be able to separate you from God’s love. In Christ, we are secure. Absolutely secure.
So now, since No Thing can come between you and His love, then your child’s death can’t either. Death happened, but somehow, that is not a sign that you have been abandoned by God’s love for you. You are still inside that circle. Also, it is not outside His love for your child. I know this sounds difficult. But I take it on faith. The Word of God says it. I can imagine how it can be true, yet I don’t understand it. Here is something that is true that I am holding in my hands, waiting until I see the Lord face-to-face when He will make all things clear. Without understanding it, I can wait in faith until He shows me. I can take it on faith because of what He has shown us about His character. Check Romans 8:31-32. He is the same One who gave up His own Son that we might be forgiven and cleansed of all sin. He gave. This God who loves you, gave His own Son for you. That reveals a heart of love, the depths of which I can’t understand either. There are then 2 things I don’t understand: the depth of God’s love that motivates Him to pay such a heavy price for my benefit; and how it can be that THIS happened in the circle of that same love.
There is NO THING that can possibly separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus. Not even grief.
