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| Nothing can separate us |
Romans 8:38-9: "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 can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
First off, I realize that I haven't blogged since March 29th. These last two months I feel like I've lost my blogger voice. I'm not sure I have quite regained it, but hang in there... I'll be back.
But tonight I do want to share my new tattoo fresh from this morning. It reads, "Nothing can separate us," a reference to Romans 8:38-9 (above). I needed this written on me so that I would remember:
No matter what the world says...
No matter what anxiety or insecurity say...
No matter the lies that depression tells us....
Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing.I like the use of the word "us". When I look at this on my arm, I can imagine it is a reminder written to me from God, and that us means "me and God". God wrote me a nice love note on my arm: "Don't forget, nothing will make me stop loving you."
But it also means "us" - as in you and me. Us.
We are in this together, even though there is plenty that will try to rip apart any community: pride, jealousy, insecurity, trust issues, power issues, fear, etc...and we should do our best to try to build each other up, and not tear each other down.
Because nothing can separate us from the love of God. Not just me. Not just you. And really, not even just us, but all. Because there is no "them" in the family of God. There are no insiders and outsiders. That is good news for us, because it means we are not outsiders. It is good news for all of us, because we all belong.
God wrote us a love note: "Don't forget, nothing will make me stop loving y'all." (I'm sure sometimes God says "y'all.")
cool enough...
smart enough...
rich enough....
beautiful or handsome enough...
thin enough...
__________ enough....
We don't have to meet cultural expectations of how we should look, act or think.
We don't have to be perfect.
We don't have to have our !#% together.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing.
Thank God!
and thanks, God.
