And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
ROMANS 8:28
Life will eventually turn every person upside down, inside out. No one is immune. Not the mom in the suburbs who finds out her teenage daughter is pregnant. Not the husband who is entangled in an affair with a woman who is not his wife. Not the kid whose parents are strung out on drugs. Not the girl entrenched in human trafficking. Not the boy with HIV or his brother without enough to eat.
The day that I unexpectedly found out that I was adopted was one of those times. For thirty-three years I thought I was someone else, and then, just like that, I discovered I was not who I thought I was.
But just as life will upend us, so will love.
God’s love, which knows us and claimed us before we were even born, can take us beyond ourselves, as it did Jesus, who left heaven to go to the cross and pass through the grave in order to bring us back home. His love can bring us through emotional earthquakes. Love like Christ’s can lift us out of betrayal and hurt. It can deliver us from any mess. Love like that can release us from every prison of fear and confusion. And love like God’s can fill us up till it spills out of us, and we have to speak about it, share it, spread it around.
It was the assurance of this love that sustained me, strengthened me, carried me, and kept me. Then and now. Lean into and receive the unconditional, unfailing, indescribable love of our precious Savior. When all else is shaken and fails, Love never fails.
MOMENT OF REFLECTION
What issues in your life seem to daunt you?
How have you been handling those issues so far?