What can separate us?

I came home yesterday after six days of friendship, sunshine, below-zero temperatures, laughter, fun, trying new things, and experiencing the grace of God in new and unexpected ways.

I'm always a little sad on days like today. Just me, myself, and I at home feels quiet and lonely after nearly a week of being a part of a big family tripping over each other in a mountainside dollhouse. I miss someone's laugh. I miss another's hugs. I miss special facial expressions, and favorite phrases, and inside jokes, and the many hands that make a load both light and fun in the doing.

But I am comforted.

The day before we all headed our separate ways, scattering across the state and the country, I read Romans 8 in my devotions. Verses 38 and 39 have always had special meaning for me on the path God has taken me in this life, and He is using them afresh in my heart today.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Yes, the house is a little too quiet today. Yes, I am lonely for these dear ones that I love all the more in every time we have together. What I am clinging to today, though, is the fact that I will never, never, be separated from God and His love. He is here, today, right now. He is my Friend, my Brother, and my Helper. What's more...He loves me.

I can't ask for a greater promise and a greater truth than this.