Great Text!

My devotional today highlights Romans 8:31. I love this verse! Whether scribbled on a card and hanging on the refrigerator or embroidered onto the edge of a colorful quilt, the words are powerful. “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

In good times we know who our rock is, i.e. our provider, the source of joy and goodness in our lives. In hard times, we lean harder on that strength and find that it holds us up. What a gift to know this, and so I share it with you today.

It has been a while since my last post. Pandemic times have tested us in new ways, and I chose to take several online grad courses— Social Justice, Grant Writing, and Disaster Planning—to provide structure and stretch my mind. Quite the time for a study of disasters!!! I offer kudos to teachers and professors who have scrambled to put curriculum into an accessible format for online learning while keeping it vibrant. They incorporate multimedia, discussions, and group projects. It’s amazing and a bit challenging for a “boomer” like me. In fact, I’m stuck right now on a group power point assignment and waiting to hear from my team. And so, when the Romans text appeared in my early morning reading, I knew it was time to share a message with you.

As for this day, it is a beautiful one in my neighborhood. Birds sing cheerfully, the sun shines warmly, and tiny buds push out from barren twigs. Bright forsythia and daffodils call out in their special beauty. God is among us for sure, even in these times of waiting for the vaccine, worrying about new variants, and wondering about long-term effects of isolation, economic fallout, education of our children….. The list goes on, but we can be assured that there is a strength much greater than any of these problems, a loving God who lifts us up, makes our hearts light, and gives us hope. Just check it out for yourself in Romans 8, verse 31. It’s a great text!