Sorrowful Separation
WHO SHALL SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF CHRIST?
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? — Romans 8:35
Look around.
People are suffering from evil everywhere and so many people are asking, “How can a loving God let evil subdue his world? How can he let innocent people suffer?”
I am reading a book for seminary, Raging with Compassion by John Swinton, that speaks to the problem of evil. He says evil is a problem because it can separate us from God. Instead of running to God upon the onset of suffering in its many forms, we run as far from him as we can.
In 1975, when I was seventeen years old an awful evil disrupted my life and sent me spiraling for fourteen years. I had witnessed my boyfriend’s fatal stabbing, his pleas for help that I could not give, and his blood that soaked my clothes and shoes. That evil did its work. It took what little faith I had, ground it into dust, and blew it into the sky.
But wait. Paul tells us that evil cannot separate us from God. He is right. It cannot.
Unless we allow it.
In Romans 8, Paul reminds us of the power we have in Christ to combat our enemy, and Swinton tells us that lament is a powerful weapon in our arsenal. Lament brings our raw feelings of fear, betrayal, sadness, and desperation to a God who understands exactly what we are going through.
I returned to the Lord in earnest over thirty years ago soon after my father died suddenly, leaving me again with suffocating grief. But instead of turning away, I took my grief to God in lament, and he answered with a peace that was beyond my understanding.
A peace that sustains me to this very day.
Where are you going with your sorrow?
Lord God of the heavens, hear our prayers of anguish and answer us in a way that only you can.