Nothing can separate us from the Love of God

Most people will admit to experiencing times in their lives when everything seems to collapse totally. We all, in optimism, build ourselves up during the good times. At that moment it seems nothing can ever harm us. We are safe and we are invincible. And then, and then..... Down comes the sledgehammer and we are crushed beneath it. I recall a workmate who was enjoying his last day before Christmas in the office. We were sitting there, talking, laughing and smiling happily. The telephone rang and it was for him. His mother was dead. Suddenly, all the miriad of preparations he and his family had made for Christmas were useless. How could they be happy now that they had the sudden news of a death in their midst?

I remember eleven years ago having plans for my future as I took early retirement from my career in Local Government. It was my intention to start in business and be my own boss. I had always had a dream of operating a deli and was in the process of buying a small shop business which I wanted to turn into a deli. I organised a leaving party and invited all my colleagues to join me. On the advice of my former boss I booked a week's holiday in Fuerteventura. We had lovely warm sun and the sea was warm too! This was the start of a new era!

Five months later I closed the business which was draining away all my available cash. I was jobless and down at the bottom. I started to suffer all the symptoms of depression. Luckily I had a good doctor who spotted the symptoms and prescribed my tablets which stopped me feeling suicidal and worthless. From then on I had to lift myself up from the doldrums. It was hard and it was very slow but I had to survive and so had my family. I took short term contract employment in various places. On one occasion I even got the sack for sniffing in the office! That did not do me a lot of good either.

It took a number of years before I got back on an even keel. But I made it. I started once more as a self employed person and advised small businesses on Business Rates through several enterprise agencies. For a few years I kept my head above water until I finally retired at the end of 2005. It was a long haul but I made it.

So I remember times when things were very bad indeed, and I remember the people God sent to me to help me through. In the midst of disaster I met a man who became a close friend and still is, even though he lives over 300 miles away in Scotland now. His example showed me how to continue and never, ever give up being optimistic. Both of us knew the depression of unemployment but together we made it. He showed me how to live one day at a time and never lose faith. He is a Muslim. Through this friendship I have learned how small a difference there is between the Muslim and the Christian in reality. What a pity the extremists cannot see it that way.

Now that I have come through that dark journey, I love to read in Paul's letter to the Roman church Chapter 8, "Then what can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or hardship? Can persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger or sword? 'We are being done to death for your sake all day long, as scripture says; 'We have been treated like sheep for slaughter.' - and yet, throughout it all, overwhelming victory is ours through him who loved us. For I am convinced that there is nothing in death or life, in the realm of spirits or superhuman powers, in the world as it is or the world as it shall be, in the forces of the universe, in heights or depths - nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

This is how I know without any doubt that God is there for me. I have walked through the "valley of the shadow of death" and now fear no evil. Once it has passed through your mind that death would release you from all your worries and problems there is no further depth. So, to climb out of that abyss is nothing short of exhilarating! Nothing can separate me from the love of Jesus Christ who had claimed me for his own.