“Through It All” – December 8 – Romans 8 : 37-39

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

March, 1954, my father died. I was eleven. This event marked a divide in my life that, in my unresolved grief, I have judged the before and after. Before I was content, knew little of life, valued the time I spent with a traveling father, remember sitting on his lap as he read the Sunday comic strips to my brother and me. As I look back on the before all was at peace with the world.
Of course, you might say! You were only eleven.

That doesn’t negate the bad that happened…My father’s first heart attack, moving four times, forging new friends with each move, fear of starting school, seeing our first dog killed as he ran in front of a bus. But the lasting memories aren’t those. The lasting memories seem more formative…Living next to my grandparents, my first-grade teacher, daddy bringing gifts at the return from each long trip.

Sometime after his death I read A Man Called Peter by Catherine Marshall. I, too, wanted to be like Peter Marshall. I wanted to serve the church, help others, understand the Gospel better, have what seemed a wonderful life of service.

A call? It took twenty years to answer. Twenty years marked an intense personal struggle. Twenty years marked intense questions of faith. Twenty years marked wandering away and back again. Twenty years marked indecision. Death scared me.

Now, at seventy-six I wish I could say all was well. I mean I am a minister of the Gospel, the Good News, of Jesus Christ. After all, a minister is supposed to have answers. A minister is supposed to know God. A minister is supposed to have faith without questions. Isn’t he or she?
Twenty years marked just the beginning of questions, of realization that pet answers may not be true, of questions and questioning. Twenty years marked the beginning of the intense struggle any minister who is true with him or herself can testify, of wondering. Wondering marks beginning of feeling separated. Wondering, however, seems inevitable.

But twenty years also marked the beginning of Christ’s coming back again and again. Twenty years also marked renewed assurance over and over. Twenty years marked Christ coming again and again.

This season of Advent marks the celebrating of waiting for Christ to come. It is the time we need the assurance Romans speaks of, the waiting for the reality of being God’s own through Jesus Christ.

Advent marks the beginning of being called back again and again, the beginning of Christ coming over and over, the beginning of the realization that we are God’s even when we feel separated and lost. Advent marks the season of the assurance nothing can separate us “from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus or Lord.” Not doubt, wandering, questioning, the daily struggles of faith and life, different opinions and interpretations, worldly views, nor death. For Christ Jesus, our Lord, is coming. Again and again. We are renewed again and again.

Written by Rev. Cuyler V. Smith
What am I passionate about at Heritage?
The mission and outreach programs of the church that meet the New Testament imperative to “feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoners,” etc.