"There's Nothing" - a Three-Day Devotional by Amanda Cook Sample

“THERE’S NOTHING” DAY 1

A ponderation of Romans 8:38-39

What can separate us from your love

Is there anything, anything

Anything, anything, anything….

I have a little list scribbled on paper. Wrote it in a rush. It’s an easy one to make. Easy to rattle off all of the reasons why Love won’t be able to fully love me. Here are a few, I read them to you like a school assignment, all shaky and uncertain, up at the front of the class.

Intrusive thoughts come in with their muddy shoes and mess up the house of my mind.

The angst of unfulfilled desires

The spin cycle of anxiety/depression

A stingy worldview

The sting of hot jealousy

Shame bullies that keep my shoulders tilted inward cause I forget who I am and think, maybe you’re right.

The anxious, scrupulous, religious fear of getting God wrong

The general helpless feeling of watching the world wage war with itself.

I have so many more. So many thoughts and questions about His love. Is it really as good as promised or is it just like all the others? Feels too good to be true. I find myself admitting that out loud. Do you really have time for my worries, it’s ok, never mind. I get ready to leave, like a kid sitting on the edge of a bench in a hallway with her backpack and coat, longing for a guide or a counselor or some help but unconvinced that I’m worth the time. I want so badly to believe that I’m worth the time, I’ve been practicing the thought “I am worth the time” every day in the bathroom mirror while I brush my teeth, but I seem to forget it when I need it most, like right now.

Someone sits down next to me, on the bench. Oh. Jesus. It seems like He knew it would be too much of a walk for me to get up and knock on His door, so He came out to find me. Here he sits and strikes up a conversation because I didn’t know where to begin, and I feel my skittish heart rate slowing down. He feels calm. Peaceful. Seems unhurried. His Voice sounds like I’m overhearing a song. Feels like I’m listening in on a private conversation. Feels like the shock of cold air in my lungs on a winter walk and hot tea warming me from the inside out. Feels like clarity, and coherence. I open my list, ahem. I read them out loud to Him, what about this one, what about this, how about this, if you really knew about this. The tone of His voice and the twinkle in His eye, they stay constant, they don’t flinch, don’t react when I read the one that makes me flush with shame the most. This is starting to make me believe the thing I’ve read many times but it never sunk in like it’s sinking in now. That maybe...

There’s nothing, that can separate us, from God’s Love.

It starts to feel like a possibility, almost believable.

“That there is NOTHING

In the universe

With the power

To separate us

From God’s love.”