By Rev. Louis Keeling
Iuka Methodist and Sawyer Community churches
Special to the Tribune

The holiday season is upon us so I hope it hasn’t caught you by surprise or the fuller schedule has you feeling overwhelmed. Just take a deep breath and know this is an opportunity to be a part of something bigger than yourself.

Whether it is sitting at a table with family or friends giving thanks or holding a candle while singing Silent Night on the Christmas eve, we are connected together by the sovereign plan of a loving God. It’s not about us having all our ducks in a row or in this case reindeer. No, its about a loving God that is for us, a God that is with us and brought to the world the one and only begotten Son, Jesus to walk among us and defeat sin and death on a cross so we all could receive the greatest gift of all, the gift of eternal life!

So take a few steps back and enjoy being the recipient of God’s love. It is okay if the turkey is dry and you forgot the cranberry sauce and the tree is buried in the back of your storage room. Even so, you are loved!

I’m not trying to get you to put rose-colored glasses on, but simply point out that though life can be chaotic at times; God is bigger than our problems. He offers a hand in the valleys and vision on the mountain tops. God is with us through the high and lows of life.

So when the holiday season overwhelms us, just remind yourself that God is for us, God is with us and nothing can separate us from the love of God. You are loved!!!

We know this because of the inspired words we read in Romans 8:31-39 NIV “31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”