Maria, a Mexican woman who worked at the church I was attending, and I were chatting when she mentioned that she might be absent for a few days, as she was thinking about returning home with her sister to visit their mother. “My sister always likes to go home for some of my mother’s tortillas,” she said. “I don’t care about that, though. I like American food,” said Maria. “Oh,” I said,” What kind of American food keeps you with us?” “I really like spaghetti”, she said. “In fact, I don’t think I’ll go with my sister. Tortillas are good, but not enough to go home just for those. I’d rather eat spaghetti.”

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither 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.” ( Romans 8:38-39)

While spaghetti may separate Maria from going to her mother, St. Paul lays out a bond and a tie that is so deep and high and wide that it can never be broken. “Never” includes all of eternity, and all the powers in both heaven and earth. Paul is emphatic as he enumerates “all creation’s” efforts to separate people from God, yet God has prevailed and now prevails and will prevail in restoring human beings to Himself. Paul is responding to the good news of God’s unfailing love which “endures forever”: “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His love endures forever.( Psalm 136: :7). The psalmist extols God’s love many more times: Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love. (Psalm 143:8)

Paul went on to say, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. (Ephesians 3:18)

What extravagant claims come to us from the Old as well as the New Testaments! That human beings could have experienced such a love,and recorded it for us is a testimony to its truth.

I’m glad that Maria found spaghetti in America if it helped her want to stay here and bless us at the church; and she assured me that she would soon be visiting her mother and enjoying her Tortillas. Even a plate of American spaghetti could not really separate her from her mother.

Love in Him,

Prue