I woke up this morning with several friends on my mind.

One of my  dear high school friends faced the unexpected loss of her sister this past Friday.

Carol and her mom and dad, along with her sister's children, will attempt to step back into a world today that will never be the same as it was just last week.

My mom's lifelong friend and her siblings are sitting at the bedside of their mother whose health is failing quickly.

They, too, are experiencing, with brokenness and sadness, the frailty of life.

So many things about this world we live in are uncertain and painful.

We hold on with a very weak grasp, because truly we are weak.

As I read the Bible this morning, I read each Word with Barbara, Lexie, Robert, Carol, Jane, and Carol's dad, niece, and nephew on my mind.

I wondered how the words I read would fall on their aching hearts if they were reading them this morning.

I wondered how God could speak to them today through His promises, and I found great comfort in these words in Romans 8,

I am convinced that nothing can ever

separate us from God's love.

Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,

neither our fears for today nor our

worries about tomorrow-

not even the powers of hell can

separate us from God's love.

No power in the sky above or in the earth below-

indeed, nothing in all creation will

ever be able to separate us

from the love of God that is revealed

in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I am wordless today when I think of the fresh pain in the lives of so many people I love.

Nothing I can say or do can begin to comfort their hurting hearts.

I'm so thankful for a Bible full of promises and words of hope.

As someone who walks the road of grief daily, I would be lost without its presence in my life.

As I look at my Bible sitting here next to me,

the Bible I have clung to nearly every day since Nick's death four years ago - pages torn, wrinkled, weathered, stained -

my prayer is that all who are hurting will turn to it with their doubts, their questions, their fears, and their uncertainties.

I do not have the answers for those who are hurting, but I know the One who does.

So, today, as I pray for my precious friends with broken hearts and for all who find themselves waking up to an uncertain Monday full of heartache,

I ask God to give them just what they need today and lead them to His Words exactly when they need them.

Because in an uncertain world, I am thankful for a certain Savior, a certain Lord, and a certain Love from which no power on Heaven or Earth can separate us.

Clinging to Him Who is Certain and Who Loves Us Deeply and Unconditionally Through all of our Uncertain Days,