“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”–Romans 8:35–37
The Great Depression hit J. C. Penney’s businesses hard. Though a man of deep faith and convictions and very honest, Penney was overextended, and the crushing financial pressure took a toll on his health. He had to be hospitalized, and nothing the doctors tried seemed to help. At one point, thinking he was about to die, Penney wrote farewell letters to his wife and children. He later said, “I was broken nervously and physically, filled with despair, unable to see even a ray of hope. I had nothing to live for. I felt I hadn’t a friend left in the world.”
The next morning Penney heard singing from the hospital chapel and went to the service. The song was “God Will Take Care of You.” Penney sat through the music and the preaching, and left a changed man. He wrote, “Suddenly something happened. I can’t explain it. I can only call it a miracle. I felt as if I had been instantly lifted out of the darkness of a dungeon into warm, brilliant sunlight.” That reminder of God’s care in “the most dramatic and glorious twenty minutes of my life” stayed with Penney until his death many years later at age ninety-five.
God loves and cares for us just as much and just as wonderfully when things are going well as He does when things are going poorly. He never abandons or forsakes us, so we can always rely on Him. There is no power that can take away or hinder God’s love for us. We can rest in His love.–by Dr. Paul Chappell
