By Adela Hufford, dean of admissions
Scripture: Romans 4:13-25 (NRSV)
For most of my career I’ve struggled with the push and pull between my relationship with work versus my relationships with people (parents, spouse, child, colleagues). In my 18 years working in higher education I’ve been fortunate to have positions that I’ve truly enjoyed. There has no doubt been struggle and disorientation within each role, but I look back at each season with a fondness because of realized transformation. Not only do I love working in higher ed, I also really like to work: solving problems, analyzing data, researching new ideas.
This last year that love for work was brought into question in a way that finally made me take pause and to see the imbalance. While my career seemed to be thriving, my personal relationships were suffering. Falling apart. While work feels easier with its known patterns, objectives and expectations, personal relationships are hard and can be messy, unscripted and full of emotion. I broke promises, struggled to maintain commitments and ultimately placed barriers between me and those who sought to be in covenant with me.
Examining those relationships brought moments that were both brutal and beautiful. One of my favorite bloggers, Glennon Doyle, describes this mash-up as “brutiful” – and my life felt especially brutiful. And because personal relationships aren’t a series of checkboxes to be marked, the brutiful moments continue.
Like Abraham, I am being called to put my faith in God. Faith that relationships can be reimagined. Faith that new covenants can be formed. Faith that this season will also be transforming.
Scripture: Romans 4:13-25 (NRSV)
For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation. 16For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us,
17as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”) —in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. 18Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So numerous shall your descendants be.” 19He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22Therefore his faith “was reckoned to him as righteousness.”
23Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone, 24but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.