Love That Doesn’t Get Cut Off

This week, I lost my professor from my MA program. 

She mentored me in creative writing. More than techniques or structure, she taught me how to pay attention. How to sit with a thought. How to be brave with words. How to trust that what we notice matters. 

Her passing shocked me. And it left me with a kind of sadness that slows everything down. 

When grief hits like that, I usually reach for words. Books. Old notes. Scripture. Anything that might help me make sense of what I’m feeling without rushing past it. 

Somewhere in that process, I found myself rereading something familiar. A Shakespeare sonnet I’ve loved for years. It talks about love as something steady, something unshaken by storms or time. 

But what struck me wasn’t Shakespeare. 

It was how deeply familiar the idea felt. 

Because Scripture has been saying this long before any poet ever put it into verse. 

In Romans 8:38–39, Paul writes: 

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers… will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

Paul doesn’t avoid hard realities here. He names death directly. He names fear, uncertainty, time, power. And then he makes a bold claim. None of these have the authority to separate us from God’s love. 

That truth mattered deeply to me this week. 

Because when someone we love dies, it can feel like something has been cut off. Like a relationship just stops. Like a voice goes quiet. 

But Scripture reminds us that God’s love does not end the way human timelines do. What God begins in love is not undone by death. 

My professor is gone, but her work isn’t. The way she shaped our thinking, the courage she passed on, the care she gave to our voices continues in the people she invested in. Her life still speaks through others. 

That’s how God’s love moves. 

It passes through people. It multiplies. It keeps going. 

And this is where missions comes in. 

Missions is not just about geography. It’s not only about going somewhere far or unfamiliar. At its core, missions is rooted in the belief that God’s love cannot be contained, controlled, or stopped. 

Not by borders. Not by culture. Not by time. Not even by death. 

Hebrews 12 speaks of a “great cloud of witnesses.” People who ran their race before us. People whose faith still speaks, even after their lives have ended. 

In missions, we often step into stories that started long before us. We invest in people and places knowing we may never see the full fruit of what we sow. We remain faithful without guarantees of visible outcomes. 

But Scripture reassures us that God is the one who carries the work forward. 

Paul reminds us that love does not fail. That nothing separates. That God finishes what He begins. 

So the question missions invites us to ask is not just where we are going, but how we are loving. 

Where has God entrusted His love to us for the sake of others? Who might be impacted by our obedience in ways we will never witness? What faithfulness is God asking of us now, even if it feels small or unseen? 

Missions is choosing to live as if Romans 8 is true. That love is not fragile. That death does not have the final word. And that what we offer in obedience, God carries far beyond our reach.