The year was 1990, and I’d just arrived home from a delightful evening of reminiscing, laughter, and comradeship. A couple who’d moved away had come back for a visit, so Helen and Bob had invited the old gang over for the evening. It was nice of them to include me, but there was no way to avoid the glaring truth that I was now single - one half of a couple.

As I walked into my dark empty house, I felt more alone than ever before, and the chill of the February night went all over my body. At that moment, I looked up to the framed needlepoint cross hanging by my prayer chair. Sewn by a Daily Guideposts reader who had sent it to comfort me at this difficult time in my life, it bore the words of Jesus:

Oh, how desperately I wanted to believe it! But could I honestly claim such a wild, unproveable truth? As the wind howled outside my window, I sank into my prayer chair, closed my eyes and fell into the waiting silence. Then I began to breathe those words into my heart, repeating them silently, letting them fill my empty heart: I am with you always … I am with you always …

I continued the practice daily, and as the weeks and months unfolded, I found the words taking up residence in my heart. From this sturdy rock my life began to flow like a trusting river. Without trying to make anything happen, I felt lead to reach out to form new friendships, to find spiritual companionship in group prayer and Bible study, and to get to know myself better through keeping a daily journal. There were down days, too, when I was ambushed by loneliness or when a friend’s death brought awareness of my own diminishing years. At such moments, those five aligning words would come up unbidden from my heart to remind me I could trust God to bring me through the rockiest of riverbeds.

Knowing You are with me always, Lord, I can trust You to carry me to wholeness.         -Marilyn Morgan King

… nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.      -Ro 8:39