Day 2: Certainly God’s Compassion Isn’t Through | 2024 Pre-Conference Devotional

Written by Millie Piper.

The Hebrew word raham used in Lamentations 3:22-23 to mean compassion also means “womb.” Throughout the Hebrew Bible, it is frequently used alongside the word hesed, which encompasses the mercy, grace, loving-kindness, and compassion of God with specific regard to God’s loyalty and promise. This means that the claim that God’s compassion endures is no flippant nicety.

Rather, the intimate, enveloping care of God’s raham–compassion or womb–paired with the depth of God’s hesed–love and loyalty–offer depth and staying power to the claim that God’s compassion is not through. The One who knows us deeply and cares for us tenderly is committed to us through and through. Like a pregnant parent, a gentle caregiver, or a fiercely committed person who mothers, God’s love endures throughout every moment and circumstance. As we grow and change and grieve and love and err and learn, God is tender, protective, and persistent. God’s love is an enduring promise, which always and forever draws us toward the freedom and flourishing of all.

This is the type of love that renews and transforms. As a parent is attentive to the wants, needs, growth, and interests of their child, so God is attentive to us, longing always for our good. The transformative experience of being fully known, accepted, and fiercely loved is the foundation from which we can, in turn, extend this fierce care and love toward others.

We need not be parents to recognize and participate in the power of a committed, gentle, vulnerable, rooted love (though certainly parenthood is a unique and profound experience of this type of love). This is the type of love that pays attention to the needs of others as a relative tends to the needs of their loved ones. This is the type of love that turns strangers into kin. A love that insists on seeing all people as whole, beautiful, complex beings worthy of life, safety, enjoyment, and community. This love opens our eyes to the pain and injustice of our beloveds and recognizes that our liberation and flourishing of life is intimately connected to one another. Lamentations 3 shows that God loves us as intimately as if They are carrying us in Their womb. may we also come to care for one another so deeply that we are formed, softened, and moved to just and loving action on behalf of each other.

I invite you to join me in a brief prayer:

Divine and Gentle Parent, we see that your love and compassion for us are all-encompassing, leaving none behind and none forgotten. May your powerful intimacy and tenderness draws us together into communion with you and with one another. Renew us and refresh us in the knowledge that your love is always with us and for us, and may we extend this love powerfully to others.

Amen.

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