9 June | Youth
«If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.» Psalm 139:8
Valeria left her home country to seek better living conditions elsewhere. She migrated from Romania and eventually arrived in Spain. In this process, she lost many contacts, friends and practically left her roots, her culture, and her language behind. She also lost faith in God and stopped going to church. The hard life of an immigrant and the daily toil made religiosity seem like something from a past that, for some reason, she didn’t want to remember.
One day, a missionary found her in the city where, long ago, the city hall had honored the church by naming one of its streets “Adventist Street”. However, there was no longer any church there, only a family that was interested and a short time before, had decided to get together every week to study the Bible. It was in that place that the missionary met Valeria for the first time.
At first, she didn’t recognize her. Days later, rummaging through an old trunk, the missionary found a photo of her own baptism that had taken place 27 years before, a beautiful ceremony in which 18 women publicly testified to their faith. To her surprise, Valeria was one of them.
For years, in that distant country, Valeria was away from church communion. However, even there, so far away and so many years later, she felt that God found her again. She understood that the Lord had never abandoned her and that she continued to be important to Heaven. So, she decided to return to the Lord’s ways and be rebaptized, starting to meet again every Sabbath with her church family.
It’s never too late to start over or resume something worth doing. No place is too far for God. No circum-stance is so difficult that He cannot change. Even our worst decisions can open doors and windows to opportunities through which God desires to reach His beloved children. The greatest distance between you and God is a step of faith. All it takes is a single attitude, a single desire to love and serve Him, for Him to do in your life what you always dreamed of. Why not ask Him now to guide your story and take you into His arms of love?