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ENGAGE 3 PRESIDENT'S LETTER Mark Young, PhD PRESIDENT Everything just seems harder, doesn't it? Like hiking up a steep mountain trail when every step takes more energy and saps a little more of your strength, a lot of our daily tasks and routines just seem more tiring these days. COVID-19 has rendered life as we knew it something we can only long for. It makes me think of Adam and Eve. At the end of Genesis 3 the text paints a vivid image of them being driven out of the Garden of Eden wearing garments made from animal skins. The punishment for their rebellion was severe. The wonderful life they had in the Garden in perfect fellowship with the Creator is now just a memory. Their mandate to steward God's creation and fill it with image bearers is now in question. Cut off from God's presence, Eve's ability to bear children would be even more painful and terrifying while Adam's ability to bring forth sustenance from the earth would be fraught with futility. The certainty of God's protection and blessing is in doubt. Everything is now harder for them. That's why the next part of the story is so important and encouraging. At the beginning of Genesis 4, Eve does bring forth a son. And she cries in joy and relief, "With the Lord's help, I have produced a human!" Later we read that Adam and his sons are tending flocks and raising crops. And they too acknowledge that their productivity comes from the Lord's help. God is still with them. Still helping them. Still desiring their worship. God is still with us too. The difficulties this pandemic poses for us, even the most severe loss imaginable in the death of a loved one, simply cannot separate us from Christ's presence and love. He walks with us. He strengthens us to take that next uphill step no matter how difficult it may be physically and emotionally. Paul's powerful conclusion to the 8th chapter of his Epistle to the Romans says it far better than I: "Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean He no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? ... No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:35-39 NLT Pressing on,