It was my first year of college, and my faith had sailed straight into an intellectual hurricane. I was drowning in questions about science, philosophy, and history; my mind felt like it was on a life-or-death scramble for evidence to support my belief in Christ. One night, I prayed a desperate prayer: “Lord, I want to believe. If you are real, help me as I investigate my doubts.”

The very next morning in my freshman English class (El Camino, baby!), we read a poem that bypassed my head and rocked my very soul. Its lines spoke to the true question haunting my heart: death. That reading felt like a reassuring wink from God as I began a decade-long intellectual quest. John Donne’s Holy Sonnet 10 famously declares:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so...

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

As we dive into Romans 8 this week, we face that same human ache over life and death. It is a question that both John Donne and the Apostle Paul answer with the same defiant hope.