Skip to main content

Peace?

                 In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety. (Psalm 4:8)


The past few nights have been tough. I expected to spend time in tears over selling Grace Cottage South, but I guess I really did make my peace with that last summer. Instead, I’ve been stressing over the immediate and near future. How long should I visit my sister? What do I want to be when I “grow up”? How am I going to use up my craft supplies? What goals should I set? How can I help my sister while I’m here? The list always continues and tends to spiral down into silliness. Last night, one of my mental gymnastics included an Olympic level back flip into the statement “Lord, I’m not at peace here!”

For once, my putting something “on the table” was useful. The lack of peace had nothing to do with the people or the place, and everything to do with me. Granted, the place isn’t home, and people always complicate life, but the issue is that I’m not in control, I can’t be in control. It would be wrong of me to assume control. All that tells that natural part of my mind that things are out of control. I got up and journaled for a paragraph. It came to mind to try some deep breathing exercises and a shortish battle to overcome the anxiety I rarely do those unless someone instructs me to.

Of course, there have been other times that I realized that I was in the way of peace in my own life. I know I come in second place as my enemy. But those few moments and a few deep breaths did me a world of good. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Listen To Him

              The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him . (Deuteronomy 18:15)           Today, we switch from Jesus’ claims of “I am” to prophecies made about Him. My Bible platform is starting in Deuteronomy. I’d start in Genesis, where we would learn that the one who would save us would be a descendant of Eve (Genesis 3:15), of Noah (by default), Abram and Sara(Genesis 12:1-3). Isaac (Genesis 17:19), Jacob (Genesis 25:23), Judah (Genesis 29:8), and David (II Samuel 7:12-16). There were also references to a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:22-32). In addition, there were prophecies about when and where the prophet/Messiah would be born and what would happen to him.           Of course, naysayers will claim that Jesus’ life was retrofitted or reverse enginee...
Post a Comment
Read more