Month: February 2023

You know you have peace when you have Peace in the Midst of the Storm.  Click on the link to listen to Alvin Slaughter singing about peace to the background of video of devastation from a hurricane.  No matter what is going on around us, you can have peace just like I did throughout the entire Covid pandemic and it remains with me today.  It doesn’t mean bad things don’t happen.  It doesn’t mean I’m happy nor joyful about the situations I find myself in.  It doesn’t mean restoration will make it right.  It does mean that my faith is intact.  My joy is in the Lord.  My trust is in Him, not what’s going on around me. 

I’ve never liked to watch lightning.  I remember as a kid hiding under the covers during a thunder and lightning storm so I wouldn’t have to see the lightning flash.  It didn’t keep me any safer, but at least I didn’t have to look at it.  Later in adult life I watched a movie about a tornado that went through a town and it scared me so much that any time a tornado alert popped up on my cell phone, I’d get anxious, run around to look out each window, and jump at every gust of wind I’d hear outside.  Fear would grip my heart and I’d panic.  That was before I found peace in the midst of the storms of life.  I still don’t watch lightning and I pray I never have to experience a tornado, but I know the Lord will see me through it. 

You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you.

I don’t know what kind of storm you may be going through as you read these posts, but I know that peace is possible in the midst of it.  As I write this I think most people are going through a financial storm to one degree or another.  I came through last year very well and had anticipated continuing along the same path I was on.  But just to be sure my budget would remain intact, I increased various categories that I knew would have to be higher than last year due to the price of goods and services increasing.  Even that wasn’t enough and by the end of January I exceeded my budget.  I could have started worrying about it, but I didn’t.  I need visual and audio reminders around me for anything and everything.  If I have an appointment, I need that audio reminder in my cell phone so I don’t forget it.  If I have a Bible verse I need to remind myself of frequently, I find a picture and put it on the frig.  Here’s what I have there right now:

Lighthouses guide the way through a storm for ships on the sea.  Jesus is my lighthouse and guides me through the storms of life.  He will provide.  It is my job to trust Him no matter what the storm.  Having these images where I see them dozens of times during the day as I walk through the kitchen help keep my thoughts focused on the Provider.

In the next post, I’m going to talk about onions…come back to see what onions and peace have in common.

Are you free to experience peace or is something holding you back?

“So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free.”

My cat Joy, like most cats, loves yarn, ribbon, tassels, or anything she can get her claws into.  But occasionally she gets tangled up in it and needs help getting free.  She enjoys playing, but my way of releasing her is to carefully pry it away from her while her way is to chew her way through it.  She fights me then because she thinks her way is better and doesn’t want me to interfere.  For her (and me) peace is her being set free from the tangle of yarn that could strangle her but the method of release is what we differ on.

Some of the things in life that destroy our peace are like tangled yarn.  They are pretty, enticing, and fun to play with, but if we aren’t careful can create a stranglehold on us.  A thought just flashed into my mind’s eye of the old cowboy shows I watched as a child.  Ropes were good for a lot of things from lassoing a stubborn calf to tying a horse to a post so it wouldn’t run off.  Ropes were also used by angry people when they formed a lynching mob and someone died by strangulation. 

If you don’t have peace in your life, there is most likely something in the way.  Ask God to show you what it is that’s interfering.  It’s just like our finicky cell phones.  Sometimes I have to move to a different spot to get a good signal because an appliance or a wall is interfering.  I wonder why I can’t access a website and when I check my connection, I find out my wi-fi was turned off.  I wonder why I’m not receiving notifications but when I check my settings, it was on silent.  You probably have similar frustrations or could add to my list.  Those frustrations are like many others—something we need to resolve or remove from our lives so the peace can flow through.  As long as we allow things, frustrations, people, and situations to have our attention, that’s where our minds go and peace has no place to settle in.  We must give peace space to reside and let it expand until we are totally free of those things that hold us back.

Peace, Peace, Wonderful Peace is what we need.  Take a break and watch this video of piano music with the lyrics to this old hymn on a background of soothing peaceful video. Do you feel more peaceful now?  In the next post I’ll talk about having peace in the midst of the storm.