Exploring Pieces of Peace

As I start my journey to understand peace better, I wanted to see what others had to say about it. I'll look at what the Bible says in a future blog, but for today's blog, I went looking for general quotations. And guess what?

There are a gajillion quotes out there about peace. Many of them are about peace as the antithesis of war. What I wanted was quotes on peace within. So it took some digging, but this is some of what I found. 

Here are a few that challenged me:

“To be at one with God is to be at peace...peace is to be found only within, and unless one finds it there he will never find it at all. Peace lies not in the external world. It lies within one's own soul.” 
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"How can he abide long time in peace who occupies himself with other men's matters?"
Thomas a Kempis

"Where does your [peace] lie? Is God your refuge, your hiding place, your stronghold, your shepherd, your counselor, your friend, your redeemer, your savior, your guide? If He is, you don't need to search any further for [peace]."
Elisabeth Elliot 



And some that made me think:

"The foundation of the Christian's peace is everlasting; it is what no time, no change can destroy. It will remain when the body dies; it will remain when the mountains depart and the hills shall be removed, and when the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll. The fountain of His comfort shall never be diminished, and the stream shall never be dried up. His comfort and joy is a living spring in the soul, a well of water springing up to everlasting life."
Jonathan Edwards

"God cannot give us...peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing."
C.S. Lewis

"Peace is the deliberate adjustment of my life to the will of God."
Unknown



A few that made me smile:

“My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far today, I have finished 2 bags of M&M's and a chocolate cake. I feel better already.”  Dave Barry

"There may be those on earth who dress better or eat better, but those who enjoy the peace of God sleep better."

Anonymous

And this one, big surprise, was my favorite:

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. 
To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, 
where doing nothing was not boring--
it was peace.”

Milan Kundera 

How about you? What is your favorite quote about peace within?

Pieces of Peace

Peace.

It's one of those words that makes us pause in the madness of the day. A word that breathes longing into our hearts and minds. I want peace. I hunger for peace. I mourn its absence, delight in its presence. I pray I may share it, and am grieved when my words or actions send it skittering into the corners of others' lives. All my life I've been drawn to the word and its myriad meanings, and yet, as I face another day gnawed on by anxiety, I have to wonder...

Do I even begin to understand what peace is?

Or what it means to be at peace?

Days like today, I'm not so sure. Which makes me want to crawl back into bed and cower beneath the covers. But I'm not giving in to that powerful temptation. Instead, I've decided to do some research.

What is peace?
Where do we find it?
How do we lose it?
Is it something that we can keep, or do we only get it in pieces? Like the specks of mist that caress our faces when we walk in fog...

The fog is all around us. We can see it, cloaking our world. But only tiny bits of it actually touch us. And it takes but moment for those bits to dissipate. Is peace like that?


Or is it the fog itself, enveloping everything, affecting what we do and do not see, muting what we hear, surrounding us in ways we don't fully understand?




Webster's defines peace as "a mental or spiritual condition marked by freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions : calmness of mind and heart : serenity of spirit."

Serenity of spirit. Oh...how I long for that. But if I've learned anything in lo, these 55 years, it's that longing isn't enough. You have to act. To choose. To do your part. 

So that's what I'm going to do. I choose to explore the true meaning, source, and power of peace. Don't know how long it will take, but that's okay. I have a feeling that this, like most of life, will be about the journey, not the destination. 

A Resource for You Writers

It's a devastating illness. And it's running rampant, striking young and old alike. It can take over your mind and your life. Alter your ability to accomplish everyday tasks. And it's infectious, often passed from one generation to the next. There's no cure. Once you get it, you're done. Forever.

What, you ask, is this terrible malady? 

The need to write. 

Oh yes, friends, it's out there, just waiting to snag you. When it does so, and you join the ranks of those who mutter to themselves about characters who live in their heads, or having to kill "widows and orphans" (you people in publishing, you know what I'm talking about!), well...

Have I got a resource for you!

Jeff Goins. 

This guy is smart and intuitive and funny and he gets the writing life. What's more, he shares wonderful tips and other resources with us all on his blog, goinswriter.com. So if you haven't discovered him already, hop on over and check him out. 

Now, don't anyone say I've never done anything nice for you!

Peace. 

Karen

Attention to Details

What do you picture when I write the word, lamp stand? Probably something utilitarian, that supports light of some sort. Me, too. At least, that was what I used to picture. Until I hit the description in Exodus 25 of the lampstand God had the Israelites make.

Now there's some serious attention to detail.

The stand and all its decorations were made of one piece. The base, center stem, lamp cups, buds, and petals. Yeah, you read that right. Buds and petals. Six branches were to extend from the center stem, and each had three lamp cups shaped like almond blossoms, complete with buds and petals. An almond bud was to rest beneath each pair of branches. And as if that wasn't enough, they were to be made of pure, hammered gold. Seventy-five pounds of it!

That detail was nothing compared to the detail on the Ark of the Covenant.

As I read all this, I was amazed at God's eye not only for detail, but for beauty. For the pure creative joy He seemed to find in crafting these things, which must have been stunning when they were finished. Every detail spelled out so that the craftsmen could create a masterpiece.

Two thoughts came to me after I read this section. First, wow! Would I ever love to see these! And then, if God poured so much of Himself into the details of these items, imagine how much more of His creative joy and spirit He pours into us and our lives!

Double wow.

No matter what today holds, the Master Craftsman has me in His hands.

It doesn't get more amazing than that.

And This Is Autumn...

Frigid air air bringing the lungs wide awake in the morning.

Trees bursting into explosions of gold, red, and orange.

Woodsmoke drifting through the air, tickling the nose. 

The whooshing tap-a-tap-a-tap-a-tap of the sprinkler as it douses the lawn. 

Days grown short, as light gives way to encroaching darkness. 

Pumpkins, gourds, and haystacks, and scarecrows all coming out to play. 

Birds flocking at feeders, raucous in their determined efforts to prepare for winter. 

Crackling fire pits sending sparks to play with the stars glittering the night sky. 

The strong sense of God at work in changing seasons, as the year's youth gives way, and its end draw nearer. 

May we walk these days filled with the sure knowledge of God's presence and peace, assured of His love and covenant, and delighted by His many gifts. 

Excitement in the Air

I can feel it. The shimmering, escalating excitement of writers gathering.

I'm in San Diego, and today is the start of the writers conference held by the San Diego Christian Writers' Guild. The weather is typical San Diego--beautiful. There's a gentle breeze stirring the palm trees towering overhead. I can almost smell the ocean breeze drifting through. But that's not what gets my pulse jumping. No, what has me as jazzed as a half-dozen mochas with an extra shot is this:

Words.

Wonderful, beautiful, well crafted words.

And they're all around me right now. I'm telling you, there's just nothing like a room full of people devoted to words and story telling, be it fiction or nonfiction. You can almost feel the sparks of creativity all around. You can see the delight in the smiles, hear it in the laughter. And you can hear, in the air around you, the beauty of words well chosen. These are wordsmiths, caught up in discussions on such wondrous things as:

Semicolons--do they have a place in fiction?
Characters--they won't do what I tell them!
Writing your passion--how do I keep the well of creativity full?
Voice--how do I find my true voice as a writer?

I feel like I'm in Webster's version of Disneyland! It's grand. And uplifting. And energizing. Because there's a unified purpose that brings us together, one that goes beyond refining the craft of writing. We're here not just to learn how to use words well, but to learn how to use them well so that we can let our readers meet and know and experience God. And that, my friends, is the greatest joy of all.

Words leading to
Truth leading to
God.

It doesn't get any better than that!

Peace to you.

The Problem with Pharaoh

There's a question that's bugged me for a lot of years...

Why did God harden Pharaoh's heart? Why put the Egyptians through all the horrors of the plagues? And what about the Israelites? How could they stand the seesaw of 

Yes, you can go.

No, you can't go.

Yes, go. 

No, stay.

Yes.

No.
Oy! 

Back and forth, over and over. It must have driven them nuts!

Now, let me reiterate what I've said before in this blog: I'm no theologian. I'm simply someone who seeks to understand God. So as I questioned God about all this, He brought a friend to mind. Someone who has been struggling and afraid of losing something they love. Someone who has been calling on God deliverance. For months and months. And then, a miracle! The deliverance came. 

Until it didn't. 

The miracle God performed opened a door for the treasured thing to be salvaged, but there was a condition. And the condition couldn't be met. So my friend felt as though God had answered her prayer--then pulled it back. Why would God do that?

As I pondered her situation and what happened with Pharaoh, I read Exodus 9: 15-16:

Then the Lord said [to Pharaoh], "By now I could have lifted my hand and struck you and your people with a plague to wipe you off the face of the earth. But I have spared you for a purpose--to show you my power and to spread my fame throughout the earth." 

As I read that, I started to wonder. What if the miracle He gave my friend wasn't to salvage the thing she didn't want to lose. What if it was instead God's way of reassuring her that He was there. Of showing her His power. What if His plans for her are far beyond what she imagines, and He knows that means she has to lose what she doesn't want to lose. But because He loves her so much, He showed her, for a moment, that He was there. Working on her behalf. To help her let go and rest in Him. 

God doesn't do things the way we expect. And though I know through experience that He answers prayers, I also know those answers often aren't what we expect them to be. But they're exactly what we need. Losing a job leads to letting go, which leads to new beginnings that are so much better than what we lost. 

I don't understand God all the time. But I know this: I can trust Him. I can trust His character and His promises and His love. Even when it seems like everything is going wrong, I know He's in control. 

He's got it covered. He's got me covered. 

And that's all I need. 

The Genesis of Understanding

I love the Bible. Reading it delights. Enriches. Refreshes. I've read it for most of my life. I know the stories front and back. And yet, I realized a month or so ago that it's been ages since I read it front to back. You know, beginning to end. Genesis to Revelation. So I started over.

Genesis 1.

As I read again these stories I've known since childhood--Adam and Eve, Abram and Sarai, Lot, Noah,  Jacob, Joseph, and on and on--I found myself getting lost in them as though they were new. Finding nuggets of truth I'd missed before. This amazed me, considering the fact that I'm 55 and have, as I said, read the Bible over and over. I asked God how this could be. How could there be something new in there, something I hadn't seen before?

I swear I heard Him chuckle.

And then it hit me.

The Word of God is living and overflowing with His Spirit, His love, His TRUTH. Each time we read it that very Spirit opens our eyes and heart to what we need to see and understand for today. Just as God's mercies are new every day, so His truths bring us new awarenesses, new understanding, new blessings.

Though I've read these words before, they are new each time I read them. For the truths they hold are endless and timeless. And exactly what I need.

I can't wait to see what tomorrow--and its reading--holds. 

At Times Like This...

...as I sit in the still of the night, listening to my sleeping dogs snore, content that I've done all I can do for this day to serve others and God, I close my eyes...

...and savor.

The quiet.

The peace.

The sense of God's presence, thrown about me like a comfortable, beloved quilt.

The wonder that is life and family and love.

The simple joy of a dog snuggling close, breathing deep, and letting out a contented sigh.

At times like this, I know joy.