When Peace isn’t a Place

 

 

Sometimes, God is downright humorous!

Yesterday, I planned to start a new series on peace. Key word: planned.

 

Over the weekend, my family headed to the mountains for some family time. I had thrown in Tracie Miles’ new book Stressed-Less Living for some night time reading.

Stress was the word that defined this “supposed to be peaceful” weekend, ending in me having to stay a day longer due to a mechanic breakdown…without internet access. Ha! How is that for a stress-less and peace combo!

While I sat in the place I didn’t want to be, I looked for peace.

In the morning, it as an adventure of sorts and even into the afternoon, I kept looking for the positive. What might God might be up to? I practiced Isaiah 26:3 “You will keep in perfect peace who mind is steadfast, because he trust in you.”

As evening approached, my body began to grow tired and so did my heart. As I finally approached home, in the dark of the night, my weary heart stopped fighting for peace. I grew weary, completely loosing the peace I had been holding on to. I caused my family to loose their’s as well.

Thank the Lord; His forgiveness and help are new every morning. (Lamentations 3:23) and His peace is never far behind. Today is a new day and I am thankful!

Congratulations to Debbie who posted on October 6th at 11:25 p.m. You are the winner of Tracie Miles’ new book Stressed-Less Living.

Do you find that when your body grows weary, your emotions do to? What do you do to help you keep peace when this happens?

 

 

Lynn

9 Comments

  1. Hi,
    I loved your post. I have been struggling with Lyme Disease for a year. This is a horrible disease that makes you sicker than one can describe. I am in healing, but have a long way to go.

    Your comment about your body being weary causes your emotions to become weary is so true. On the days when I feel horrible, my emotions are so out of whack.

    I try my hardest to stay upbeat and positive during those hard times, but sometimes it is hard to do so. These are the times when I have to try my hardest to maintain my emotions with my family. There are time when I want to come “Unglued” (love that book!! and the Bible study”!!), but I am working very hard at maintaining my spirit, emotions, and feelings.

    I love your website 🙂

    1. Thank you so much, Annalisa. All day today I have been thinking, “What is wrong with me?” I have no motivation and really just want to crawl in bed. It is one of those days when I really just need to give myself some grace and say, “It’s just one of those days!” I can’t imagine how I would struggle if I had a physical illness on top of my some-days “weary” illness.

      Do give yourself grace and some days, we just need to remind those around us that we need grace (and in my case forgiveness too).

      Thank you for being a part of wise moms raising wiser daughters 🙂

  2. When sleep and chocolate aren’t option, I close my eye and pray. Sound so simple, but when you have someone having a meltdown in front of you and they stop to take a breath and then look at you and say, “Why are you trying to sleep when I am serious?” It brings humor to the occasion for me. I am sure God has an amazing sense of humor. (Of course I do not recommend the closing eye part if I am driving, then I just pray or often a song will come to my mind and I smile)

    I do sometimes cry too and that is a release. The best times are when the Holy Spirit gives me a verse like the one you quoted above, Lam. 3: 22-24 are my life verses. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases…” Amen

    1. Deena, I just heard part of an interview with Cynthia Tobias on Focus on the Family yesterday. She talked about the power of humor when things are getting out of control…sounds wise to me!

  3. I read once that “God laughs when we have a plan.” Of course that is not totally true but sometimes it is!

    I think it helps just to realize you’re having “one of those days” where keeping your peace is difficult…sometimes just acknowledging that fact enables me to take an extra deep breath before reacting. Other times when it’s just a bad day I take a few hours or the whole day “off”–retreating to bed for a nap or bowl of popcorn with lots of real butter and a good book. Sometimes a few hours away helps me calm down and get it back.

    And the next day (or after a few hours) I do thank God that His mercies are new every day.

    THANK YOU for posting!

    1. That, my friend, is sound advice!

  4. Thank you for being so real. This year has been a real learning experience. Since March I’ve been going through treament for breast cancer. Praise God I”ve got 4 more radiation treatments left and I’m done – WooHoo!! (For the record, God’s been here from the beginning and it’s been an amazing journey! I’m convinced I’ll be fine and He’ll use this for something good.)

    I agree with you when you said “when your body grows weary, your emotions do to”. Unfortunately I’ve thrown myself a pity party or two and honestly I know better. In those tough moments, I simply need to say the name of Jesus over and over. When I remember to do that the peace returns. Praise music also helps to change my perspective so I can pray and be nice to the rest of the family. And sometimes all that will help is quiet and a good nap. 🙂 I too thank God that His mercies are new every morning! I’m learning mine should be too…

  5. Oh the best laid plans for peace. It’s so hard to let go of what we have planned, what we’ve pictured. Only to have to deal with a an unplanned stressful scenario. And then there is the burden of losing our peace and taking the whole family down with us. I have played this out so many times. Felt so defeated. But you know, we’re all doing the best we can. Sure we can do better. But we’re forgiven and gripped in His grace, thank God. (And our families can be pretty forgiving too!) Thanks for reminding us that we are not alone.

  6. This post has hit so close to home for me also. We went to see out daughter last weekend (college freshman) and drove the day to the mountains. Our tire got a bolt in it and needed repair, so we ended up taking my daughter’s car for the day. I did most of the driving and am still recovering from back surgery. We tried one place for dinner, but it had over an hour wait so we drove back toward Wilkesboro to find a place that served fried chicken (our daughter really wanted fried chicken). After over an hour of looking, we finally settled somewhere that didn’t have her craving, but was really good. I was so weary and exhausted from the long day that it took away from the blessing of family time and it was hard to enjoy the rest of the day. All of us were ill and I felt terrible because it was meant to be a stress-free weekend for all of us, especially our daughter. I ended up praying about it and asking both my daughter and God for forgiveness. Then I talked with my husband about our lack of communication related to our needs, meaning don’t wait until we are stressed to ask for help. Lesson learned: communication is key and God always takes care of us. We had several blessings during the dinner without fried chicken!

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