peace

First of all I wanted to thank all of you for the incredible outpouring of support you have given me. I can't even tell you how many times I've read over your comments. Each time I do, they give me increased comfort and hope. The stories some of you have shared with me via email have moved me to tears and helped me more than you know. You are all amazing and I promise to send each of you a personal thank you over the next few days.

My emotions are still pretty volatile, but my ability to feel peace seems to be slowly but surely overcoming the intense sadness, anger, frustration and fear that it's mixed in with.

I have always thought that what is comfortable is good--a rather mortal and kind of lazy perception of life. I have always wanted peace to mean the absence of conflict and frustration. I want good days--when my children are laughing and smiling and we are all together--to last forever. Like everyone else, I don't want heartache or worries. I am deathly afraid of trials and would sail to Tarshish to get away from them if I could. I want peace to mean finding a good place in life and then holding on to it for all I'm worth. But I'm learning that that kind of peace, for me, is an impossible illusion. I can't stand in one spot and hope that good things will just fall in my lap--I have to do the moving. To grow is to change. To be righteous is to face choices and conflict. To have a new level of joy, I have to experience a new level of sorrow. Peace is not about the storm that never comes, but the one I've been able to calm within myself.

I have thought a lot over these past few days and weeks that surely, after all I've suffered, peace should just come to me. Why should I have to go searching for it? But slowly I'm realizing that it doesn't matter if all the angels in heaven are bending down to give me a hand if I won't reach up to take hold. And if I won't give the Lord the time he needs to do a miracle in my life. Though it feels right now like the weight of mountains are crushing down on my heart, God can move mountains--all at once if he chooses, but more often than not, He moves them one stone at a time. While the kind of peace I've always wanted was more like a vaccination that I thought I should get a single shot of and assume all will go well, the peace I need now is more like manna in the wilderness. I have to wake up and go out to gather it every day, but it will always be there as abundantly as I need it.

And so even now, as Brad's clothes slowly disappear. As the smell of his shampoo on the pillows fades away. As there is no kiss good bye placed on my sleeping head in the morning, and no voice to listen to before I go to bed. As the realization that he's not coming home sinks in ever deeper and deeper--there is still peace making the hard things a little easier. There is still peace standing mercifully between me and the full force of this blow. And I am so thankful for it.

And that's what I have learned. And that's the power of your prayers at work. And I thank you all again.

Happier posts on the way soon, I promise.