Life That Brings Peace - Revisited

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Into a world of chaos…

Into a world of questions…

Into a world of conflict and dissension…

Into a world like ours…

Came the Life.

Into OUR world…

          Came Peace.

Peace not dependent... (read more)

Counterfeit Peace

Snakefruit (or salak) is rough and scaly on the outside. But if you work through to the inside of a ripe fruit, the flesh has an interesting, tangy taste that admittedly not everyone appreciates. I have discovered, though that snakefruit makes an absolutely delicious substitution for apples in a pie if you cook them slightly first. Like seeking peace in the midst of difficult relationships, the outcome is well worth the effort.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

(Galatians 5:22-23)

May I ask you a question? Yes? OK. Now, please take time to answer it to yourself before reading on.

What characterizes your life when peace is lacking?

Do you have an answer? Most likely, your first thoughts contained words like “frantic, turmoil, tension, fighting, shouting, indigestion”. When we think of a life lacking in peace, we often think in opposites. Things that are so different that there is no doubt peace is lacking.

In this series, we are not looking at the easily recognizable opposites to each of the fruits of the Spirit. We are looking at the counterfeits to the “real deal” spiritual fruit that the world...or Satan...tries to pass off as genuine.

Things I've Learned From My Daughter

Over the seven years I have had so far with my daughter, I have learned so much from her. As I see the world through her eyes, I rediscover a sense of childlike wonder about life. As I find my heart filled with love for her, I understand a bit more about my Heavenly Father's love for me. I have often been challenged to grow in some area of my life.

Life That Brings Peace

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Into a world of chaos…

Into a world of questions…

Into a world of conflict and dissension…

Into a world like ours…

Came the Life.

Into OUR world…

          Came Peace.

Peace not dependent on an absence of chaos

Peace not dependent on an absence of all doubt.

                      Peace not dependent on an absence of conflict

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Into OUR world…

         Came Peace.

Peace that flows like a river

      through canyons of chaos.

Peace that wells up

      in the midst of 

           crevasses of questions.

Peace that blows 

      refreshing breezes

           through corridors of conflict.

This Life brought Peace.

A Peace that upholds us 

          through the uncertainties of life.

A Peace that allows us to stand in the midst of a storm

that would otherwise cause us to bend and break.

A Peace that passes all understanding.

May this Life pour His Peace into your hearts and lives today.

as you open your hearts to Him.

Whoops! I Slipped ... and Caught The Clothesline

It seems that I may be accident-prone. Not quite a month ago, I wrote how my motorbike pulled me off my feet as I pushed it with the motor running to help me go uphill. 

Well, I had another rather embarrassing wipe-out today. Fortunately, nothing was majorly injured thanks to ... a loosely-strung clothesline.

In yesterday's post, I mentioned the team of French women who are spending some time at the children's home. One of the women does a lot of gardening, and is working with the kids to beautify the front of the home with new plants.

One of the kids needed some water before putting the plant in the hole he had just finished digging. In my Croc-shod feet, I quickly headed for the hose. There was only one problem. The cement was wet and a bit muddy from the gardening going on in the area. It was not only wet and muddy, but also a bit soapy because people usually do laundry in that area, scrubbing their clothes on the ground when there is NOT gardening in the works.

My feet slipped out from under me and I instinctively grabbed for anything I could get hold of. As it turns out, the only thing available was the loosely-strung clothes line. This clothesline is actually a double-decker one. The higher line is about eye-level for me.  The lower one is about waist high. 

I tried to grab the lower line with my left hand. I missed, and caught it with my wrist instead. My feet had already gone straight ahead, and the line slowed my fall just enough to "ease" me to the ground. I landed on my right forearm. (Incidentally, I landed in exactly the same place as when Harley pulled me over last month.) The end result was muddy jeans, a bruised left wrist and right elbow, and a few general aches all over. 

Slipping on the cement that was wet ... and muddy ... and soapy could have resulted in a fall that sent me to the emergency room. That easily could have happened without the clothesline. As it was, I did not land on anything with a lot of force. Nothing was broken, only bruised. Most importantly, I did NOT hit my head. The line kept my upper body from hitting the ground at all. I am very thankful for that.


Better Than a Clothesline

I am also thankful that I have something far better than a clothesline to grab onto when unexpected things happen in life that could cause me to fall flat on my face ... or my backside, so to speak. 

I am not talking about wrong choices. I am not talking about sin. I am talking about ordinary things that happen, one after another, that culminate in "the straw that breaks the camel's back". Any multi-tasking mama will know what I am talking about.  I'll give just one example.

You are boiling spaghetti for dinner as you do a quick vacuum of the living room carpet. Your 9-year-old's yoyo string gets tangled in the vacuum cleaner. The phone rings just as the spaghetti starts to boil over. You unthinkingly grab the hot lid of the pan without using a pot holder, and drop it on the floor. You are barely holding it together as you pick up the phone only to find it is a telemarketer - one of your pet peeves. To top it all off, your 4-year-old and your 6-year-old burst into the kitchen, screeching and whining, expecting you to straighten out their squabble.

That would be enough to make anybody crazy. I doubt that very many of us could weather a series of events like that with a June Cleaver smile and a perfectly calm reaction. Most of us, I think, will find our calm shaken by events like these. At least a little bit.

There is good news, though. If we are in the habit of spending regular time with the Prince of Peace, the peace He gives lives inside us. It is a peace we can hold onto when life's pressures build up and threaten to force us into spectacular wipeout.

As we hold onto that Peace we, and those around us, can be protected from the heaviest damage, even if we slip a little bit.

Aren't you glad that the peace Jesus gives is a whole lot stronger than a loosely-strung clothesline?

What has been happening in your life? Have you recently had a series of things go wrong that could have led to a wipeout, but didn't because you held onto the peace Jesus gives? Perhaps you did have a spectacular wipeout, because you didn't have that peace.  Feel free to share your story in the comment section below.

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(By the way, Alan Jackson fans might recognize the title of this post as being an adaptation of his song "Whoops, I Slipped, and Fell in Love" on his Drive album.)

(Clip art from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=SLIp&ex=1# )

When God Gives Us Peas

There is a song that my daughter has heard more often than any other.  I have sung it to her almost every night of her life just before she sleeps.  The song is based on the priestly blessing found in Numbers 6:24-26 (NIV).

Rachel sings "The Lord  Bless You and Keep You"

The Lord bless you
    and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you
    and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you
    and give you peace.

On a humorous note, a couple times, Rachel showed me that she really didn’t “get it” when I sang this song.  Once, she stopped me just after the first line and said, “Mommy, that just doesn’t make any sense.”

“What doesn’t make sense, sweetie?”

“Well, God doesn’t bless us.”

“What do you mean?  Of course He blesses us.  Every day, in lots of ways.”

Rachel was thoughtful for a minute and finally conceded. “OK, maybe when we sneeze, He says, “God bless you!””  You’ve just got to love the way kids think.

But I must say that I found her second misunderstanding even funnier.  Again, she stopped me mid-song, just after the words and give you peace.  She obviously didn’t understand what peace means, because she asked in all seriousness, “Mommy, why does God want to give us peas?”