Know Peace

Bringing comfort to someone you love who is suffering, is never easy.

There are never adequate words and easily too many cliches and rote phrases that might be better left unspoken.

Often, these catch phrases fall flat on the ears of the wounded. What can we really say that makes any difference in the midst of searing heartache?

Rarely do we need to “say” anything. A hug, a squeeze of the hand, a knowing glance or sitting together in silence is sometimes all that is needed at the time.

However, with regard to words, there is a comforting scripture that I have clung to...not because of the words themselves but because of their ability to validate unexplainable peace.

My own paraphrase of the passage from Philippians 4:7 is where I turn. Why?

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When I am in pain, rarely am I at peace... at least not in the beginning.

What I have discovered over the years amidst disasters, heartbreak and tragedy of my own, is that at some point during my suffering, I sense peace. I feel it, and I haven’t always known why.

An unexplainable, seemingly untimely flood of calm has ushered me into a “peace that surpasses all mystery and knowledge.”

I don’t know exactly when I grasped the meaning; however, once I did, it made sense, and I have reached for those words time and again for myself and my friends...actually, to say that “I reached” for it would not be true...it reached for me.

This is a supernatural peace...one that cannot be understood by the human mind and can only be provided by the Spirit and the Prince of Peace Himself.

The full spectrum of Peace was birthed, literally, in a baby born to a virgin mother. He was offered as covenant and the physical embodiment of peace and love itself.

For myself and for those who ache for comfort, I will pray that we be enveloped in this mysterious peace, the kind that surpasses human understanding and does not require our minds to grasp.

However, because we are spiritual beings, created in the image of God, we have been given the gift of the merciful ability to feel it.

No explanation needed.

God knew we could never find true peace in ourselves or in this world. There is too much pain here.

However, because of his great mercy, wisdom, and love for us, He sent the very Prince of Peace himself to reign in our hearts and minds and provide us with the only one, true, everlasting Peace of Christ.

When we give in to the mysterious ways of God, it is there that we find comfort and rest... and the one peace that surpasses all.

To you, I offer His Peace and pray that it would flood your being in times of joy and sorrow.