Peace of My Mind

This weekend we headed to the mountains. For the girls and I, it was an escape. For KP, I fear just more travel.

Which has me thinking about the new direction of our lives. The two of us, the founding members of this family, will have to see the give and take we attempt to balance now rise to a new level. There will be times I just want to get out of the house when all he wants to do is stay home. Our idea of a break may take on different meanings.

One thing I’m working to do in this new life is to be proactive in the way I will handle the inevitable differences. In a recent look at peace, I pondered the difference between the peace that stems from faith versus peace the world brings.

Our culture sells peace to us in many ways. Just turn on the television or open a magazine. If you take this trip, drink this beer, listen to this music, you will be able to escape from it all. But these escapes are temporary. We yearn for a private stretch of beach, a break from it all. If only we had a quiet night, some sort of retreat from normal life.

But then we come back to reality and nothing has changed. The temporary peace is gone, and often the little nagging issues seem magnified. We are never satisfied.

Enter true peace. This type of peace is eternal. We can take it with us from the grocery store to the beach and back. It is there from home to the road, from the road back home. And all the way to our eternal home.

This seems easy enough, but how do I gain that peace? When the kids need one more thing before I can sit down and join them for dinner, when that person cuts me off in the car, when I haven’t seen Kevin in days, how then? The answer is Jesus.

(By the way, here’s a little hint the high school girls at church gave me – the answer is always Jesus).

Expanded, the answer means that we can’t find that peace alone. We can try, but think of it this way; you’re on a journey, you’ve packed the essential necessities, you’re making good time. Then you reach a river and there’s no way across. It’s deep and rough. Yeah, okay, you get it. Jesus is the bridge! I know, pretty amazing.

But nothing is that easy. We do have to start the journey. And don't forget about the essentials. They include the good book, regular chats with its author, time to rest both our bodies and souls, and an often overlooked attribute: thankfulness. If I stop for one moment and think about all I have, the blessings in my life, everything takes on new meaning. A grateful heart foster peace.

For this week, I'll attempt to start there - to be grateful wherever I am.

If I'd known you weren't coming to dinner...

I definitely wouldn't have made this enormous roast.
The past couple of months have been a state of limbo. Our paterfamilias, KP, took a new job as a consultant - a traveling consultant. Waiting for his first commission, KP geared up for this new fragmented life. We waited for the news of his first assignment. It came, and it was local. The luck of the draw! We began adjusting to life with KP at home. Not just home. Working from home.
Then start of this week, I'm minding my own business, running errands while the kids are in preschool, and my beloved phones. "I got a new assignment," he says. "I fly tonight."
All I can think is, what about the roast in the Crockpot? Who's going to eat all that meat?
He packs, he leaves, and I'm setting a table for three. Our girls, aged 3 and 1, are mostly oblivious to the change. But I feel like I've experienced whiplash of the heart. I instantly miss my husband with an intensity I didn't see coming. Probably because when I said my prayers Monday morning they didn't include asking that he have a safe flight before we even sat down to dinner.
Five years ago, I could not have imagined this life. I had just returned from a mission trip halfway around the world. I had a promising career. I was the adventurer, the dreamer, the doer. Then AP came along, and turned my world upside down. I looked into that sweet little face, and gave my heart away. I knew in my bones that my place was with her. Meanwhile, KP's career took off. Now here we are.

I keep imagining KP as a modern-day explorer. Which leaves me as the wife pacing the widow’s walk, waiting for some sign of his ship on the horizon. I didn't see myself as the one to stay behind, tending the hearth, children tugging on my apron strings while I cook dinner. Yet somehow in that imagery, the roast I put on Monday morning fits.
You never know where you’re going to be sent. As I learned in my Bible study yesterday morning, God calls each one of us to an extraordinary life. But, like David the shepherd before us, that doesn’t mean we leave the field we’re in. David was anointed to be king, yet his trade was tending sheep. He didn’t leave that call until it was time. The time in the field is what prepared him for everything to come.

I am now the person by the hearth. I am the rock in my family's lives. I know my new role is to keep a light on for them. To do my best to keep it lit so they can always find their way home.
This is my adventure.