Peace

"And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."  ~Philipians 4:17

The other day, as I drove in my car, feeling hurt and betrayed by some I count as friends, I couldn't stop thinking about peace.  You see, I always had it in my mind that when people mentioned feeling peace about something-especially peace about something hard, unwanted or painful, they meant they had come to the place of feeling OK with it. Happy and carefree almost.

But, quite honestly, I just have not found that kind of peace in trying circumstances.  Some things just aren't OK.  Cancer is not OK.  Depression is not OK.  I could go on and on.  And so I had always concluded that because I couldn't get to that place of 'peace', there must be something wrong with my faith.  I must need to grow more, trust more, have more faith.

As I sat in the car at a red light that day, fighting tears, God spoke to my heart.  I realized that maybe, when Paul talks in the Bible about a peace that is beyond our understanding, it isn't the peace that I imagined it was.  Maybe it was an even deeper peace.  A peace that doesn't demand hurt and brokeness to be ignored, but that could embrace and envelop it.  A peace that acknowledges that things are not the way they are supposed to be-and that hurts.  And it isn't going away.  But even still, even amidst the pain, God is God. 

Peace that makes room for that tension is a peace I can rest in.  I can lose the guilt, feel the hurt and pain, and still know that God is there. He sees it all and meets me in the midst of it. 

And He is bringing redemption...