No one ever told me grief felt so much like fear.
C.S. Lewis penned these words in 1961, and although I am not new to grief, I would concur that widowhood brought a level of fear I have never previously known.
Interestingly, the word the Lord gave me for 2024 was PEACE. Considering the state of my heart and mind at the time, I didn’t have much expectation for the word. Surrender? Sure, okay. Hope? Harder, but possible. Satiate, gratitude and enough? Done, done and done. But peace? The absence of fear, anxiety and internal conflict? For this widow/solo mom? That would take an act of God!
That’s the whole point, isn’t it?
So, I dug in—though not very peacefully at first. It was more like a quest to find Atlantis: digging, searching, studying; yet perfect peace seemed an elusive treasure, always just out of reach.
But God.
Almost imperceptibly, over the last 52 weeks, the peace of God has exponentially grown in my heart and mind. I didn’t even realize it until a few weeks ago.
I was preparing to speak from Luke 2, and I finally saw what the Spirit had been showing me all along. Real peace isn’t a thing to be found or a mindset to be learned or a concept to be mastered. The secret to perfect, abiding peace is right there in the song of the angels, (words I’ve sung—verses I’ve quoted—dozens of times) “Peace on earth; good will toward men.”
But what, exactly, is God’s good will toward us? I found the answer in verse 11, just after the “Fear not.” We call it The Gospel. In the greatest love story of all time, the Creator became the created in order to be slain for the creation. Why? To purchase our peace with God.
And where could this peace be found? It was lying in a feeding trough, swaddled in cloth; the spotless Lamb of God, slain before the foundation of the world.
For unto you is born…a Savior.
And so, in my quest to find peace in 2024, I found a peace that passes all human understanding, because I discovered that perfect peace is a Person, and His name is Jesus. He is the source, and He is with me.
Fear not, fellow valley walkers; our Peace has come. Emmanuel.
Glory to God in the highest, indeed!
“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you…let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
John 14:27