"You cannot find peace by avoiding life." -Virginia Woolf
I am peaceful. For the first time in a really really long time I am at peace. I feel good about where I am in life. I am completely content. Not complacent- content. My life isn't all tied up in a little bow. There are still really hard days, there are super fun days, there are days where I am exhausted, there are days that I catch myself and wonder how I made it this far; but it is my life and I am continuing to live it. And honestly I love it. Every second of Joy, Pain, Laughter, Sorrow, Turmoil, and Peace. I am living it.
For the last nine months I have moved. put one foot in front of the other. moved. breathed. lived. Each day brings it's own set of demands, issues, and battles. Every day I face challenges. Some are easy. Some are difficult. All of them force me to move.
Today I had a conversation about seasons of life. Seasons are a funny thing, there is no distinct beginning or end. You just wake up one morning in September, October, or November and it's bitterly unbearably cold. Sometimes you can feel it coming, but other times you wake up and there it is. No warning and you can't change it, so you bundle up and deal with it. Isn't it like that in life?
I am at a point now where I have purpose and value and I don't live my life out of fear, or anger, or grief. I still deal with them but I don't live out of them. But telling you this is necessary to get to the peace part, so just bear with me.
One morning you wake up and life is the exact opposite of how you left it the day before? The second of February was a bitterly cold and absolutely unbearable day for me. I woke up and my life was forever changed. I struggled. I wandered aimlessly for days and weeks. I didn't know where to go or what to do. I felt like I couldn't move. I feared that if I did move that the tenuous balance I was living in would splinter and shatter into a trillion little pieces and I would surely cease to exist.
There are so many moments that I have carried with me out of this situation that in the midst of despair were small life rafts of hope that lifted me up out of the tumultuous seas just long enough to allow me to catch my breath and keep going.
I remember laying under the piano in the sanctuary at church. I just needed to be close to him. I laid there and cried. I don't know for how long but while I laid there, my safety net started to form. People crawled under that piano with me. They held me while I cried. I was safe. There is my dear friend who came and sat with me on the beach in the silence of my shock for hours. My best friend who offered to get back on a plane after he'd just gotten off one two days before. The people who left their quiet organized perfect lives on the mountain top to come down into the loud busy uncertain messy valley with me. The friends that called, and texted, and wrote notes, and held my hand. The people who held me. The secret plans for people to be here with me, to leave their lives and come and just be here. To show up. People carried me. The love they have for me, their dedication, their hope filled me, and I stayed afloat. Those times were wobbly. And I was so unsure. But I kept moving. But each person played a role (probably unbeknownst to them) of safety. In the days and weeks and months my safety net has been woven.
God didn't leave me there in that despair and anger and hurt. He built an army of people and love around me in the most vulnerable moments of my life. And we have all soldiered on together.
One morning I woke up and it wasn't bitterly cold anymore. I wasn't bitterly cold anymore. Spring began to peek out of the frozen tundra of my life. New life began to form. New friendships began to spring forth. Old friendships were bound more securely with cords of love. Stripped down and bare, it is just me. I could only offer myself. And surprisingly they all took ME in. Some of my most intimate and open relationships have been formed out of my brokenness. It makes me smile, The Lord was close- He is close; He asks his children to be close to one another.
This journey has been one of growth. Isn't every different season like that? Each season leads to some sort of new growth, some sort of lesson, some sort of revelation about who you are. Who you want to be. What you are capable of. What I am capable of.
My safety net. I am beyond thankful. for it. I am here now because of it. People can be so many things and if you'll let them they can show you the greatest love that has ever existed. In that love you are safe. In His love I am safe. Find, build, and strengthen your safety net. You have to have something and lots of someones to catch you when you fall. Open up to people. Let people in. If you get hurt, it means you're alive. And LIFE is meant to be LIVED. Keep moving. Keep living. Peace will find you. It might take some time, but that peace is so worth it.
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