On Gaining Peace.

Peace

A soft summer breeze under the shade of an old elm,
A babbling brook, a mountain stream,
A golden glow, day’s last gleam.
Storm clouds and winter winds,
Rough seas that surround me,
My sins are forgiven, you have redeemed me.
Your grace is sufficient, and your love
sustains me.


I have been tossed by the wind for years now. Where God wanted me was a mystery—completely unseen. I would cry out, “Call me Lord, call me. Use me. Make me more like you and less and less like the sinful child I am. Make your will clear to me.”
What was I truly asking? I was asking;

Lord, tell me what career to do…where am I called…and
Lord, give me someone to love who will love me in return.

These sound like the right questions, but I am learning that they may not have been the best (and the best I may yet have to learn)—and at the very least, incomplete.

Lately I have come to a peace. I am not anxious about what job I will do for all my life—I realize that in life, God has made me flexible, and that very well could be because my mission in life will require flexibility. I no longer agonize over the closing of another day without clarity for career.

I still pray about it, but I pray a different prayer. I pray that God show me how to live out my mission, how to use my talents, where I am—employed or not. I pray to be grown in the areas needed so that I am equipped in all areas that are necessary in my calling. I thank Him for His all seeing wisdom and loving guidance, and I live—listening.

I am no longer restlessly anxious for the one whom I will love and be loved in return. I am okay being single. I am not incomplete because I am single; any incompleteness within me is due to not being completely open to the transforming of my mind and spirit by God. If I am incomplete, either I am in the process of growing in that area, or I have yet to surrender it God.

I’m also letting go of worrying, obsessively, about how I am perceived by potential suitors. I have realized that when true love finds me, it will only grow deeper through complete knowledge of who I am—good and bad alike. Just as I love Christ, all the more truly as I grow closer to him, so shall be a God given relationship.

So, peace has found me as I’ve begun to ask different questions.
Now I ask for guidance on how to live my mission where I am, when I am there—for equipping to live my best life now.
And, I pray not for one to love—but I pray for help to love not just those whom I long to love, but those whom I’d honestly rather not.

And as long as my heart is full of Him, I will not be empty---even if I continue without a clear career path or a man to love as my own. I pray continually for strength to trust him to sustain me and strengthen me—so I do not live my life on hold--that I don’t fall back into the pit of fear.

Not that I have it all figured out, but I have peace—and now, after weathering the storms and having God guide me through them—I know where to turn when my peace shall break.