The Promise of Peace

Recently I've encountered different avenues in the world as I'm experiencing it through which to explore grief and loss. It's one thing to feel my own pain, it's another to consider it in the lives of others, and I think we find some mutual grace in sharing the "unshareable (Prov. 14:10 Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy)". Work as a counselor keeps me hashing through some of these things as I consider how to make sense of the world clients are living in, with various forms of loss and suffering attached to the work we'll do together. I've found that I can't "sell" the idea of hope unless I believe in it, and so was deeply encouraged by the following this afternoon, another "category" for hope in my mind and heart:

Feeling some unrest deep within, I prayed, "Lord, may I know it is well with my soul." As that prayer came out, I realized the wording wasn't what it would normally have been. What I'd typically pray is for God to give rest, give a feeling of being well--to reintroduce those feelings I'd lost. But maybe there's a sense in which that rest and wellness come through recognizing what we have, the state that our souls, and with our souls our selves are in: we have the promise of peace, of full protection and security. On the days that serve to melt down our sense of being safe, sense of being well, we can know that this safe place, this safe state before the Lord cannot be rocked, and I feel a little out of my mind to think about how profoundly, unbelievably precious that is for us as we rest in Christ.

Lamentations 3:21-22

21 Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:

22 Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.


1 Peter 1:3-9

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

by Heather Donald