Peace

How is it that the season we claim should bring such peace seems some years to deliver instead exhaustion and unrest? This year in particular I find myself checking the calendar for "the next thing," and looking ahead to my husband's time off from work with more than the usual enthusiasm. Anyone else hoping for a blizzard?

Growing up in Iowa, I well recall the hopeful huddling by the radio on frosty, blustering mornings, waiting for THE LIST of school closings, hoping beyond hope that ours would be there.  Iowans don't shut down for the average winter storm, people. Some years, however, it happened--that awesome, exciting moment when our school was mentioned on THE LIST. Unbelievable relief and joy flooded our faces and minds. Snow day! Who could have believed it?! Today was THE day!

We stayed in our pajamas, shut down all the vents upstairs and brought our sleeping bags and mattresses down to the living room near the wood burning stove.  We played games and ate snacks. We read books and listened to records. We built forts and wrestled. Boredom eventually drove us into our snowsuits and out into the cold to go sledding. Or even shoveling the driveway. Again. If the power stayed on we watched a movie or cartoons.

The whole world around us seemed to melt into whiteness. It was just us in our little town, venturing out to our nearest neighbors, making homemade ice cream with the new snow.  For just a little while, no cars sauntered by, no telephones rang.  Peace.

Peace.

The sound of snow falling on sandbox hills.

Peace.

This year in particular, while finding such beauty in the lights and music, I look inside and wonder--where is that peace? Will a cleared calendar really produce peace? Will my husband home for 10 days (whoohoo!) really create peace? (well, it won't hurt, folks!). Will finally getting the last present bought and wrapped in time bring about that perfect inner peace?

Hate to break it to you...or maybe you've been holding your tongue waiting to tell me...it won't. None of it will.

This is one of those questions already answered. Jesus is my peace. He Himself is our peace (Ephesians 2:14).  The lyrics below came to me swiftly earlier this month after a Christmas dinner with friends. Someone mentioned the verse just quoted, and all the way home the words turned in my mind like some brightly colored ornament. "He Himself is our peace."

Peace

He Himself is our peace

He Himself is our peace

Though wind and wave increase,

Jesus is our peace

On a cross upon a hill

Hammers rang and hearts were still

Christ overcame Death’s dark will

Now He is our peace.

Won’t you come and join us now

Low in great cathedrals bow,

Or in forest, field or town—

He is still our peace

He Himself is our peace

He Himself is our peace

Though wind and wave increase,

Jesus is our peace

Fiery trial or crushing pain

Sharp temptation, thorny way

Through each loss or failure, say,

“Jesus is my peace!”

Christ alone will see you through

All His words are grace and truth

Faithful Shepherd, Savior, too,

He will be your peace.

He Himself is our peace

He Himself is our peace

Someday all storms shall cease

Jesus is our peace

Someday all storms shall cease

And all will be at peace.

Whatever your schedule looks like this December, I pray that, together, we will look into history to a baby and a manger, a cross and an empty tomb, and then into the future, when there will be no end to His Kingdom. And He shall reign forevermore. In Peace.