"Peace I leave with you" is a real thing

Peace I leave with you,

My Peace I give unto you,

Not as the world giveth

Give I unto you.

Let not your heart be troubled,

Neither let it be afraid.

(The bible, somewhere!) (I know where it is really).

I think we might all agree it has been a tricky, teeth gritting, set your stance and see it through kind of 45 years.

It’s been bumpy, it’s been joyful and less joyful in equal measure.

We’ve had people tell us our qualities and our faults in equal measure too.

We’ve had people blame us for things which were not our fault.

We’ve blamed ourselves for things which perhaps others didn’t even know about.

We’ve conquered and we’ve messed up in equal measure. 

Nearly always for me, within the last 28 years, there has been an undercurrent of Peace in these daily occurrences.

Not a flim flam, wishy washy wishful thinking kind of peace.

Not an explainable kind of peace.

Just, a peace.

Even in the roaring, tiger parenting moments.

Even in the “oh crumbs, this is serious!” moments.

Even in the countless moments of laughing so hard with friends that we see stars (really! I really laughed so hard I saw stars! How beautiful is that!)

Even in the wee small hours the peacefulness co-exists with the worry, companioning the joys and the sorrows.

An eternal kind of peace, a firm hope and belief it’ll work out somehow, that these awesome moments with friends are moments of awe. 

On paper, life for most folks would read like a total wreck.

But it’s oh so much more than that.

If we can acknowledge the difficult bits and deal with them, but embrace the amazing things in our life, and be thankful for small mercies, and maintain hope when there appears to be no way through, and never surrender to the darkness your attitude of gratitude, and rise each time we think we cannot get up again, and when we find ourselves back on our feet we feel that our soul is smiling, that, my friend, is a beautiful life.

 

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