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| 'Prayer for Peace' by Valerie Hart |
This phrase has been repeating in my mind all day. Today, I don't feel peace. This whole year has not felt peaceful. And sometimes I wonder if full peace is possible.
There is a song I heard yesterday for the first time that declared "there is no peace in quiet." It's a song about missing someone and how silence reminds you of absence.
Yesterday, a dear elderly man at my church passed away. A person with a ready smile, supportive word, and sweet humor. He touched so many lives. Our status as a church for the misfits of society comes much from the hospitality and love that oozed from this man and his wife.
People loved him. Because he loved them, and they felt that. We saw Jesus in him and his ways. He was a quiet, lovely person. Peaceful in manner and deed.
His legacy reminds me of a passage in Romans 12 about being a living sacrifice:
Love should be shown without pretending. Love each other like the members of your family. Be the best at showing honor to each other. Don't hesitate to be enthusiastic -- be on fire in the Spirit as you serve the Lord! Contribute to the needs of God's people, and welcome strangers into your home. Be happy with those who are happy and cry with those who are crying. Consider as everyone as equal, and don't think that you're better than anyone else. Instead, associate with people who have no status. If possible, to the best of your ability, live at peace with all people. Don't be defeated by evil, but defeat evil with good.
Maybe peace on Earth so far as the whole world standing side by side in harmony isn't possible. Maybe it won't happen. But that doesn't mean I will stop, so far as it depends on me, living peaceably. I am a peacemaker. I am helping to raise up a generation of peacemakers. I go forward in peace because peacemaking is part of my identity in Christ.
If I have anything to do with it, there will be peace.
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