A few years ago, I was asked to speak at an event for our church/school entitled “Advent by Candlelight”, an annual event for women of our parish, most of whom have school aged children. Each year four women are asked to speak on the following topics: Faith, Hope, Love and Peace. I was hoping for “Hope”…..
My husband and I have 2 children. When we had our first child, we had a boy and girl name picked out. We had a boy. Four years later, we had a boy and girl named picked out. We had a boy. As time passed, thoughts of whether we should be having another child passed through from time to time. Sometimes I’d see a sign, literally (of the girl’s name) and wonder….was it’s God’s plan or mine (and my husband’s) to have another child? I wasn’t ready to shut the door to this chapter in my/our life. Not that I wasn’t thrilled to have 2 beautiful boys, I am! I think I’m more blessed than I deserve to be for the children I have. However, decision-making has never been my strong suit for fear that I’m going to “make a mistake” and forever live in regret.
For a myriad of reasons, the thoughts became less and less common and the decision eventually was no longer on the table.
Our “girl name” was “Hope.”
As the years passed, I learned the lesson for me wasn’t to learn so much to make decisions more decisively (although I’m sure many around me would be elated if I did one day learn this skill), rather to be at peace with whatever happens in my life.
When I was asked to speak about “peace”, I found my message from God. Although I had been signing my name in cards, emails, etc as “peace, …..” for quite some time, it wasn’t until I was asked to speak on “peace” that I understood my message, perhaps just to myself or the world, was “a journey towards peace.”
I stood before a crowded grade school auditorium, composed of my friends/peers/and Parish Priests, and began to tell for the first time in public my story of my own journey towards peace. Nervous. Voice quivering. Face flushed. I told my story. A calm soon came over me, and I realized, my story really is anyone’s story. We all have decisions we are uncertain are correct, disappointments in life, people we care too much about and who care too little about us, family/friends who hurt us, goals we don’t achieve, promises unkept, dreams that don’t come true….but the reality is, as trite as it might be, that’s life.
When I think of my belief, of my practice of living a more peaceful life, it isn’t so much to do with a decision I made, rather a continued practice of trying to follow a greater plan.
“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.” Virginia Woolf.
So I try to live life from a place of peace, in accepting life for what it is rather than hoping for a life that may never, and perhaps was never meant to be. It is in that space, that true peace and happiness has come to me.
Peace…..
peaceinthejourney 