Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.
I do not give as the world gives.
Do not let your hearts be troubled.
Do not be afraid.
John 14:27
I had that dream again last night about the overflowing commode. Maybe you're familiar with this one, the– ahem–porcelain throne is backing up into the room and you're trying everything you can to stop it to no avail. Wastewater just keeps flowing all around you and nothing you try is working! Actually, this happened to me once in real life while hosting a whole lot of toddlers in my home for a playdate. I still smile when I remember the sweetest, gentlest mom coming to me and saying to me quietly, "We have a little problem inside." Indeed we did! A streaming flood from one room to another kind of little problem! Five wet towels and three giggling moms later and the problem was easily resolved!
Well, that was no tiptoe through the tulips into my dreamland, was it? Some people are given prophetic visions and even dancing sugarplums in their dreams. Not me, not lately anyway. But no judgments and no shame here, I hope. Some of us (okay, maybe just me) push bothersome issues down until they get to an eruption level, and then have to take certain measures to deal with them once they've finally reached the five towel stage, so to speak. It's the measure I've been taking that had me realizing I've been going about things all wrong. And maybe that's the message of the dream after all. God does work in mysterious ways, after all.
That commode dream made me think of a lot of things that threaten to bubble up and over in people's lives. I admit it and I've been called it– I'm a little tightly wound. I am a "burden bearer" and a stressed-out ball of nerves at times. I have a really difficult time expressing my needs, my feelings, and how I need help. I particularly have a difficult time letting go of these burdens and placing them into the hands of one very capable God. I've always said, "It's just how I'm wired." But it's not really how I'm wired. God didn't wire me for stress and anxiety. He didn't mean for me to live my life in an anxious state, waiting for the next shoe to drop.
How we act and interact with people is all intertwined. When we aren't kind to ourselves, we can have a more difficult time extending love and kindness to others as well. When we aren’t acting in love, it can even become hard to return the love the Lord has for us. He wants our love, obedience, and our faith, and for nothing to stand in its way. Micah 6:8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
When we are in Christ, God sees the righteousness of His Son in us. Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are character traits produced in me because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in me. But my kneejerk responses to stress can become a stumbling block for my peace, my joy and my ability to live in what God has given me, and that is a hard place to stand strong. I can also become a stumbling block for others who desire to remain strong in their own fruit of the Spirit traits. Romans 14:13 Therefore, let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. Not only do I not want to make my own life harder than it needs to be, but I want to be available and peaceful for those who may need the really soft and good side of me or just want to enjoy my presence. Romans 14:19 Let us therefore make effort to do what leads to peace and mutual edification. Yes, my lousy way of handling stress and my attitude of frustrations can certainly rub off on unsuspecting people. I don't want that for me or for them.
Isaiah 41:10 So do not fear, for I am with you," do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. In conclusion, What I've been doing is focusing on the problem instead of God, trying to fix it in my own strength, and sometimes it leads to desperation (stress) because my solutions are often based on how I feel at the time. In a sentence, I do things my way instead of God's and boom–overflow alert! By the way, stressed out me is not anyone I enjoy, and I'm often regretful of how I act when under a great deal of stress. Sigh. Ugh, and more sighs. Sometimes I tire of needing grace as much as I do extending it. This is why God gives us new grace every day. Exodus 16:4 Then the LORD said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. This is our daily bread. It's what we need to get through one day. We will need new bread/grace for tomorrow. We can't give away what we don't have.
What was that old saying I used to see all the time when I used to be active on social media years ago...."Be kind...you never know what someone is going through." When is the last time anyone asked us what is going on in our lives before they just started ghosting us, treating us differently, or just decided we weren't worth their time anymore? I'm not trying to call anyone out in particular, but I do see this happening. People just kind of back away slowly from us until one day they're no longer a presence in our lives, and we're no longer in theirs. We're all guilty of kind of giving up on people when they get a little difficult. We put a lot of distance between us and them because suddenly they are "toxic" and we just can't be around them. Oh no...wait...we are the toxic one? This is valid in many situations, for sure. Boundaries are certainly necessary for people, and even Jesus had to separate Himself from time to time and tells us to do the same. Luke 5:16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. The thing about boundaries is that they aren't to control or keep people away. They are to protect us and keep our own behavior in check.
Another popular social media standby–"Be kind. We're all fighting battles no one knows anything about." This is so true, yet we seem to forget it when someone is nasty to us in some way. I know I am guilty of this. Compassion and understanding is not always my first reaction when someone starts treating me differently. Proverbs 15:1 A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. I do believe that most people try to show us what they need, but not always in the most healthy ways. I'll admit I carry around a lot of pain—some of it is from dealing with chronic illness. When things come at me, that pain only gets worse. It's like a vicious cycle of trying to balance my body's response to things on the outside I can't control. I really have to work at giving my physical and mental pain over to the Lord and it's not easy.
When I was first diagnosed, the pain was so intense and chronic, I could barely stand for more than an hour. Making dinner was an excruciating task. When my family would be in the kitchen goofing around and just doing normal things, I would get so snappy and short with them. They weren't doing anything wrong, but my pain was making it impossible for me to function in both the task at hand and the noise. There are a lot of people in all kinds of pain. Some we see, and some we can't. I may look put together and smiling, and I'm better at hiding it than at the beginning, but some days I want to snap. I imagine I'm not alone out there. Ephesians 4:32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. We are all in some sort of healing stage, and it's best that we add to the healing of others, not blame or shame them for the pain they carry, or make unnecessary assumptions or comments. A prayer or a hug is a really good medicine when you don't know what to say. <3
God loves us unconditionally. Psalm 139:1-2 O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar. God loves our messy and imperfect sometimes unpredictable selves in a very troubled world. He loves us because He made us and knows us. John 16:33 "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." I've been a buffet of things over the years, but I've learned and continue to grow into the loving human God sees. My desire is to find and live out the purpose God planted in me. Healing must and will come. Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
The reasons I struggle with certain things are within me, but I've learned my thoughts and coping ways aren't exactly reliable. How I see myself and how God knows me are vastly different views. For one, my perception is my reality, and how I perceive myself tends to be a lot less valued of a person than how God perceives me. We are not the sum of our circumstances, for one. We are not the things that have happened to us or the things people have said to us. This applies to all of us. Think about this: How you perceive yourself and how God knows you are probably vastly different. Isaiah 43:4 Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you and people in exchange for you life. How God sees our problems and how we see our problems is not quite the same, because He is our burden bearer. We are precious in His sight. All He wants is for us to trust Him with the things in our lives that He already has handled. When we are stressing, it means we aren't trusting God with the details or the outcome. We can lay our burdens down, leave them there, and trust God to handle them. Psalm 68:19 Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens. Daily!
When we know we are loved by God, we can start to see others with that same love. "Grace is the face that love wears when it meets imperfection." -Unknown
That’s exactly what God does when He looks at us. He doesn't see a big old bag of issues and hang-ups. He sees the child He created and purposed for great things and He sees us hurting and in need of grace. 2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. When we love one another, we give each other grace. We don't add more pain to it. We extend that simple gift of human kindness that puts someone else ahead of ourselves. It requires the humility that Jesus reflects. When we are humble, we are able to see God's view of others–their great worth to Him as well as ours.
We have to be careful not to make assumptions when looking around at others and instead look at them as people who need our understanding and compassion too. Assumptions are unfair limits that only keep people from knowing the best parts of our hearts. "Be kind. Everyone is fighting a battle we know nothing about." Right? We've all either been or met the person that just seems to need a little more love and understanding. We don't need to know why. Some people have been through things we may never know about or understand and it's not our business to get a detailed report on why people act the way they do. It's just our job to love them. Matthew 22:39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' I am so grateful for the people who stayed in my life throughout all of my mistakes and growth and saw my heart hanging there on my sleeve and said, "that is too special to pass up!" and didn't leave! Thank you, God. While I may have previously tripped on judgments and approval and parked on disappointment and rejection, He saw that I was good right away. 1 Samuel 16:7 But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
God gave us more than just a trite saying on social media to make us think and act right. He commanded us to love one another. To extend compassion toward each other. To not sit and assume the worst of someone before we even ask a question of them or get to know them properly. 1 Peter 1:22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. As humans, we can become like an outhouse to other people when we constantly overflow with negativity or consume them with smelly rhetoric or opinions, jealousy, and a whole bunch of other human yuck we do. It's so easy to just write people off and not engage with difficult people when the world is hard enough, right? But Jesus didn't give up on us when we were a bunch of dirty, messy people. He laid down His life for us. Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That is how He loves us deeply from His heart.
When we get quiet and we realize that this world is so much more than being right, being powerful, having a lot of this or that, or even doing all the things, we just might finally find what it is we are looking for that really fills the void. It seems pretty simple, but it's always going to be the same thing with me. For me, It's God and it's love–having it and giving it. I do think that is the path to peace. We don't have to agree on everything. We don't have to look the same, vote the same, live the same way, or even believe the same way. (I am a semi-good wife, sorta good mom and now mom-in-law, animal lover, non-partisan moderate voter, forest dweller, chronic illness hater, collector of hearts, Christ follower, shameless introvert, hot-flash expert, Skip-Bo nerd, and I'm so very flawed!) We may have not one thing in common and that's okay! But love is what binds us together because we are here on this earth, created by God, with a purpose, at this appointed time and what He means for us to have is relationship with Him and each other.
Romans 12:18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. May we also be at peace within ourselves.
Blessings!
