How to Step Into the New Year with Peace

Boxes are piled high here. Shelves sit awkwardly empty.

I can’t move through the garage now that all the contents of the attic have relocated there. I can’t find an extra pillow case when Josh spills his chocolate milk all over the pillow planted at his feet beneath the kitchen table at breakfast time. (And why is there a pillow under the table?)

But more disturbing than that, this morning, for the first time in a long time, I can’t find the peace that has cocooned my heart from the moment God revealed His plans for change in our family’s life in 2014.

I am numb from good-byes and lasts, dizzy from an incalculable number of to-dos and must-remembers. And I want desperately to feel every step of this journey.

I want to savor the I-love-you’s and return the hugs and cast reckless praise to Heaven as we bring to a close an amazing decade of life in our little hometown. I want to speak words of blessing and gratitude to the people whom we’ve loved and cherished, and I want to step boldly into the next chapter of our story with unwavering faith.

But for weeks, I have lain in top bunks quieting tears, and I have answered a thousand whys and what ifs, and today I wake with a whirlwind in my soul, with an unexpected fight for peace on my hands.

I want a blueprint for the new year.  I want to know what lies ahead.

I want assurance that when the boxes are unpacked and my children finally climb into their beds in our new home in our new town in our new state they will feel brave and expectant about the days to come.

Of course, peace isn’t the only thing that’s gone missing around here today. So has the stuffed chicken that Maggie needs for the game of “farmer’s daughters” the girls are playing in the living room on this cold snowy day. I’m pretty sure that chicken is wedged somewhere at the bottom of a brown box sealed shut with strapping tape, but Maggie’s still hopeful that she’s going to find it in the little white toy box that sits in her room.

Maggie dashes to her room to find the pink and yellow chicken, but soon she comes back squawking louder than a rooster at dawn.

“We’ve already packed most of the stuffed animals,” Hannah reminds her shrieking sister as Maggie throws herself onto the floor in a dramatic display of anguish.

 Hannah pats her little sister’s back and says, “We don’t really need a chicken. We can just be vegetable farmers. Why don’t you pretend to collect potatoes from the garden instead of gathering eggs?”

The unruly farmer’s daughter kicks a few of her brother’s green tractors that are parked on the rug and refuses her sister’s new idea. Hannah just wants their game to continue, so she races to her room and emerges with the special stuffed animal she sleeps with each night.

“You can have my Piggie,” big sister proffers. It is a lavish act of love, and I recognize the earnestness in Hannah’s eyes as she works to bring peace to our world that’s spinning wild right now.

Maggie lifts her head and studies the gift in her sister’s outstretched hands. And we all hold our breath in quiet hope.

But after a long silent second, Maggie flops her head backward and re-ignites the annoying howls. “A pig can’t lay eggs!” my four-year-old cries as she slaps at the stuffed animal and refuses the gift she’s been offered. “It’s not the same!”

Hannah shrugs her shoulders and casts me an apologetic glance, and I wave her out of the room to set her free from the exhausting wails. Then I lift my crumpled preschooler off the floor and hold her wordless on my lap for a while. 

The other kids continue with their play and spin a happy tale with baby dolls and tractors and whatever else they can find in the wake of our boxing binge. Maggie’s whimpers finally wane and from the warmth of my arms she watches the fun unfold without her.

Hannah looks up from the baby doll she’s diapering and offers that special stuffed animal to her sister once more.

“C’mon, Mags.You can still be the little farm sister…” Hannah waves the plush pig in the air.  “Only this time, instead of a chicken, you can have a pet pig. Just like Fern in Charlotte’s Web...”

Maggie lifts her head and rests her chin on her hands as she ponders her sister’s proposal. Then, suddenly, she slips off my lap, skips happily to Hannah’s side, and agrees, “Okay! This will be great! I’ll name him Wilbur.”

Our littlest dramatist races down the hall to “build a pen” for her new pink pig, and a cloud of contentedness envelops the room.

Maggie’s laugh echos from the bedroom, and I see it as plain as the white slate of snow outside of my window- —

How peace doesn’t come from getting what we want but from receiving what God offers.

Peace is only lost when we demand our own way.
And it can always be found when we accept His.

 The chicken is still squished somewhere in the bottom of an unidentified box, but the pig in the bedroom must be Some Pig ,because according to Maggie’s excited screams, that plush swine is laying plastic Easter eggs in the middle of her bedroom. (You just never know what a make-believe pig can do if he puts his mind to it!)

Hannah rushes into the bedroom with a straw-hat on her head and a bandanna strung around her neck, and I hear her exclaim in her high-pitched farmer’s-wife voice, “We’re gonna have to re-name this pig, Miracle, ‘cause he surprised us with a whole batch of eggs just in time for breakfast. ”

Then, I look at the words on the pages that lie open on my lap and marvel as I read this perfectly-timed reminder: “You will keep in perfect peace
 those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you,” –Isaiah 26:3

The knot in my stomach begins to unravel, and the peace I’d thought I’d lost slowly seeps back into my re-awakened soul.

And I realize that the fight for peace is really just a fight for faith. 

So, I sit on the couch and laugh right along with my girls in the other room, awed again by the daily miracle of trusting in Him.

 

Joining Lisa-Jo and countless other beautiful writers for Five-Minute Friday  as we write about the word “fight”.

Just real, unedited words from our hearts to yours.