Where can I turn for peace? Where is my solace? That sweet song was running through my mind, but then my mind decided to honestly answer.
“I’ll tell you where you can turn for peace. Food, and a good chick flick. In fact, that green chili dip with some chips sounds pretty good right now.”
In case you are wondering. Yes, I did believe my brain, and the chips and dip were delicious. I’m washing them down with a glass of milk as I write this post. Do I feel more peace? Not really, but my stomach is happy.
What do we tend to do when life doesn’t make any sense? Use our senses to drown it out. I guess that solution doesn’t make much sense either.
Really, does anything make any sense right now? If I could send a message back in time to myself just 3 months ago and let myself know to use the money for all of my boy’s spring sports to buy toilet paper and higher speed internet instead? I would have been totally confused.
Do you know what does bring me peace? The fact that my entire life makes no sense at all. Really.
When my parents started their family they were two hippies living a life of “freedom” in a commune. My mom was a drug addict my dad was an alcoholic. My mom was raised in an atheist home. My dad had abandoned the faith his parents adopted when he was a teenager. If an expert was asked to predict their future I don’t they would have been able to come up with a very hopeful story.
What would you have predicted? Divorce, a stint in jail, foster care for their children? They would all be logical predictions. But there is always a wild card. A factor that no one can factor. No scientist, doctor, political leader, no expert of any kind can forecast with accuracy with this component.
Faith. Miracles. God.
Would you predict parents who took their children to church every Sunday and continued to live their faith the other 6 days? Parents who lovingly raised 5 children and adopted 8 more? Parents who were free from addiction (unless you count Diet Coke)?
Even a God fearing person wouldn’t have been able to predict that. How I was raised, who I am today. It doesn’t make any sense. My life is a miracle. I am a product of that factor that can’t be factored.
Why I can feel peace, and so can you.
That is why I can feel peace during an unprecedented time in the history of our lives and the history of the world. When every expert out there is trying to make predictions that send us to a space of fear and worry, just remember. They can’t predict God and what He will do. When their forecasts fail they probably won’t even give Him credit.
All we have to do? Believe and see. See the miracles God is working for you in this very moment. Let that sight expand to your children, your family, your friends, your city, your country, the world.
If you don’t think life makes sense right now just wait until this is all over and God has shown that none can stay His hand. We will stand in awe and experts will sit in wonder. The results won’t make any sense at all. Yet, to those who know their Savior, it will all make complete sense.
If you are feeling burdened you are not alone. As we pour our hearts out to Him the voice of the Lord will come to us in our afflictions saying:
Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage.
And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.
And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon {them} were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord. Mosiah 24:13-15 Book of Mormon
Where can I turn for peace? The song answers that question perfectly.
He, Only One.
