Peace?

Caught up in the busyness of the morning, I had forgotten about last Friday.  That is, until the radio jarred my memory on our drive to school.  Arriving home the awful tragedy was there again all over the internet.  Funerals for six-year-olds. Grieving parents.  Questions as to why.

And I wept and prayed.  For the children.  And their families.  And the brokenness of it all.  But to be honest, I also cried because it could have been one of my friends who teach, or my students, or even me or my children.

Christmas is just over a week away.  This season of the year supposedly marked by “peace on Earth and goodwill toward men,” seems so horribly marred by bloodshed and violence.  Our world is terribly broken, and that by our own doing.

And as a mother, I want to do everything possible to protect and shield my children from an unsafe world.  And at the same time, I know how utterly impossible that is.

Yet these words echo in my mind…

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:27

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:21

Even as violence rocks our world and hope seems far from us, we must not allow evil to warp our hearts nor cause us to live in fear.  Let us instead shine as lights in the darkness.  Jesus went about doing good and healing all.  Jesus gives us His peace which does not fade in spite of the turmoil around us.  In the face of darkness, we must love as He loved, preach as He preached, heal as he healed, and pray as He prayed for God’s kingdom to come here on Earth.  We must be the hands and feet of Jesus to the people of a hurting and broken world.  Let us not only proclaim to be Christians by our words, but let our everyday lives impart the story of who Christ is by our actions.

Please do not interpret my words as a promise for safety or as a trite promise to bring world peace.  Quite the contrary, Jesus was betrayed by one of his own and crucified.  Many of the early followers of Christ were martyred and still more are martyred today.  We live in the tension between a fallen world where God’s redemption breaks through--yet not in its fullness. 

When I dropped my children off at school this morning, I prayed for them as I do every morning, even as my heart aches in sending them out into this world.  That they would learn more about God and the world that He made.  That they would know in their hearts how much He loves them.  And that their friends would see the love of Jesus in their words and in their actions.  

He is the only peace and hope that we can cling to.