Do You Have Peace?  Matthew 5.9

Peace, peacemaking, peacekeeping.  We have talked all around it, but now I must ask you a question:

                  Do you have inner peace?

In all honesty, I can say that for the most part, I have peace~

~in my heart ~in my soul ~in my mind ~and usually in my body.

Yesterday, my peace was tested, so I can say that it is so.  I had a Rudyard Kipling moment … several of them actually!  “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…”¹ For those of you who  have journeyed with me for a while, you will remember my (19-year-old) Dylan’s strange medical maladies and hospital visits.  Twas another. 

A student at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ, he gets around via four small wheels, those of a skateboard.  A number of days ago, he hit a rock, fishtailed and landed on the heel of his hand—his dominant, right hand—and broke it in a couple places.  Surgery was ordered, and I wanted to be with him.  However, it is not an easy or direct trek from Southern California to Flagstaff; it involved a flight, a long drive through some fairly heavy snow the last 20 miles or so, and enduring a long road closure.  Crazy!

At last I arrived to pick him up at his college apartment, and was shocked by how thin he seemed; he did not appreciate my verbal observation, and clearly expressed his displeasure with me.  Kipling: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you; if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too…”  Yes, Rudyard, I feel you.  Making allowance=being patient and gentle in this case.  Meek, like in the Beatitudes, right?

Once he was getting set up in pre-op, things went from bad to worse.  He stepped on the scale, and indeed he had dropped 20 pounds in the last two weeks; at the same instant, both the charge nurse and I heard his thick, persistent cough.  A few more questions were asked, and the nurse carelessly threw out, ‘dang, it sounds like TB to me.’  While I kept my backside on the small bedside chair, the little man inside of me jumped up and said, ‘Wait, what did you say?  Did you say you think he has tuberculosis?!’  But I kept quiet. (Bear in mind we were there for a pretty routine hand surgery, which had suddenly gotten very complicated.) 

Thankfully, Dylan did not know the implications or seriousness of TB at that moment, not until they brought him a thick mask and demanded he keep it on.  With that, he broke out in a nervous sweat, so worried he was not going to be able to get his painful hand repaired, and he started to stand up--the IV came flying out his arm, and blood was spurting all over.  The charge nurse, a large man with many years of experience, freaked out in our tiny cubicle, flailing his arms and saying, ‘Oh no, oh no—the blood!  Oh no…!’  To which Dylan, being an astute student of human behavior, similarly reacted.  The nurse then recused himself from Dylan’s care and brought in another nurse.  Dylan loudly whispered ‘Mom, close the curtain---please, close the curtain!’  Once closed, he collapsed in tears.  ‘How can there be another strange, serious, sickness?  Why always me?  And, Mom, I’m so sorry for costing you all this money!  And mom—my hand—they aren’t going to fix it today—I just know it!’ 

Mind you … as this was going on, I was missing my dear sister’s funeral back in California.  And that hurt my heart, tremendously.

But here’s the thing.  I was still at peace—I knew that God was in control, and that I could trust him for both situations.  I was more than concerned, but I quietly prayed, and texted requests for other loved ones to be praying.  My go-to verse for years contains the words of Jesus, Peace I leave with you.  My peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives give I to you.  Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.³ 

Systematically, they conducted a chest X-ray and blood tests—eventually ruling out TB, and using a block instead of general anesthesia, completed a successful hand surgery³.  Now…was this as serious as a cancer diagnosis? No, as surely that would test anyone’s peace—at least for a time, and on again, off again.  But that said, so many of us operate our lives, daily challenged with anxiety, stress and worry—and those without even major stressors!  

It ought not be so.  Worry is not meant for the Christ-follower. As anxiety is the epidemic of our day, I think of Jeremiah who wrote, 'Peace, peace,' they say, when there is no peace.⁴ But my friends, there is peace—there is peace in Jesus.  He promised it.  And he commanded it.  Do not worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.  Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.  And then check it out: he promises peace.  Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.⁵

Peace ~ ask the Holy Spirit to come … to give it to you, to make its home in you.

^{1 – “If” by Rudyard Kipling, www.davidpbrown.co.uk/poetry/rudyard-kipling.html;  2 – John 14.27;                                                               3 – for the mamas out there, the docs believe Dylan has a severe influenza that is sweeping through the area;  4 – Jeremiah 6.14b;}  5 – Philippians 4.6-7, NLT