Victorious peace!

Listen here:  https://www.pastorwoman.net/podcast/episode/e34e97bd/victorious-pea...

From making sense of life¹, emerged the good and right motivation to be an overcomer, rather than just a survivor …

  whether in the throes of a difficult divorce,

    serious prolonged illness 

         parental heartache ...  

haunting loneliness.

Many years ago, during a time of prolonged heartache and stress, I looked over at my two young children and thought, I cannot sleepwalk through this time - they will never be any cuter! I came up with the mantra not somehow, but victoriously.  Because really, who wants to just eke out an existence, when soaring is possible, in spite of what goes on about us?  

Kipling whets our minds with possibilities ~ 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: if you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
or being hated don't give way to hating,
and yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise² . . . Yet as beautiful as it is, in the final result, it leaves us with ‘the Earth and everything that's in it, and---more---you'll be a Man, my son!’  The poetry promises maturity and all the world’s gain … but I say, ‘where is peace, O Man!  Where is inner victory in the midst of the storm?

Long about the time my prayers netted me not somehow but victoriously, my goal for daily living, also came its companion ~ the precious words of my Savior, “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 These words, the gift spoken to his beloved disciples on that same Passover night we have recently visited. This after he had washed their feet, and then walked from Jerusalem on his way to the Garden, Jesus stopped for an object lesson.

Perhaps He grabbed ahold of a grapevine, clutched a cluster of grapes, or pointed to the branches as he said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser… Abide in Me, and I in you.  If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.”⁴

Abiding in Jesus comes naturally to me in desperate times--I hope it does you as well.  In your relationship with Jesus Christ, when you abide in him, he also abides in you!  So look for him!  See, Brent, when you run to Jesus, as his beloved child, and you cry out your need to him, he is there—he is closer than a breath away.  He dwells in you, child of God.  Remember what Jesus had just told the disciples in the Upper Room--that when the Holy Spirit came—he would be ‘with them and in them’?⁵  The Holy Spirit has come!  As a follower of Jesus Christ, he is with you and is in you.  And he is also at work all around you.  Look for him.  

Sometimes it is Jesus who comes through a word of inspiration spoken,

which seems to be salve for your wounds;

sometimes he comes through the kindness of another;

sometimes he comes through answered prayer . . .

but always, he is there.  

In your time of need, in a time of great stress or pain, run to him… abide in him, and look for him at work around you, as he is with you, my dear friend.  And ultimately, Jesus will set all things straight.

My God Can, listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQATwkAklYw

In Jesus - peace,

Christine

**the picture above is a peek around the flowers at the Sea of Galilee

^{1 – Making sense of Life ~} https://www.pastorwoman.net/post/how-to-make-sense-of-life

^{2 – Rudyard Kipling, IF, first stanza}

^{3 – John 14.27, NIV}

^{4 – John  15.1, 4, 7, NKJV}

^{5 – John 14.17}