I awoke startled to the sound of a piercing scream. Did someone break into our house? Was someone seriously injured and I was about to rush them to the emergency room? Nope. My two-year-old daughter has taken to this terrifying, piercing scream when my six-year-old rips a toy right from her hand yet again.
I love my children. They are both good kids with kind hearts, and I do truly believe that they will grow up to be good, respectable people. Right now they can be whiney, argumentative, ungrateful and selfish. We all can behave badly.
The past few years have been tough for everyone. Having little kids is tough and I’m sure that being a little kid in the world right now isn’t the easiest either. When I read these words in this Bible verse the other day, it felt like cold water on a hot day. These words made me feel light and refreshed in constrast with the screaming and arguing between my two children. Jesus gives us the gift of peace in our minds and hearts.
Oftentimes I forget that we aren’t meant to deal with our struggles, difficult children or anything else on our own. I am lucky to have great friends and family who I can talk to about things, and my husband is a great support system at home with the parenting struggles that we share. I have a great therapist who I can talk to and problem solve issues with too.
I forget my greatest resource. The One who created this world and all of the people who live in it. The One who created me and my children and has the resources to open up the keys to parenting my specific children. Do you forget to share your struggles with Jesus sometimes too? If you’re like me, you might just keep pushing and striving to do your best, and you forget to bring your struggles to Jesus, who can actually give us the relief and peace and calm that we need. Jesus is the answer. He is always the answer.
I could use the gift of peace of mind and heart. I could use the kind of peace that the world cannot give me. Are you like me and you try to self-help your way through life or strive to find your own path to peace? I do. Jesus has something stronger and everlasting. The peace we find in Jesus is the kind that everyone is striving for because it has nothing to do with what we can do. Jesus’ peace is entirely about Him and about what He did on the cross.
I am very, very imperfect, but Jesus has always been and will always remain perfect as the Son of God. Because of His perfection, Jesus could die for us and take on our sins on the cross. He can declare us forgiven and pure, not because of anything that we do, but because He accomplished everything. This also applies to the happiness, joy, calm, success or peace that people in the world are searching and striving for.
God’s peace is a gift to us. Meaning, you can’t earn it. You don’t earn it. It’s a gift. Why would he do this? Because He loves us and Jesus was the only one who could die to save us. We couldn’t save ourselves. Jesus was like the greatest hero in an epic apocalyptic, end of the world action movie. As a result of His epic superhero actions, we can rest in the peace of the gift that He gives us. And we also don’t have to be troubled or afraid.
I will be honest. 2020 and 2021, I had moments where I was greatly troubled and afraid for my life and the lives of my family and friends. So many things going on around me in Minneapolis and in the United States and the earth in general are unprecedented and scary at times. But guess what? Who is always the answer? Jesus. Who is always the superhero who makes everything ok in the end? Jesus. Sometimes everything around us doesn’t make sense. He never said that everything always had to make sense. Sometimes we are surrounded by brokenness, sickness, death, and pain and it doesn’t seem like anything can fix it or make it better. It feels hopeless. I’m just a person. I don’t know the answers to all of the problems in the world. I do know that Jesus is King above all of the problems in this world and that I can trust in Him and put my hope in Him.