Peace 2020

When I started in youth ministry, I started really focusing on advent. We looked at what each focus word meant in our lives and we would discuss ways to live out each focus throughout the week. Since beginning those discussions, advent has become such a meaningful time in my life and I find a sense of renewal each year as I again focus on each word. 

 Peace. That seems to be a struggle in many ways this year. Social justice, politics, stress from the pandemic all contribute to our lack of peace, while making it so much more evident that we need it. When I think of peace through the lens of the world, I am overwhelmed. We have to look at it and we have to strive for it, but what can I as one person do? But, you've probably heard it before. By changing one thing, one person at a time, we will change the world. So, I think a good challenge for this week would be to find ways to do that. What ways can we, by our actions or words, work to bring peace to someone. Can showing kindness and love bring world peace? Will it bring about change for social justice issues, make politics a positive idea, make the pandemic go away? Nope. But, it can make people feel a little better. 

When I think about peace, I don't always think of the big picture of world peace. While that's extremely important, sometimes I have to look within myself. Am I at peace with where I am right now? Almost a year ago, I looked at myself and my answer was no. In January, I decided it was time to take a look at what I was doing and, more importantly, how I was doing.

In general, I'm not great at self-care. I decided 2020 was going to be my year to focus on self- care. I spent the first eight weeks with goals for my self-care journey-starting with one the first week and adding another one every week. Some of them have stuck and others haven't. I haven't had pop since the 2nd week of January. I've been running and have exceeded any ideas I had when I started at about 30 seconds at a time. I do think the idea of self-care 2020 has helped me this year. I can't say how it was changed by the pandemic, but I am guessing the goals would have stuck or not stuck whether or not the pandemic happened. 

In a way, I feel that time has brought me a sense of peace. Some positive changes have been good for me. At a time when I was struggling to get up in the morning, I found some motivation.  My word for the year "ok" meant that it was ok not to be ok... that I needed to still work towards being ok... and that everything doesn't have to be perfect. Giving myself permission for any or all of those things to be true, for my goals to be better achieved on some days than others, gave me a peace in my life. It was ok that I wasn't, that I'm still not always ok. 

If someone had asked me a year ago if I was at peace with some of the rough things I had recently gone through, I probably would have said yes. This summer, some things came up that forced me to relive some of those struggles and made me realize my answer wasn't yes, but rather sometimes I was at peace with them. Through the course of a month or two, I relived some things, took some actions that I felt called to do, and then realized that the outcome wasn't my concern. I had done what I needed to do and my personal peace didn't need to depend on the actions of anyone by myself. That's when I realized I was at peace with that chapter and I could close the book.

So, in this week of focusing on peace, I plan to look for ways to help bring peace to others. I plan to give myself the space to be at peace even if things aren't perfect. And, I plan to continue looking at my relationship with God and others and exploring where I am in them.

So, where was God in this? He helped me, encouraged me through others, and He loved me even when I wasn't ok. \

Blessings,

Jennifer