Chasing Peace

Hear my cry, O God;

Attend to my prayer.

From the end of the earth I will cry to You,

When my heart is overwhelmed;

Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

For You have been a shelter for me,

A strong tower from the enemy.

I will abide in Your tabernacle forever;

I will trust in the shelter of Your wings.

Psalm 61: 1-4

If you have followed along in what I have now affectionately termed "Adventures of a Wholesome College Girl", you know that Nix has had an impressively weird college life. Who gets flooded out of their dorm because a guy down the hall sets fire to his bed with a vape pen? My daughter, that's who. That hasn't even been the half of it. Really, if she were less wholesome I could turn it into a script and sell it to the CW.
This being the first week of classes for the new semester, she was determined to start it off in a much better place. Then life happened. It wasn't anything horrible or even all that dramatic, but it was enough to give her trouble sleeping and the fear that her life was doomed to be one complicated mess after another. 

Last night, I was talking with her, and it dawned on me that what has really happened is that her peace has been taken from her. Peace is one of those wonderful things that is promised to come from living a godly life. Not easy, not simple, not free from pain, but peace in the midst of the bad. We needed to stop looking at it problem by problem, and start looking for time to be at peace. That is when I said one of those things that I can't take credit for. It just came out of my mouth when I needed it to. "Honey, peace isn't going to just happen. You are going to have to chase after it, and grab it. It is there, but you won't finding it mired in the what if's and second guessing." 

To be honest, I almost had to sit down and cry because I realized that I have not been chasing peace either. Here we are letting the mac truck of trouble run us over time and again without bothering to stand up and get out of the road. 

This morning I sat down with the intention of finding a word about peace. Very quickly I was taken to this beautiful psalm. I sent it to Nix right away, and then set to work turning it into a picture to meditate on. 

One of the words that stands out to me is "abide". I wish we still used it. It is so much stronger of a word than something like stay or live. It is a word that reminds me that I can be filled with the Spirit of God at all times, and part of that means being filled with peace. It is a cool deep breath that soothes my soul. I know I am going to have to make a daily effort to chase down peace, but I look forward to the change in me that will bring.

Isn't it funny how ministering to someone else's needs can lead you to the place you didn't realize you needed so badly? God can be really interesting in His methods sometimes. 

The Legend of the Christmas Corn Dog

This was a bit of an unusual Christmas for our family, to say the least. My grandmother, Rixie the 2nd, has been in bad health requiring a few trips to the hospital since October. Thankfully, she is on the mend now, but Christmas was done in shifts this year. Between the hospital visits, my mother, Rixie the 3rd, had a reoccurring sinus infection. It is safe to say that Christmas decorating was the very last thing on the minds of my parents.
When we got into town we had two main missions. For me to restore a touch of normal to the house through cooking and doing laundry, and to get the house decorated for Christmas. I took advantage of my cousins' well timed visit, and got them to help us with the tree. When it came time to add the tree topper, there was an odd addition to the star's box. It looked like a wooden corn dog. We looked at it, scratched our heads for a minute, but went on with the job.
The star had a springy sort of bottom that did not want to balance on top of the tree. As soon as I got it somewhat secured, it would start to lean. It was getting really frustrating, and then a long buried memory came flooding to the front of my brain.

Bring me the Christmas Corn Dog!

Years ago my father had noticed a hole in the top of the tree just the right size to slide a dowel into. He turned a piece of wood to match the size and length of the spring on the star.

It slide right in, and blended in perfectly. I put the star on, where it stood perfectly level and steady all through Christmas.

Leave it to our family to come up with something both confusing and ingenious all at the same time.