The Steadfast Heart

What do you feel when you hear the word peace? If you can picture yourself at a beach watching the waves form, you can hear the sound the ocean makes as the force of the tide rolls into the shore. I love watching the waves crash and then eclipse into salty foam, just as the water calms as it reaches your toes. That’s what I feel when I hear the word peace. It’s almost as if the strongest forces around me slowly start to still like ocean water.

Peace has been somewhat of an anthem for me over the course of the last year. After naming our son Griffin Jeffrey, Jeffrey after my dad, we came to love what the name meant. Jeffrey, in some translations, means “God’s peace.” Little did I know that peace would be the last word I would ever use to describe my son’s personality as he grew from a newborn to a one year old. So often over the last several months, I’ve felt so defeated in my desire for peace.

I bet I admit to not knowing how to parent multiple times a day. Sometimes, I vent that in frustration. Sometimes, I mentally check out when I feel exasperated. But I also find knowing that I don’t know how to fearlessly love my son the way that I want to actually helpful to admit. Sometimes I cry that out to Jesus in a desperate prayer, asking for his peace to transcend everything happening in my little world. Yesterday was one of the days.

My goal for Saturday was to spend my morning deep cleaning the apartment I had neglected all winter. So with rubber gloves on up to my elbows and two different kinds of Dran-O (thanks to my indecisiveness) I had spent way too much time mulling over the night before in an empty Target aisle, I got to work on our sinks. But Griffin.

But Griffin, who was supposed to go down for his morning nap while Hunter was at the gym, refused to sleep. Through his sound machine, my shocked gags at what was coming up from our drains, and my podcast, I could still hear his cries and it nagged me. In frustration, I tried throwing off my extra small rubber gloves that were essentially Spandex on my fingers. After seemingly endless minutes, I had worked up in my mind that I was going to let Griffin have it and hope that I could scare him into a deep sleep. But right as I had my hand on the door handle, peace came.

Instead of acting out of irritation that my whole morning had been a series of stopping and starting the tasks I so badly wanted to check off the three page to-do list, I felt God’s peace. I looked at my son with compassion that surprised me and held him as he rubbed his eyes and put his head on my shoulder. If the rest of my day had turned around because of one simple mindset shift that I honestly cannot take any credit for, then I would have nothing to write about. The moment was over in a matter of minutes, and Griffin was on to fussing about the next thing. For the rest of the day, he continued in his dissatisfaction, moving from one toy to the next..always seeming to want to play with phone cords or pulling clothes out of drawers I had just organized.

On days like this, Hunter and I are practically giddy for bed time. I gave Griffin his bath, for which lasted all of six minutes before he was over it. He tried ripping the pages out of the new Beginner’s Bible we had gotten him for Easter, so I tossed it back on the nightstand not even putting up a fight. He wiggled and squirmed in my arms as I silently started crying from my weariness. I so desperately wanted my one year old to let me hold him while he’s this small. Not a day goes by where I don’t think about how fleeting these moments are, and for me it has so often felt like I won’t have many sweet moments to remember. The kicking and crying and screaming that comes from my son so consistently…and his middle name means God’s peace?

Since birth, I have sung a song that’s been special to my family. Sometimes he cries through it, knowing he’s about to get put in his crib. Or he laughs as he tries to stick his finger up my nose (and often goes too far), or painfully grabs different parts of my face. But last night as I rocked him, he was still and looked at me intently as I sang.

May the Lord, Mighty God
Bless and keep you forever
Grant you peace, perfect peace;
Courage in every endeavor…

To the tune of Edelweiss from the Sound of Music

Even after the last line, he was still tranquil. So I sat on the guest bed next to his crib, in the dimmed room and began to read from the book of John from my phone.

We started in John 14. And there, in the text, as if Jesus knew the exact words we needed that night, it read:

But the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled…

John 14:27, New International Version, YouVersion Bible App

As I read these words, Griffin’s eyes began to get heavy. Somewhere between Chapter 14 and 15, he drifted asleep, as I kept reading aloud through the end of John. And what I found weaved throughout the pages was that Jesus deeply and genuinely wanted peace for the people he loved (John 14:27, 16:33, 20:19, 21, 26). Perfect peace. Peace that doesn’t minimize our hardship, but can overpower it.

I love that words like this turn to verbs when Jesus gets ahold of them. We can embody peace and we can exude joy because Jesus lived a perfect life. It was still full of pain and full of suffering and yet, he was peace. It always amazes me that when I decide to love the way that Jesus loves, peace arises. Perfect peace, peace that I cannot take any credit for and or even fully understand how it happens.

Can I share something with you? Even after such a sweet moment with my son that I thought would certainly last, I still struggle with patience and desiring peace more than I want to control the situations I find myself in. Griffin is so incredibly easy to love when he is happy and for those moments, I am so grateful. In my imperfection, I don’t want my parenting to require extra effort from me.

Unconditional love is really hard. Building character in my life is remarkably challenging because it means I have to fight the ugliness in my own heart and mind. I don’t have this figured out, but what I do know is this: Jesus wants peace for our lives. He makes that so evidently clear. I find it so amazing that he spent his life on earth ensuring we could have that.

Do you believe that about him? Do you believe that a person who lived 2,000 years ago thought about you by name and desired a steadfast heart for you? I love that Thomas, his follower, had so many realistic questions for Jesus and pushed past the fear of not knowing it all in order to ask him. I have no doubt that it would have been so much easier for Thomas to internalize his hesitations about Jesus. He could’ve nodded in agreement with the other followers and put on a facade, but I love this part:

Do you want to know the first thing Jesus said to Thomas? That he wanted peace to be with him. Jesus didn’t want Thomas to feel alone with his uncertainty, he wanted Thomas to have a steadfast mind–peace!

I believe that Thomas would come to know in his heart that Jesus had a love for him that was unconditional, that his presence brought a peace that transcended all human comprehension, that Jesus too had a deep desire for truth in a confusing world, and that his questions could not possibly deter Jesus from looking at Thomas any differently. And that freed Thomas to ask Jesus whatever he wanted to ask him, just like it frees you and it frees me to have a relationship with him like that.

Maybe you’re like me or you’re like Thomas. Maybe you have no idea how to go about a certain relationship in your life or maybe you’re unsettled by decisions you have to make or maybe you are just really, really tired with your every day, ordinary life. I hope you feel safe admitting those things. Isn’t there something freeing about expressing that? And I am praying that even if you may not know what you wish you could know right now, you’ll sense perfect peace. I hope you continue to ask your questions with me as we learn how to live out of a steadfast, peaceful heart.

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

John 16:33, NIV

Like the ocean tide stretching to the sandy shore,
may you experience His peace reaching for you.

Take care & take heart,
Natalie