We Can Find Peace in the Tension

Tension is the word of the day. I felt it move through me as I had to tell a child no to an indoor gathering of friends. It side-swipes me in the early morning between sleep and wakefulness. It shouts in Instagram posts and in my inbox. We feel it in the world and in our bodies.

In this tension, it’s important to curate places of peace.

The kind that stills.

The kind that heals.

Peace can drift overhead like a kite and I catch it if the wind is not blowing too hard. With a physical location, I can snatch it and pin it to a seat. Peace becomes real and repeatable.

“Peace is an inside job.” -Wayne Dyer

Peace is an inner job and an outer one. Because what we surround ourselves with, we absorb.

A place of peace is somewhere I meet God through something pleasurable and relaxing. Sometimes there’s scripture or prayer, but usually it’s through something incarnational (God made visible in real life.)

Here are some of my places of peace.

At 6:30 a.m., it’s an office chair paired with Bible and journal.

At 8:00 a.m. it’s a mostly flat running route with lots of shade.

With lunch, it’s my deck with a book or a podcast.

This week it’s the blackberry patch and the zinnias at sunset. It’s making a drive-thru run for shaved ice with a favorite person. It’s a new walking path surrounded by lily pads and forest.

At bedtime, it’s my tub, epsom salts, and a book.

The world is chockful of tension and we can’t escape it. By creating places of peace, we can breathe through the tension. We rest, in the middle of it. We are replenished, in spite of it. Relish your places of peace. Return there often.