Eleven and a half years

I have begun to think that I do not understand the difference between joy, peace and happiness.

So, I decided to look up the definitions.

Might I just say right now...I would give ANYTHING for a good old Noah Websters Dictionary!

"It is reported that Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary contains the greatest number of Biblical definitions given in any reference volume. Webster considered "education useless without the Bible". "

For you see, that is what I am looking for, definitions to these things which elude me, based on the Word of God. Oh...I looked them up, but online dictionaries are just as watered down and convoluted as everything else now. No wonder no one can find true peace. No one knows what the heck it means anymore!

What happened to absolutes? Can someone please tell me? What happened to right and wrong and black and white and good and bad...and when did all of the gray move into the very definition of the words to the things which are most important in our lives? Joy, peace, happiness, morality, right, wrong, good, bad....family.

We have lived here, in our little town, in the same house,for eleven and a half years now. We moved a LOT before we came here. From the time of my birth I had never lived in one house for more than 21 months before coming here when I was 32.

During the eleven and a half years that we have lived here I have always said that this is the only place where I have ever had peace in my life.

Then, this morning, while sitting in the bottom of the shower stall, crying and pondering the state of my life at this time, I realized that I have been confusing STABILITY...and occasional HAPPINESS...with peace.

Because when I am totally honest with myself. We have not had very much "peace" in the eleven and a half years we have lived here. We were blessed to find this house, we moved in and fixed it up, we immediately joined a church....and after a little more than a year we realized that the whole time we had been there some one had been spreading rumors and telling lies about our family and after being hauled in before the elders and being questioned and yelled at for more than an hour, we eventually lost all of our close friends and our church family.

SO, I promptly said I would never go back to church, because churches are made up of people, and they are idiots.

This lasted maybe a month before I realized that I wanted my children in a place where they could hear the word and be in fellowship because there is NOTHING like a corporate anointing. You know that anointing of the Holy Spirit that falls when His people join together in praise and worship of Him and the word is broken and people are working together for the good of their Lord?!?! There is just nothing like it. It is not better than individual time spent with the Lord....it is just DIFFERENT...and needed!

So, we found another church. And it was good for a while. And I thought I had found peace...and happiness...and joy...even though it took me over a year to be able to go to church without getting sick...because PEOPLE go to church. And I had had just about enough of PEOPLE.

ANYWAY...things were good for a while. And I THINK there may have been a little peace in my life. There WAS happiness...and a fair amount of joy.

And then...everything changed. Our nice little world turned upside down. For various reasons. Leadership at churches change, family moves away, the little bit of financial security you thought you had dries up,your body turns on you, and the enemy you have worked so hard to protect your children from gains a foothold in an area you thought you had protected...and four and a half years later you realize that you do not remember the last time you truly felt peace in your life....or joy...although there is some occasional happiness.

SO...What do you do when you wake up one morning and realize that the "peace" you thought you had been feeling for 11 and a half years was really only "stability"...with a few happy times...and a little joy thrown in for good measure?

Truth: Real peace only comes when you are in a viable relationship with our Heavenly Father. This is truth.

Truth: The circumstances you find yourself in do not bring you peace. They can bring you happiness...and a fair amount of joy...but not peace. This is truth.

Fact: I am in a viable relationship with my Heavenly Father. It grows and changes every year and at times every day. I have learned that he is my only refuge in times of turmoil.

So...where is my peace?

And...what do I do with the knowledge that I have stood so firmly in one place for so long because I THOUGHT what I was feeling was PEACE...when it was actually STABILITY I had found?

Is this the place for me..for us? In truth, the only thing holding US here are a job, a mortgage and a grandson on the way. And the only thing holding ME here are the man with the job and the mortgage, the children he has given me and a grandson on the way.

BUT...what if...these things are anchors created by my father to hold me in place so that I couldn't run away when I finally realized that a house or a church or life in a small town had not actually brought me peace?

AND...Maybe...these anchors are the things that continue to hold me fast when my heart is torn asunder by the choices made by one most precious to me...and the knowledge that if this precious one continues down the path they travel now...I may actually lose part of these earthly anchors.

The gypsy ways of my youth call to me daily. The need to run and hide from all that is going on around me is ever present. Everyone thinks I am firmly planted here with my crafts and my garden and my chickens. They only see the mom, the cookie baker, the wanna be Martha Stewart, the responsible one...the fixer. When in actuality I fight the longing to run on an almost daily basis. The only thing that has held me into place thus far is an indescribable love for one man and for the children he has given me and the desire that my children would not have to move once a year when they reached middle school.

It took me eleven and a half years for me to realize that my peace does not reside in this house or this town. I guess that was just long enough for God to anchor me, good and fast, so that when he was ready to continue his work in me I couldn't run away.

Maybe my journey is not one measured by how many miles I can run, but by the number of times I DON'T run.

And maybe...now that I understand what peace ISN'T...I might actually find it.