it’s all about the peace

May 31, 2007 @ 4:16 pm | Filed under: Friends, Soul Food, The Solid Rock

Forty-eight hours ago, I sat in a doctor’s waiting room, nervously and mindlessly flipping through the worn and smudged pages of one magazine after another. For two solid hours I sat in that black vinyl chair, all the while my heart was somewhere in the depths of that doctor’s office, in whatever room Nate was in.

As a half-hour turned to one, then an hour and a half came and went, I gave up all pretenses of reading or people-gazing or anything else that one tends to do in those type of settings. I gathered my purse and moved to the edge of my seat, and was truly only a nano-second away from barging behind The Door and finding my son all on my own.

And then these words begin to spill through my mind in the sweetest possible way:

"Peace, peace. Wonderful peace."

"Coming down, from the Father above."

Just like that my twirling thoughts stilled and my pulse returned to normal. Even though I sat here, in the one place, facing the one thing that I feared most during my kids’ growing up years, I felt the peace of God. I wish that I could control heredity, that I could somehow shelter both boys from the pains and trials of life, whether it be physical, mental, spiritual, or emotional. And yet - just as I could only sit with them held firmly in my lap during those awful visits for shots, for ear infections, for chicken pox - now I could only sit in a lonely chair in the waiting room, knowing that my firstborn was on his own this time. Besides my presence and my prayers, I was helpless.

"Peace, peace. Wonderful peace."

"Coming down, from the Father above."

Again, that peace moved through me, smooth and undeniable. See, those words had recently been sung in my living room, around my own piano, just the day before. Some of our best friends had gathered in our home for a Memorial Day lunch. After eating, chatting, celebrating a birthday, and laughing the afternoon away, we became serious. One of our own was going in for a medical procedure, a grave one, and though little was said about it, it was on all of our minds. His wife had received her miracle just months before and now we, as a solid group of friends, were standing on the promise of one for him. As we prepared to gather in a circle around him and pray before everyone left, Rochelle sat down at the piano and the girls and I stood around, harmonizing as she began to play the first, soft strains of this very song.

Little did I know that the words would minister to me in such a mighty way just hours later.

By the time Nate emerged from The Door, my mother’s heart was warm with the knowledge that - though I have very little control these days - my God has all control. He is my peace. Even later, as we pulled into the driveway and I grabbed the mail from the mailbox, I felt that rich flood of "it’s going to be all right." Even after I slid open the envelope from my publisher and learned the news that the editorial board had decided to not publish Finding Faith this fall, after all - still I felt that peace.

I stood in the living room, clutching the single crisp sheet of paper, feeling my husband’s eyes on me, and knowing he was waiting for the waterworks to begin. I, too, waited for the barage of disappointment to come, for the feeling of rejection that even the most politely worded letter of its kind tends to produce in a writer’s gut.

Nothing. Except this,

"Sweep over my spirit, forever I pray,

in fathomless billows of love."

Whether it was the nights lately spent at the Rock, or merely the recognition of priorities after my day in the waiting room, I felt nothing except peace.

I don’t understand a lot of things. I don’t understand how a mother’s heart can possibly bear some of the things it must endure. I don’t understand why heredity can be, both, so glorious and yet at times, so mean. I don’t understand why contracts are broken, why publishers make the decisions they do, or even why I continue to write and worry and mother and care about each and every single little detail in this life of mine.

I don’t understand.

But I have the peace that passes all understanding. And, really, that’s everything.

Far away in the depths of my spirit tonight
Rolls a melody sweeter than psalm;
In celestial-like strains it unceasingly falls
O’er my soul like an infinite calm.