Ten-Thousand Shards

If Jesus was in no hurry to meet real heart-stopping deadlines. If He didn’t stop everything and go straight away to Jairus’ house because his twelve year old daughter was almost dead. And if Jesus didn’t turn right away back around to Judea because Lazarus was almost dead. And He didn’t. Didn’t hurry breathless to meet and beat deadlines. Then I’m thinking I shouldn’t either.

Pounding hard after deadlines. Isn’t that what it looks like to not trust God with my time in every place and zone? It’s not the race I want to run.

And I’m choosing not to. Chose not to today.

And time has been rearranged. Really! It has!

Without any help from me and I do have a deadline today.

 

I have guests coming from out of town and call me crazy but here I am writing and watercolor painting as if I hadn’t a care in the world because I just choose His peace today plain and simple and He isn’t pressing me to race because, guess what?

He is enjoying this!

He is happy watching me trust Him with time. I feel His pleasure and would hear later that my guests were going slow too, because they also have chosen the slow peace way and they arrived hours later than we thought and God rearranged time and I sweat not a drop because I chose peace. It works!

He. Is. Peace.

And it seems He rearranges time every time I choose to live in His peace. Choose slow and attentive.

Because there aren’t just four time zones. There are five. And I’m living in the fifth as best as I can because the fifth is where time doesn’t tick of clock face but Father heart.

 

Time is measured Father heart tick. And in this time zone, deadlines don’t pass away. They just hold their breath for a really long time.

It’s a peaceful place, but not without pressure. The absence of pressure isn’t the definition of peace.

Jesus was pressed on every side. Jostled by crowds. And His own time pressed His own heart. Pressed tears right out of His heart. Jesus wept. Shortest verse presses hard.

He wept because it hurt gentle heart. This press against dead line pressure. It hurt, those “Lord, if You had been here our brother wouldn’t have died” words all broken up in tear jumble.

“He is not dead. He’s sleeping.” Jesus said and deadline held breath days past rigamortis.

He was pressed from within and without and gave away pieces of heart and gives peace of mind.

 

Peace of mind. We all want it.

We chase it and might we think we can nail it down by running hard to be the first one there? At dead line ahead of schedule? Well, it’s temptation for the likes of me at least. I confess. It does feel good to be on top of things.

And I confess again. I’ve learned the panic attack way that I can’t nail peace down. Can’t drive a stake in the ground when I’ve arrived there, wherever there is. The place we call “There” is ever moving all elusive like.

No. The only peace I can have is the peace that was nailed down for me.

The Prince of Peace kind of peace.  

At cross. Dead line. Where death was conquered by Life and where I can say to all that raises mallet and wants to pound my peace into panic shred, “Go ahead! Take your best shot!” Because when the nails are all used up, and the dead line is passed, I can say, “It’s just sleeping.”  

 

 

Crowd Press

 

Peace of mind in the press.

 

How? When the very air we breathe is vibrating restless and the world spins and the headlines roll and jobs are lost and Olympians loose the medal they’ve broken bones over and this little olympian only wants to get through a day without getting brain fog and needing a twenty minute nap by three o’clock.

"How?” I ask the Prince of Peace.

“Think on whatever things are pure…lovely…of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy-meditate on these things” (Philippians 4:8).

“Yeah, there is that…” I ponder…”yeah…there really is that.”

“Yeah,” He skips eloquence with me.

And these “whatever things are”… there. Here. Even when I turned my heart upside down looking for them. For things pure and praiseworthy. And shook heart out like a rug and swept under the bed where heart only slept but seemed rigamortis stiff to me because I couldn’t feel much after all that looking but still knelt all heart down. Still knelt down because there really is that “whatever things are” peace place that gives peace of mind.

On my knees because standing up meant the world would tilt and spin and become very uncertain. On my knees because all left to do was to wait stiff and wait while heart beat slow slumber worn out and wait silent because my mouth knew no more words to say to God. Even His own words had been said through my lips to Him til my lips couldn’t move anymore and because all I heard was “Wait. And while waiting, wait.”

 

I waited for God to prove Himself. I did. It was soul desperation.

It was, “If You don’t do what You said You would do, then I have nothing left to say to You“ desperation.

It was, “Let me see Your glory!” and the only way to see His glory is from between a rock and a hard place. It’s true. Moses saw the backside of His glory from a cleft in the rock where God Himself tucked him in. And I’m no Moses, that’s for sure.

Waited there to see Him prove all that was said by Him Self, to be. To see Him prove Himself to be at hand as He says. To be the God of peace as He says. To be the resurrection and the life and not only in the last day but in this day.

As. He. Says.

And.

I started hearing.

And.

I started waking up. Back yard. Back soul. Back side. The peace side of glory all backward from front door to world.

And.

I started finding my heart.

Pieces of it. All those pieces I gave Him when my heart was breaking olympian bone over His Word and His way and for His glory.

 

There are only so many pieces my heart can break into for its own glory because I have no peace of my own. And whatever peace I think I have, my heart will be quick broke into just big chunks and have nothing left to work with.

But for God’s? Ohh, for God’s peace-side of glory ten-million pieces gladly of my heart!

I found them, some of those pieces. And am finding them still. All those pieces. He kept them. Every broken shred.

My heart is found in Him.

And He’s piecing the pieces together and loving adoring every piece. Bringing them to His face and breathing them in just like I did when my children were restless spun and needed just arms to hold them together and to just go from pieces to peaced.

Peaced.

And He loves every piece of your heart that has broken over Him and His way. Loves you. Loves me. To pieces and then back again.

Til we’re peaced.

 

He meets the dead line after heart-line and soul-line beep and buzz flat-line.

After we stop breathing because we can’t pray anymore.

After we lay stiff rigamortis because we can’t get up anymore.

He wakes the soul and opens the mouth again when heart is found in Him. Because pieced out from what’s in God heart is love-side of peace.

 

Soup and Pan

 

Pieced out is serving soup and cheese quesadillas to her mother when she didn’t have the energy to serve herself. Thank you beautiful girl with tomato soup splotched on your shirt!

Pieced out is listening all through with patience slow. No interrupting. No formulating a response til they’re done. Thank you gentle mother, friend of mine! I watched you piece this out. Peace it out. To your children and you blessed me and didn’t even know it.

Pieced out is what has been under guardian peace of God.

And rejoicing is pieced out. Re-joy-sing. Joy and singing again and again.

And the pieces that have broken and shattered out in prayer from abasement and in abundance.

And the requests. All the again and again re-quests of heart made known to God and to know God.

All those heart pieces may be found in Him when we seek heart peace in Him.

Ten-thousand shards of my heart would willingly shatter ten-thousand times more to find more God heart and to feel His peace thread the pieces and pieces and pieces together. There. Here. In the “Whatever things” places.

The places where I hold breath as long as it takes in the waiting.

Because sometimes it takes a really long time to find the lovely and the pure and praiseworthy. I wonder how many of us seeking Prince of Peace kind of peace have been waiting so long with breath held that Jesus has had to assure others, “She’s just sleeping.”

But doesn’t He do some of His best work in those “whatever places?” Where the lovely is sought dead serious and peace transcends understanding? Seems to me He does.

 

written by: Carolyn Roehrig