I don’t like resolutions, but I do like thinking of things I want to learn, things I want to experience, over a fixed timeframe. January is an obvious time to do this. To think of the year ahead, what has happened and what might happen. Over the last few years I have had the year of wonder, the year of creativity and the year of friendship. These themes usually take me a bit of time to figure out, but I’m usually sorted by about the third week of January.
This year my word seemed obvious. In December I was sure that 2018 was going to be the year of peace. Peace; that wonderful and allusive thing that surpasses all understanding. Peace that thing that seems out of reach right now, but is calling my name. Peace, maybe the key to my anxiety and the solution to my sleepless nights.
There will be things that happen over the coming year over which I will have no control. Things that can harm and destroy and rob. I choose peace in the face of the unknown storm. Peace seemed to be the obvious choice.
I have a little, wooden sign that hangs on my bathroom mirror. I see it in the morning when I’m washing my face and cleaning my teeth. I see it in the evening with the day behind me and the prospect of another in front of me. It reads, peace. A gift from a sweet friend, back in the days before life unleashed its painful and beautiful fullness upon me. I don’t think she quite realised what she was giving to me at the time.
Peace has hung on my bathroom mirror for over three years now, reminding me each day and in each storm that peace is with me. That it dwells in my home and in my soul. That I am, in my very nature, a carrier of peace.
The evening I decided that peace would be my word for 2018, I thought that sleep would not evade me, as it had been for weeks on end, but it did. I lay awake, tossing and turning, getting more and more stressed that peace couldn’t be experienced when my eyelids were so heavy and my heart so tired. I felt that peace was making a mockery of me.
Of course, peace is not dependant on sleep, in the same way that joy is not dependant on happiness. I can lie in bed, unable to sleep and still find rest. Peace is in my insomnia as sure as it is in my eight hours.
Peace can seem passive, but the peace that surpasses all understanding is anything but passive. Then I realised that this year, one word wasn’t enough. It wasn’t that peace was the wrong word for now, it was and is without doubt, the right word for me. It’s just not the only one.
You see, peace is simply one side of the coin, and I need both.
So 2018 will be the year of peace and of bravery.
It takes bravery to choose peace. It takes bravery to surrender your heart to the great unknown. It takes bravery to set out in the storm and trust that you will not be irredeemably broken and destroyed. It takes bravery to hope.
I got my eight hours last night. I may not tonight. My mind may find fresh things to be anxious about, my heart might race and my soul might ache, but I’m trusting that I will have peace and I’m choosing to be brave.
And to hope.
For the peace that surpasses all understanding and the bravery to ride out the storm.
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