Peace

What thing embodies the essence of peace? What place embodies the stillness of peace? What person embodies the voice of peace? So many go looking for it and many more starve for it. We love our goals and dreams, we work hard and learn harder, and we do chaotic life the best we know how. We’re engaged in a deep life with everything from potential to purpose and it keeps us moving forward. But somewhere inside, we long for abiding peace. Somewhere in there we long for time to feel it, especially in a raging world. Maybe the area of peace is different for each person, but it’s still peace inside the craving mind and drumming heartbeat of a human life. Reimagine peace.

Some time ago I was in a hospital waiting room while a friend was getting some tests done. An elderly man shared the room with me and was tending to items on his phone while he waited. He got up once or twice to ask the receptionist how his wife was doing, then thanked her and sat back down. He wasn’t in a hurry and didn’t seem anxious about being there. He didn’t have fancy clothes and didn’t seem to be stricken with ”what if.” He seemed calm, he emulated resolve, but most of all he acted as if he felt peace in a hospital waiting room. Reimagine peace.

About a half hour later, a clinician wheeled his wife into the waiting room and said she was done and ready to go home. He let the elderly couple know the test results would be sent to her physician as soon as possible. Based on the other comments from the clinician, I guessed she had undergone tests to determine lung function. The couple thanked the clinician and joked with him about her socks and short hair. She had all the time in the world to explain she’d just gotten her hairdo done and loved her new cut. She said her hair was short and needed to be combed down, but she loved it anyway. This elderly lady was about four feet tall and beamed with the conversation. The clinician helped her transfer to sitting on the seat of her walker and patted her on the arm as if to say ”you’ve been my favorite patient today!” They thanked him again and he headed off to the next procedure while she settled herself in her walker. Like her attentive husband, she too seemed calm and simply worry-free. Had they been here a lot and felt trust? Is that where the peace was coming from? Were they older and wiser to life’s stress and choices of reaction? Was that it? I didn’t know, but I wanted to. I’d spent hours, days, sometimes years in hospitals with family and hadn’t ever felt the essence of peace like these two people. Reimagine Peace.

He got behind her walker and began to push it as she sat on its seat. As they came closer to the waiting room door where I was, I told her she looked beautiful in her new hairdo. I smiled at her and let her know she also had beautiful nails. She was so pleased I’d noticed and explained how her daughter had done them for her. She splayed out her fingers and said ”look, she did a good job on these short things, I love the color don’t you!” I smiled again and said ”we girls need the pretty colored nails and I love it! God bless both of you as you go home.” She beamed and shifted to turn to her husband. ”Honey?” she said. He immediately knew what ”honey” meant and they worked together to help her stand for a minute. She held on tight and I sat wondering what they were doing. He lifted her walker seat up and retrieved a small ziplock bag from the compartment beneath the seat. Once seated again, she reached into the ziplock and picked one of many lavendar pouches she’d made, then handed the bag back to her husband. I kept watching and wondered as they worked together on what seemed a rhythmical event. She settled again and then reached for both my hands and cupped them in her own. ”Oy Nee” she said. ”Sweetheart, do you know what that means?” I answered with ”no, tell me.” She said it was an expression of giving blessings to someone to say thank you. She told me she wanted to give me this lavendar from her son’s garden with a small message she’d tied around it that said “oy nee.” She said I had really blessed her with my smile and wanted me to know it delighted her that day. She said God’s peace was so dear to her and she wanted me to know I was dear. She then cupped the lavendar pouch in my hands, squeezed them inside her own, and wished me peace. She beamed again, a small tear in her sparkly eye, and away they went out the door. The lavendar pouch still sits on my dresser months later. Reimagine peace.

An elderly woman spending the afternoon in a hospital for unknown test results gave me a new insight to peace. She had complications with lung function and sustaining the breaths of air, yet she overflowed with the breaths of peace. How? I believe she re-imagined God Himself. I believe she knew He was King and Father enough to come walker-side in her life. I believe she knew He’ll take her heaven-side in His. I believe she trusted He wanted to do both because He made her. Have you heard someone’s belief’s before? Have you heard them from a walker? Have you re-imagined them from yours? “God, please come walker-side in my life and help me re-imagine You. Help me re-imagine who you are and where you are and how far you’ll come to be with me. And while you light the flame of grace and reveal your personal love to me, I ask for peace and rest in the shelter of The Almighty.” Reimagine HOLY PEACE.