Peace - Personal Reflection

Peace, what is peace and how do we hold on to it in the midst of storms that rage around us and even beat upon us?  Quentin L Cook expresses very well the desire and the kind of peace I am seeking, “We all long for peace. Peace is not just safety or lack of war, violence, conflict, and contention. Peace comes from knowing that the Savior knows who we are and knows that we have faith in Him, love Him, and keep His commandments, even and especially amid life’s devastating trials and tragedies. The Lord’s answer to the Prophet Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail brings solace to the heart: ‘My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;”1 

                It is the peace the Savior brings into our lives that we need to seek.  He is the true source of true peace.  The small moment can certainly seem long, when it comes to personal tragedies, the Lord’s timing is sometimes difficult to perceive.  Peace comes personally if we let it but it can be driven away by a contentious heart, or by people or activities the encourage contention.  Politics is a most contentious arena.  I find I have to shut off or shut out political programs, but then I find it necessary to know the facts of a subject.  Thanks to the internet we can find information with out constantly being bombarded with it through media.

            When peace just won’t come, it takes a concerted effort to bring it into our life through, music, reading, and service to others.  Acting, or doing, as the Lord Jesus Christ would do on the earth brings peace faster than anything else.  The problem is the atmosphere in the home, the answer is to shut off the media and “turn on” the service and love for family.  If our employment is the issue, we can find many ways to expand work into service.  Little acts of kindness go a long way.  Check our personal lives for obedience.   Elder Scott says, “When we obey the commandments of the Lord and serve His children unselfishly, the natural consequence is power from God—power to do more than we can do by ourselves. Our insights, our talents, our abilities are expanded because we receive strength and power from the Lord. His power is a fundamental component to establishing a home filled with peace.”2

          With obedience in mind it brings up a very important reason for lack of peace.  Peace is lacking where there is sin.  If we are not following God’s plan we will not find peace.  Even though it does not matter where we are, how far away from a safe harbor we need to turn to that safe harbor.  Dieter F Uchtdorf reminded us, “True repentance blesses our lives with the effects of the Atonement: we feel God’s forgiveness and His peace, and our guilt and sorrow are lifted away; we enjoy the influence of the Spirit in greater abundance; and we are better prepared to live with our Heavenly Father.

President Spencer W. Kimball taught: “The essence of the miracle of forgiveness is that it brings peace to the previously anxious, restless, frustrated, perhaps tormented soul. … God will wipe away … the tears of anguish, and remorse, … and fear, and guilt” (The Miracle of Forgiveness, 363, 368).3

            Forgiveness truly can be a miracle in our lives.  That is where true peace comes from.  I had the opportunity to recognize that peace.  My husband and I were on a cruise ship far from land, when it was announced that there was a fire on board.  However they were pretty sure they could contain it.  The reactions of people around us surprised me, there sheer panic, however what surprised me more was that I for the first time felt peace.  Not the peace that nothing was going to happen but the peace that I was doing the things asked of me and that if I died God would be at the end of the journey.  It was enlightening.

            There are political storms, wars, anger all raging around us it important to find a personal peace so that it doesn’t matter.