Finding Inner Peace

Before I dive into the meat and potatoes of this post and get to the point of why I decided to write it, let me give you a little background story…

My husband and I built our forever home this past year. Yay! We broke ground last September and were moved in by February! So as you can see, a majority of the building process took place in the frigid cold winter months of Michigan… except one weekend.

It happens every year in Michigan. The winter weather goes from inhumanely cold to spring temperatures somewhere around the January/February mark. This seems to always follow a hard snowfall which leaves tons of melted snow turning the earth to mush and in our case… flooding our almost finished basement!

You see because it was winter, our final grade was not complete due to frozen ground. When that snow melted so rapidly it came flooding into our daylight basement which was insulated, dry-walled, but thankfully no flooring at that point (and even more importantly no furniture, rugs, personal belongings, etc). Phew!

We were able to clean up and dry out the basement within a couple of days and move on with the construction process.

This scare made us very grateful that it happened when it did AND ALSO highly aware of the importance of correcting that grade so that water stayed away from the house. My husband, the farmer that he is, is very good at digging ditches and controlling where water goes. As soon as the weather broke officially he fixed the grade issue and water was staying away from the house. Yay!

However, now that we are moved into the home and live in the space and keep our belongings in the finished basement, we are extra-sensitive to heavy rainfall. We literally sleep with one eye open on nights where it rains hard. He or I or both of us often get up in the night to make sure the water is staying away! Well let me tell you about last night…

Before bed, Luke mentioned that there were flood warnings for our area. Like I mentioned, this always means we are on high alert through the night. Sure enough 2am rolls around and I hear him leave the room assuming he was going to check the water situation. He returns assuring me that all was well so far. Phew!

Around 2:30ish the rain starts pouring down so hard, it wakes me up from my half sleep. I am assuming he was already awake. We both get out of bed. Luke checks the basement. It’s dry (thank you Jesus), but he decides to get the portable sump pump from the barn just in case he needs to pump water away from the house.

He gets back from the barn (5 minutes passed) and I am standing in the house helping him plug in the extension cord while he gets the pump ready in the pouring rain. He yells to me to check the basement… I run down there only to step off the last step and SPLASH!

It happened that fast.

I run upstairs and yell out the door to him the only words that came to my head, “It’s not your fault!” Because truly it was not his fault, and I wanted to make sure he knew that.

I ran back downstairs and literally spun in a circle 17 times while I watched water take over my entire basement! Talk about feeling helpless. I threw as much stuff as I could grab into the bathtub and helplessly tried to salvage what I could.

Luke got control of the water situation outside and then he joined me in the basement. We spent the next few hours, moving furniture, picking up rugs, pushing and vacuuming water

We were able to get things mostly dry, however, professional remediation is absolutely necessary in these situations to avoid mold. Because water gets everywhere! So thankfully we have a great friend who does this for a living and was able to come at 10 am the very next day and we now have very loud machines drying out our basement. I am thankful for his hard work!

Alright so why am I sharing this?? This is why I’m sharing this:

While the world around me was super chaotic, what was happening inside of me was incredible and it was something that I can take zero credit for. It was an inner peace literally covered me and I was legitimately joyful while walking across my brand new floor that we had just spent 1000’s of dollars on that was buckling under my feet due to the water underneath it.

Now hear me out… I was joyful. I felt a peace over my being. I was not happy. There is a difference. I was very sad that this was happening. I was sad that my husband had to be up all night fixing this and then go to work the next day. I was sad that he felt like he failed us. I was sad. But I had an inner joy and peace about me that I can not quite explain.

You see as we started cleaning, this verse popped in my head. A verse that I am aware of though I have never intentionally memorized it in the past. It is from the first chapter of Job, “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” That verse played over in my head like a broken record. And I could not help but sing praises of gratitude in my head the entire time I cleaned.

The point of my post today is this: There is a peace to be found and it comes from one thing and one thing only. In this world, we look for it relentlessly everywhere else. Some of us even deny that Jesus is real. Jesus IS the only way to find this inner peace and joy. Period. End of story.

Hi I am Allison. I am impatient. I am ungrateful. I am quick to point a finger. I am crabby. I am a little snot. Those things describe me when I am trying to do life on my own. Without Christ.

But guess what, last night He showed how very powerful He is. His spirit took control and gave me a VERY clear picture of what life is like when we let Him take control. Rather than navigate through life’s storms (or floods) on our own.

Let me ask you this. How would you rather be in a difficult situation?! Inner peace & joy OR anger, frustration, yelling! Listen, my normal reaction is option B. But last night it was A and that was NOT by my own doing. Believe me you!

As much as we think it is by our own power, we don’t react like option A on our own. We don’t. We don’t find lasting joy and true inner peace in hard times on our own. It doesn’t happen.

So how does a person come to this point of finding Inner Peace and Joy during Difficult Times? Let me give you a couple tips and remind you that it is a journey. There is no magic equation. This doesn’t happen over night, but it is something available to every human being… we just have to accept it.

#1 Make Jesus your Lord and Savior

If you have not done this yet. This is absolutely 100% the place start. If you don’t know how to do this or don’t know what this means email me. I would love to talk to you and help you navigate through that.

#2 Work your Spiritual Muscle Daily

Once we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior life does not magically become perfect. As a matter of fact, it will never be perfect. We live in a broken world. Jesus even told us, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Secondly we are not saved by our acts. So doing what I am suggesting in this tip #2 will not save you. But it will work your spiritual muscle. If you want to run a marathon, you run to train your muscles. If you want to have scripture on your mind, you read your Bible everyday so that you can train your heart and mind in Truth.

We often tell our kids that what they spend their time exposing their mind to (music, books, movies, tv, etc) is what will be on their mind most often. Great example. My daughter just watched The Greatest Showman (not slamming that movie… it was awesome!), but it consumes her mentally. She is almost always in a constant state of singing and dancing as if reenacting the movie.

When we spend time every day in God’s word our minds will start revert to those truths automatically, like mine did the other night. I wasn’t seeking after a verse. I just was trying to dry the floor. That verse popped into my head!

#3 Practice Gratitude

Now this one is also very much spirit lead. But it is also something we can practice. Everyday. And do it everyday so that when you face troubles it will be more natural. I say this as someone who needs to practice more!

How can you practice gratitude??

There are so many ways, but here are a couple ideas…

• Keep a gratitude journal. Doesn’t have to be fancy. Simply try to add 10 things to it everyday.
• Simply say 5 things you are grateful for out loud everyday.
• Before or during dinner everyday, have each family member say 3 things they are grateful for that day. Encourage them to say something different everyday. It can get a little mundane and automatic when we always say, “Thank you Jesus for my family, my home and my food.” Though we should totally thank God for those things, get creative, dig deeper, think of the little things we take for granted.

When our basement of our brand new home was flooding before my eyes, I poured out gratitude for SO much. NOT because I am a “good” Christian. You guys this was Jesus… this wasn’t me. I was humbled. Let me share some of the things he showed me to thank him for that night…

Things I was grateful for that night and the next day

-That we were home

-That we caught it while it was happening

-That we can walk down stairs on healthy legs

-That we have a downstairs

-That my kids can walk downstairs on healthy legs

-That my husband was so calm

-That my kids were not panicking

-That our things, are just things and we can survive without them

-That we knew to call the mold remediation company immediately

-That he was available immediately

-That he saved our floor

-That my husband has a sort of flexible job and could sleep in the next day

-That I could sleep in the next day

-That we had 2 shop vacs in the basement

-That we are healthy and have energy to do hard cleaning and move furniture in the middle of the night

-That it stopped raining

-That He gave my husband wisdom for a solution so this doesn’t happen again

-That He created my husband to be such a hard worker

-That we have a bathtub down there where I could throw things

-That everyone got more sleep that night

-That we have a home

-That we are fighting water, not lava

Life is hard. It is. On our own, it’s impossible. Don’t try to do life on your own. There is a God who created you and loves you and wants to not just help you, but carry you through the hard things.

xoxo

Allison