Perfect Peace

I was fearful as a child. My early years of growing up were during the Cold War in the 1950s and Americans were nervous about being bombed by Russia—the atom bomb! Consequently, warning clips would come on our black and white TV about what to do if there was suddenly an air raid. When we saw that bright flash of light, we were to take cover! And this would be demonstrated for us by watching children in school diving under their desks. Would a desk protect me? This to me was a very frightening thing. And, as an eight year old, I recall being struck with terror every time an airplane flew overhead. Upon hearing and/or seeing it, I would run inside the house, hoping there would be no bright flash of light, followed by an explosion…

And then there were the tornado warnings! One time we had a tornado drill where the teacher led us outside and we all laid down in the ditch. So many times, sitting at my desk in the one-room schoolhouse on a hot May day, having heard the teacher announce that there was a tornado warning (what we now call a “watch”), a knot would form in my stomach from the anxiety, and, nervously perspiring, I would frequently peer over my shoulder out the window to see if the dark clouds were taking funnel shape. Could we make it to the ditch in time?

When I was 19, our barns caught fire during a family picnic, and burned to the ground. In the first minutes of the fire, I, along with other family members, ran into the barns to free the calves and yearling cattle that were tied and penned inside. As my brother knocked down fences with his bare hands, and tore open the gates, I untied the younger calves and shoved them out the door. We managed to free and save most of them. When I heard someone call to get out, I ran from the back barn through to the front barn, pushing my way through a crowd of frightened animals as flaming hay was falling down around me from the loft above. As I pushed my way out, my brother was coming back through the cattle crowded at the door to get to me, and together we ran full speed toward the house. I turned as I reached safety, and saw the roof of the front barn explode in flames. And soon the ancient, tinder dry buildings were a pile of smoldering rubble with loss of animals and equipment.

The adrenalin surge served to empower those frantic minutes, but having seen the devastation of a fire out of control, I now had a new dread that disturbed my sleep for the rest of that summer in 1966—and into the years beyond.

It reared its ugly head again for me years later, in the months after the birth of my first baby. As I would put her to bed at night, and retire to my own bedroom, I was tormented as I tried to fall asleep. What if there was a fire? I worried about the fireplace–what if an ember sparked on the rug and the place burst into flame? Would I be able to get to her in time? Repeatedly I would get up out of bed to go and check the fireplace. This and other possible scenarios played through my anxious mind, causing me, night after night, to break out in a sweat of cold..white…fear.

And night after night I prayed. Claiming the promise of Jeremiah 26:3, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee,” I struggled to stay my mind on Him. How I battled with that powerful fear! How I longed for that perfect peace! Over and over, as the fear would rise in my heart, I would cram it back down, and try to “stay my mind” on Him.

Then one night, as I again went into battle, praying fervently, I heard the Lord whisper to me (in my mind), “Give Me your fear.” This was a new and alarming thought to me. So instead of trying to control the fear, to cram it back in its box, I was to let go of it–to surrender it to Him? This meant letting it rise up, yielding up control of it to Him…and that is what, on that night, I did.

With trepidation, I let the feeling rise in my heart and mind, and I gave it up to Him. I sensed a tearing of something from my breastbone area—something that felt like it had roots. Then…a quietness…a peace where before there had been panic. I opened my heart fully to the Holy Spirit, and asked Him to fill me with Himself.

And He did. From that time forward until now, some forty years later, His peace has ruled in my heart. The torment, the cold sweats in the night, when fear sat on my chest and sucked the breath out of me, are gone.
And as I continue to stay my mind on Him, He keeps me, now still, in perfect peace just as He promised. Words cannot adequately describe the richness or the beauty of this gift of peace from the Beautiful One, the Prince of Peace Himself.