Sometimes I think I want peace but what I really want is calm.
Calm is quiet rooms and alone time. Calm is slow movements, deep breathing, and zero percent chaos.
Calm, when you can get it, is a gift. But it’s not the same as peace.
Peace is hard-won, the child of justice and courage.
And anyone who has fought for justice with courage knows that peace is not the same as calm.
Peace comes with war wounds.
Peace has dirt beneath her fingernails.
Peace casts a hopeful vision for the future in the midst of a discouraging present.
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Today we thank You, Father, for those who have fought for our peace to be real.
Thank You for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who lead people in Your Name for racial justice and equality.
Thank You for the men and women who serve our country, particularly today for the 12 missing Marines in Hawaii – we pray for their families.
Thank You for all the people with stories we’ll never know and with names we’ll never speak who have stood up for the rights of those who could not stand up for themselves even when it meant discomfort, danger, or death.
Thank You for not forgetting the cry of the afflicted.
We confess all the ways we knowingly fight against peace because we don’t want to hear the cries of the afflicted.
Sometimes we’d rather have calm than peace.
We confess all the ways we unknowingly fight against peace with our categorizations, our labeling, and our assumptions.
Bring the sin that is hiding within us into Your light.
Thank You Jesus for coming to be with us in the midst of our brokenness and heartbreak.
Thank You for not merely offering peace from afar, but for loving us enough to enter the chaos of earth and be born as Peace on our behalf.
You have the war wounds to prove it.
You have the dirt beneath Your fingernails.
You are our hopeful vision.
Equip us as ambassadors of Your Peace in the world, we pray.
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