Peace

It’s General Conference weekend. Every six months I look around at my life and pick three or four topics that I could really use some inspiration, teachings, guidance, and reassurance in. Do I need guidance on my job, my schooling, family, a particular topic in the gospel I’ve been trying to understand better? I write the topics down on a post-it note or in my notebook. I pray about them. And then I listen to Conference. Without fail those topics are addressed in one form or another, be that directly over the pulpit or indirectly in what I hear the Spirit tell me. But they are always addressed.

One topic that appears rather regularly is “peace.” Who among us couldn’t use more peace in their lives? I want to know how to find it. I want to know how to get more of it. I want to know how to keep it.

My heart is not always at peace. But there is more calm and peace there than there has been. Several people have commented to me recently that they are amazed at how calm and patient I am with all the chaos that’s circling around me right now. Which has caught me off guard actually. I’ve never considered myself a calm and patient person. In fact, when I told my mom about it, she literally lol-ed. But when I told Brett about my mom’s reaction, he said he didn’t know the stressed-out-worry-about-everything me. Yes, he’s seen me stressed. Yes, he’s seen me worry. But it doesn’t last long.

I wonder if taking the bus so much has helped me learn to relax when things are out of my control. Riding the bus there are only so many things I can control. I can control when I get to the bus stop. And that’s pretty much it. I cannot control the speed of the bus. I cannot control how many people get on the bus. I cannot control how often the bus has to stop for people to get on and off. Where traffic can normally be a source of stress, I’ve learned to just let it go. There’s nothing I can do about it once I’m sitting on the bus.

When I was at BYU I remember sitting in either a CES fireside or a devotional, sitting about 10:30 to the speaker, half-way up. He talked about how there are things we worry about that we can do something about. It’s okay to worry about those, as long as we are also doing those things we can do. He also said there are things we worry about that we can do absolutely nothing about. The only thing we can do is give those things to the Lord and trust and have faith that all things will work for our good. I remember sitting there desperately wanting to be able to separate out my worries like that. It seems that somewhere down the line I’ve figured out at least partially how to do that.

So right now, as a dear friend pointed out, I’m “just taking it all in stride.” That’s all I can do.

And, I’ve already heard five talks today that address the three topics I wrote down for this Conference. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
John 14:27