"I am learning to pursue peace, right here in my unknowns."

For all of the miles that stretch between where you are and where you want to be, there is a beautiful, grace-filled opportunity to breathe deep and be still, knowing that even without knowing what is going to happen, there is still peace to be found: peace that says it is okay if there are days where you feel entirely out of place, for that does not mean you do not belong here. That does not mean you should not be here.

You are still allowed to thrive in this space, no matter the times you have felt pushed away or left behind. You are living and breathing, today, with purpose, and no matter how long you have had to wait, you are not taking up space, and there is peace and rest to be found in knowing that.

So if the wait for a certain thing is carrying on longer than expected and you feel the weight of what’s not happening, may you know in your soul that peace does not let go, and there is so much room within it to rest in these unknowns. There is no way of knowing exactly how things will turn out, what things you will learn to live with, and what you will learn to live without, but there is a way of choosing in this moment to be brave and to pursue endless peace no matter what comes your way.

One definition for “peace” is freedom from disturbance, meaning that you have been liberated from interruption, free to carry on in quiet and tranquility. It is unlikely that you will go through life without being interrupted at all. You cannot control what happens around you or what unexpected things tomorrow will bring. However, it is valuable to remember that pursuing peace within the waiting isn’t just about setting up your exterior life in the way you want it to eliminate any and all interruptions. Peace goes deeper...it starts within. You might not be able to change the fact that it’s taking years to get the results you are longing for, and you might not be able to stop something that is slowing down your progress, but you are able to take a grace-filled look at your inner life, and ask yourself, “what things are interrupting my inner peace?”

Maybe it’s a friendship that isn’t healthy that has been eating at your insecurity. Maybe there are things in the past that have left your heart unsettled, and even though you can’t change it, you can’t stop thinking about it. Maybe you don’t quite know what it is that it’s interrupting your peace, but you are beginning to open your heart to the journey of finding out...

The thing is, when we are waiting, we have to be strong, and when things are eating away at our peace, it makes it harder and harder to do that. It’s important that we continue to take closer looks at what’s going on inside of us.

I don’t know what pursuing peace looks like for you today, but I hope that you can find room for it in your life. I hope that as sure as you can hear the songs of birds or the sound of car engines rumbling outside, you can also see that through grace, you to lay your worries aside for a while and pursue peace, anyhow. You have a lot of things on your plate right now. There is so much to worry about and sort through, but never let that keep you from pursuing peace right here, in these unknowns.

More tomorrow...

Sincerely,
Morgan Harper Nichols