My Peace I Give to You.

Time for a confession.

The school called yesterday. We had Theo's pickup time wrong... Oops.

(In our defence, he finishes at a different time each week over the first couple of weeks, so we got a bit confused.)

By the time I got there, he'd been waiting twenty minutes, sitting alone on a chair in the hallway outside the office, everyone else long gone.

He looked a little lonely (but thankfully not worried). He was content jumping around on and off the chairs, chatting to the office staff.

Twenty minutes with no explanation and no idea when we'd show up. He was perfectly happy.

From the outside, waiting looks like nothing happening. An empty hallway. A kid on a chair. Nothing to see.

But, my waiting never looks like that on the inside.

Fear, stress, worry, anxiety, all of it fighting for the same small space in my head, and none of it visible to anyone watching.

Does God even know I'm here? Has He forgotten me? Where are you, Lord?

A whole battle, and nobody outside it would know a thing was wrong.

Jesus told His friends, the night before He was taken from them, "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, I give to you. Don't let your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful."

He names it exactly: a troubled heart, a fearful heart.

That's the battlefield right there. And He doesn't wait for the battle to end before He gives you peace. He gives it in the middle of it, the same peace Theo had in that hallway without knowing why.

So today, whatever you're waiting on right now, however long the hallway has felt, you don't have to win the battle in your head before you're allowed to feel it.

You don't have to solve the waiting to receive the peace.

It's already yours.

Not once the call comes. Not once you can see how this ends.

Now, exactly where you are, still waiting.