Learning to Carry Peace

Have you ever had a bad day?

Or maybe it isn’t just one bad day at all. Maybe it is a string of them. The kind that seem to arrive without any clear reason and without much warning. Nothing dramatic happens in a single moment. Life just keeps piling on. You get sick. Then something unexpected shows up. Then another small crisis lands in your lap. And before you have had time to catch your breath, you realize you are holding far more than you ever imagined you could carry.

What makes those seasons especially hard is that you can’t always point to one clear cause. There is no simple explanation. It is just the steady weight of living — of loving people, caring deeply, showing up again and again, and trying to be faithful when your body is tired and your heart is already full.

I know exactly when I am getting close to my breaking point.

My body tells me long before I am ready to admit it out loud. I become hyper-vigilant. I notice everything. I listen for what might go wrong. I scan conversations, emails, and situations, bracing myself for the next problem I might need to solve. I feel tense without realizing it. My shoulders stay tight.  And suddenly, things that normally would not bother me at all begin to feel unbearable. Little disruptions start to feel personal. My patience shortens. My grace thins. I feel myself working so hard just to keep everything together.

Medical science tells us that this is what happens when our nervous systems have been under stress for too long. Our bodies stay in a state of alert. We are not weak for feeling this way. We are human. Our bodies are trying to protect us, even when the danger is not something we can run from or fix quickly.

But understanding that does not make it easy.

It does not take away the exhaustion.  It does not quiet the constant inner noise.  It does not suddenly restore the gentleness we wish came more naturally when we are worn down.

As Ash Wednesday approaches — sooner than I can quite believe — I find myself welcoming it this year in a way I have not always welcomed it before.  That may sound surprising.

Lent is a wilderness season. It invites honesty about our limits. It calls us to pay attention to the places where our lives feel fractured or hurried or misaligned. It slows us down when everything around us seems to demand speed and efficiency. Lent is not meant to be comfortable. It is meant to be truthful.

And yet, there is something about Lent that feels like a deep breath to me.  Lent is quiet.  And I have not always been someone who loved quiet.

After one of my many surgeries, I was left with a constant ringing in one ear. Silence can actually make that ringing feel louder. A little background sound helps. A fan in the room. A TV. Something steady that keeps my body from focusing on what it cannot escape. So when I talk about quiet, I am not talking about turning off every sound in the room.

I am talking about a different kind of quiet.  I am talking about the way we move through the world.

Quiet is how we allow our days to unfold without rushing through every moment. Quiet is how we learn to pause before reacting. Quiet is how we notice what is happening inside us instead of filling every open space with noise, activity, or distraction. Quiet is how we create room for God to speak into the places in us that we have been too busy to listen to.

Quiet is not external.  Quiet is internal.  And lately, I have realized how desperately I need that kind of quiet in my own life.

I have also found myself deeply moved by watching the Walk for Peace each day. I will be honest — I am truly sad that it is ending. There has been something profoundly grounding about watching the monks walk through state by state, day after day with such steadiness and intention.  They are not shouting to be heard. They are simply choosing, step by step, to carry peace into the places where they walk.

There is something powerful about that.  Not because it fixes everything.  Not because it magically heals what is broken.  But because it reminds us that how we show up matters.

As I have watched them, I keep finding myself asking a quiet question: shouldn’t this be part of our spiritual practice as well?

What would it look like for us to learn how to carry peace into our ordinary days?

What would change if peace shaped the way we speak to one another, the way we sit in meetings, the way we respond when plans fall apart, the way we handle disappointment, and the way we hold our own exhaustion?

So much of our energy is spent carrying worry. Carrying urgency. Carrying irritation. Carrying the unspoken fear that we are falling behind or failing someone or missing something important.

But peace is not something we stumble into.  Peace is something we practice.  Peace is not pretending that everything is fine.  Peace is not ignoring injustice or pain or real conflict.  Peace is choosing, again and again, what we allow to shape our hearts and guide our responses.  Peace is choosing to let Christ steady us when everything else feels unsettled.  Peace is learning how to breathe again in the middle of complicated, imperfect, deeply human lives.  Peace is spiritual work.  And it matters more than we often realize.

Even though Lent is often described as a heavy season, it carries a quiet and steady peace for me. It gives me permission to stop pretending that I am stronger than I really am. It gives me space to acknowledge that I am tired, that I am still healing in ways no one else can see, and that some days my faith looks more like showing up than shining brightly.

Lent gently brings me back to the center of my spiritual life.

It reminds me that my relationship with God is not built on how productive I am, how organized I am, or how well I manage everything placed in front of me. My life with Christ is shaped by grace. It is sustained by mercy. It is carried forward by small, faithful steps taken in seasons when clarity is limited and energy is thin.

And maybe that is what I need most right now.  Not more answers.  Not more strategies.  Not more pressure to get everything right.  I need a season that teaches me how to walk more gently through my own life.  How about you?

My prayer as we move toward Ash Wednesday is not that Lent will be easy for any of us. My prayer is that it will be kind. That it will meet us exactly where we are — worn, hopeful, uncertain, faithful, tired, and still trying. That it will help us loosen our grip on the things we cannot control and open our hands again to receive what God is already offering.

And maybe — just maybe — this quiet and honest season will help us learn how to carry peace a little more faithfully into the world, and in doing so, help us become just a little more like the people Christ is shaping us to be.  See you Sunday!

Peace, Pastor Tracy