Finding peace when life brings pain

“When peace like a river attendeth my way.”

—Horatio Spafford

Horatio Spafford was a lawyer and a real estate investor on the north side of Chicago in 1871. He lost all his investments due to the Great Chicago Fire that happened the same year.

Slowly, out of the ashes, he began to rebuild. His friend D.L. Moody was planning on holding a revival in England. Wanting to help and needing to give their souls a break, Spafford and his wife Anna planned on taking their four daughters on a vacation to England.

Unfortunately, there were some zoning issues he needed to attend to, so he told Anna to go ahead, and he would meet them in England. A few weeks later, he got a telegram from Anna with two words on it: “saved alone.” The ship Anna and their four daughters were on was in a collision with another ship, and all four daughters were among the dead. Spafford hopped on the next England-bound ship to comfort his wife.

A member of the crew told him they were coming to the area where the collision had happened. I would imagine he cried over the death of his daughters, thanked God his wife was still alive and then he penned one of the greatest hymns in church history, “It Is Well with My Soul.”

You and I both know people who are always complaining about how they have too much drama in their lives. Everyone goes through seasons of drama from time to time, but it seems like some people just move from drama to drama. I think they get bored without any drama, so they find ways of creating their own. This might sound crazy, that anyone would do that, but you would be surprised.

How can we have peace in the midst of drama or anything else for that matter? I think the first thing we must do is make sure we are not the ones creating the drama. If we are, we need to ask ourselves why do we want to create our own drama? Be honest with yourself because the first reaction is to say you don’t create your own drama.

I think some of us get into a trap where we just do the same thing over and over again, and we draw a sense of comfort from it. Not to do it is to step out of our comfort zone.

I know, for me, it is so easy to keep playing something in my mind over and over again. I keep thinking of things I should or would like to have said. When someone hurts me or one of my loved ones, I would like to hurt them back. It is human nature to want to take matters into our own hands, but if we really want peace, we must hand them and the situation over to God.

However, it is so tempting to hold on to it. One thing I can’t understand is why, because the only person who gets hurt by it is us. Somehow, we have this odd concept that we think by getting even we will make the people who hurt us pay. The sad part is we know it’s not true, yet we still do it. I believe it was Aristotle or maybe it was Plato who said, “Revenge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

Zig Ziglar was talking about money when he said, “Money will buy you a bed but not a good night’s sleep. It will buy you a good time, but it won’t buy you peace of mind.” We can spend all of our time just chasing our goals and forget to live. Now I am not saying we shouldn’t have goals but have goals without sacrificing your peace.

I have a memory of my dad, mom and me taking my 95-year-old grandmother on a drive to look at the beautiful leaves when they changed colors during the fall. I rode in the back seat with Grandma, and she tapped my arm and pointed to a tree she liked. Not too long after that, I spoke at her funeral. That is a memory I have hidden in my soul.

There is a farm that belongs to family members that Stacey and I go to when life gets too overwhelming. We just relax and walk in the woods. Stacey loves to collect leaves and other things of nature, and I just read or sit and enjoy the countryside. There is a pond and chairs we can sit on with our feet in the water. The world could come to an end, and we would never know.

If we work all the time, we will never have peace, but if we take time to enjoy ourselves, our work will be more productive.

I saved the best for last: Know God, then you will know peace by default. The peace of God is a lot like the furnace in our house. All summer my furnace was off, but it was only when I turned it on that my house got warm. I know a lot of Christians who don’t have peace because they are living for themselves. They accepted Jesus but live mostly for themselves and put God on the back burner.

They tithe themselves to God, only 10%. That is why they don’t have any peace in their lives, because we have a God who demands 100% of us. I will leave you with this question: What percentage of you does God have?

Kyle Snyder can be emailed at kylesnyder86@yahoo.com.