Peace Before the Answer
I don’t know when it happened.
Nothing is suddenly completely figured out.
I don’t have all the answers I was looking for.
There are still things in my life that are uncertain, still questions I couldn’t answer if you asked me tonight what happens next.
And yet, somehow, my heart is quiet.
It’s strange.
Because for such a long time, I thought peace would come after everything made sense.
After the answer.
After the open door.
After I could finally look at my life and say,
Oh. That’s why.
But lately, I’m starting to wonder if maybe I had it backwards.
Maybe peace doesn’t always come when God finally explains the plan.
Maybe sometimes it comes while the plan is still unfolding.
I have spent so much time trying to understand every little thing.
Why did this happen?
Why didn’t that work?
Why did this person leave?
Why did that door close?
What am I supposed to do next?
Is this a sign?
Am I supposed to wait?
Am I supposed to move?
Am I missing something?
Maybe that’s where I’ve been.
Trying to figure out the whole picture from the few pieces I could see.
Turning them over and over in my hands.
Trying to make them fit before I even knew where they belonged.
And lately, I think I’ve finally started putting some of them down.
Not because I suddenly understand.
I don’t.
Not because everything worked out.
It hasn’t.
But because I’m tired of believing that I have to understand everything in order to trust God with it.
And something strange happens when you loosen your grip.
You start noticing things.
Small things.
Things shifting.
Things connecting that you couldn’t have connected yourself.
Things that made absolutely no sense a little while ago suddenly beginning to make a little more sense.
Not enough to explain everything.
But enough to make you think:
Oh.
Maybe something is happening here.
And I think that’s where I am right now.
Somewhere between I have absolutely no idea what You’re doing and I think I’m starting to see You in it.
There are still things I hope for.
Big things.
Beautiful things.
Things I have prayed about more times than I can count.
And I still hope for them.
Maybe more than ever.
But for once, hope doesn’t feel like something I’m desperately holding onto with both hands.
It feels quieter.
Softer.
More like:
God, I don’t know what You’re doing.
But I don’t need to know tonight.
And maybe that’s peace.
Not knowing how the story ends and somehow being able to sleep anyway.
Not having the answer and no longer feeling like you have to chase it.
I used to think I needed God to show me what was coming so I could finally breathe.
Maybe what I actually needed was to learn that I could breathe before knowing.
And God, I don’t know where all of this is going.
I don’t know what You’re doing with the things I never would have chosen for myself.
I don’t know which prayers You’ll answer the way I hope You will.
But tonight, I don’t feel the need to ask You to show me everything.
Thank You for the quiet.
Thank You for the strange kind of peace that arrived before the explanation did.
Thank You for the little moments that make me realize that even here, in all this uncertainty, something can still be changing.
And please, let me stay here.
Open-handed.
Hopeful.
Expectant.
Not because I know what comes next.
But because somewhere along the way, not knowing stopped feeling quite so frightening.
The story isn’t finished.
And somehow, for the first time in a while,
I don’t need it to be.