"Take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives confess
the beauty of Thy peace."

These lyrics from the hymn, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, written by John Greenleaf Whittier, give us a glimpse of what can enter our lives when we trust God with our cares and concerns – beautiful peace. This is what we yearn for when worries in life have taken their toll.

When my husband and I were first married, I had a corner on the market when it came to worry; he was the eternal optimist. He would always ask, “What is the worst that can happen if what you are worrying about comes true?” Of course, my answer was the absolute worst-case scenario, which did nothing to calm my anxiety. Now, thirty years later, I am free from worry. I don’t have a care in the world. If you don’t believe what I just wrote, you are entirely correct!

I do still worry, but now when I think of the worst that can happen, God takes me further. He gives me a broader picture, and reminds me that he can use evil for good (Genesis 50:20). In so doing, he’s given me the “beauty of his peace” to replace the “strain and stress,” that comes from the worrisome things of this world.

We have had a perfect example of this since a tornado ripped through our community a couple months ago. Since the storm, many of the nearly forty families in our small congregation who lost their homes have either started to rebuild or are making plans to do so. There is still anxiety and uncertainty about the future, to be sure, but there is also evidence in many of a deeper, abiding faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ. I see in them a sense of hopefulness, an eagerness to move on, and in the midst of this, gratefulness for the chance to start over. What an amazing thing to see how trust in the power and love of God, manifested through his Son, Jesus Christ, can turn the rubble in our lives into riches – of the spiritual kind.

We don’t need a disaster to teach us how to replace worry with trust. But we do need to see the bigger picture in all things, and realize how, even when the worst comes to pass, God can give us “the beauty of his peace.”

Worries see a snapshot
Instead of the mural.