Category Archives: Healing, Overcoming, Pain, Restoration

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PERSPECTIVE INFORMS a LIFESTYLE

Serenity in Real Life: Sobriety and Peace

The Symptoms of Inner Peace

YEARS AGO my brother-in-law rehabbed a second time and never went off-the-wagon for the rest of his life. He was determined, but his sobriety was hard won at that. Not long after, my sister-in-law divorced him. Being left so abruptly was a hard pill for him to swallow. Jerry persevered. To maintain a level of peace and equilibrium as a suddenly single person dealing with heartbreak and sobriety required extra effort on his part. He knew he needed emotional support. Reading, prayer, and self-care became part of his life. He took this process seriously. That’s when he reached out to me. He knew I also was in a world of hurt.

Jerry shared what he was learning with me. The Serenity Prayer was a favorite of his. He nurtured serenity in his life. Participation in Alcoholics Anonymous helped him implement appropriate balance. These meetings were like his lifeblood. They kept him focused. Through AA  came effective support. The Twelve Step program served as a guide as he improved and defined his daily life. Jerry looked to God to help him face many a challenge. I borrowed his 12 Step manual. I saw the beauty of it as I read its pages and identified with its content. The 12 steps were similar to my own path to healing though without the book and enacted through my own intentional transformation. I thought the similarities uncanny.
Jerry invited me over every so often to talk about life in general. We discussed our ups and downs: problems, concerns, solutions, behaviors, disappointments; you know the drill. Both of us had the painful aftermath of rejection in common. This common bond caused a joining that was rich indeed.  In the other person, we experienced an empathetic understanding in response to the hand we’d been dealt. Neither of us had wanted our divorces.
Pain is a powerful emotion. Jerry addressed his struggles head-on. As a result of his effort, a new quality soon surfaced in Jerry that hadn’t been quite so obvious in our earlier acquaintance. I had known Jerry for over twenty years but had never thought him particularly religious. Now he would start our visits with an uplifting devotional, and he would end them in a heartfelt prayer. I knew his prayers went straight to the throne of grace. We often talked about spiritual concepts, especially salvation and God’s work in our lives. His faith was fresh and unspoiled like the innocent trust of a child. Not too many months out, he remarried and thus came an end to our visits.

Jerry shared with me many writings during our year or two of visits. He had gotten these through Alcoholic Anonymous and elsewhere. One of them stood out, The Symptoms of Inner Peace. He gave me a copy after I asked for one. The truth is . . . I believe Jerry accessed peace in the middle of the storm. God became big enough in Jerry’s mind for him to deal with every problem that came his way–and somehow without a buildup of resentment. Amazingly, I can confidently say Jerry lived the words of Symptoms of Inner Peace.

 

Inner peace speaks life to the soul. You know you have it when your thoughts and wishes have changed from being me-focused and having to be right all the time, to other-focused and being okay with what is. Inner transformation changes the way you live your life. Perspective informs a lifestyle.

Symptoms of Inner Peace

1.  A tendency to think and act deliberately, rather than from fears based on past experiences.
2.  An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.
3.  A loss of interest in judging others.
4.  A loss of interest in judging self.
5.  A loss of interest in conflict.
6.  A loss of interest in interpreting the action of others.
7.  A loss of ability to worry.
8.  Frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation.
9.  Contented feelings of connectedness with others and nature.
10.  Frequent attacks of smiling through the heart.
11.  Increasing susceptibility to kindness offered, and the uncontrollable urge to reciprocate.
12. An increasing tendency to allow things to unfold, rather than resisting and manipulating.

 

You are fortunate if you have peace like that. Real peace doesn’t allow for comparisons or resentments to grow and fester. I have noticed when I walk in close relationship with God, I am more like the words in the writing. Things don’t bother me as much. They simply don’t matter. I can let them go because I mentally ‘will’ to release them. Some play out like an automatic response.

The Rest of the Story

The oncology ward at the local hospital housed my last visit with Jerry. It was a private visit, just him and me. He was quite thin and was recuperating from cancer surgery. The prognosis was not encouraging. He was given months to a year. Sadly, he had just weeks.

Jerry wanted to know about me, how I was doing. We hadn’t talked since he’d married. I shared with him how I had given a talk about my life in church and how it had been recorded. He wanted a copy. That never happened. However, his affirming and encouraging words meant a lot to me. Jerry truly was a dear soul. These days I meet with his youngest daughter whenever we can manage it. His love flows in my niece’s veins. She honors me with her love.

I am thankful for the blessings I received via my friendship with Jerry. He lived serenity. Peace ruled his life in a life-giving sense. I think it worked that way for him because peace links to the spiritual side of things. Jerry apprehended that something extra special in his last years. A frequent saying of his was referring to himself as “Jer Dog,” and he even had the T shirt. He said the “Dog” part was God spelled backwards, because God was important in his life. Always the optimist. Although never a church-going person nor well acquainted with deeper spiritual truths, I believe Jerry’s faith was a very real part of who he was.

Jerry greeted everyone with a smile and was always glad to see you. He is missed by all who knew him. The Serenity Prayer, The Twelve Steps, Symptoms of Peace, and Jer Dog, will for forevermore speak of Jerry in my thoughts.

R.I.P. Jerry Dean

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When Peace is Hard to Come By

Peace at the Center

Written on a Sunday morning, at an earlier time.

Have you a heartache?

I do.

It happened four days ago, and I’m not over it yet. But I’m trying. One other person is involved and took the major hit more than I. It happened so fast that it was all over and done before the thing could be stopped. I was stunned, shocked, and fully impacted. So much so that my thinking went fuzzy.

But something good happened too, today, and that’s why I’m writing a post about it.

You’re never quite prepared for the unpleasant thing when it happens, just saying. It is easy to blame when you’re hurting. Now I can see that a lack of communication and lack of understanding were more at fault than anything else. And missteps were made by more than one person. That being said, the emotional and spiritual side of things will be shared to get to my problem and the way God saw fit to answer it.

The other person’s immediate response to the unsettling event was merciful, kind, and loving. The disappointing circumstance was accepted without complaint or bitterness. As the two of us commiserated with tears flowing the next day, the other person’s response was with an open heart, a pure visage, a belief in the honorable way, with love and acceptance, and with a humility that is rarely seen.

This reaction amazed me. I felt ashamed of my less than noble reaction. The following day I realized that I’d seen Christ in the other person’s unselfish, kindly acceptance of what had happened.

Pain and Struggle

For me, relief would not come. I was devastated, thought it unfair, felt betrayed, disappointed, and I felt the other person was treated with disregard, that kind of self-pitying, reactive thinking. Pain removed my smile and awakened in me an unvoiced numbing discouragement.

Bleak thoughts courted my waking hours. My writing fell silent. It felt as if I couldn’t do it anymore. I wanted to quit. All I saw were walls, defeat, not gateways or opportunities. Grief beset me. Bitter thoughts hammered away at me. No. No. No. Go away. I beat them back, only for them to return like miserable company.

I asked God for a thought to help me handle this disappointment in a godly way, in His way, for Him to help me let go of the disappointment and heartache. Nothing came. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Four days and still nothing but sick at heart. How this was affecting me was shocking to me. I thought I was stronger than that.

I prayed through my tears. I encouraged the other person’s faith, trying to put a good face on it, while bathed in a flood of my own sad thoughts. I decided to bear up alone for I knew I must accept this misfortune without involving any of my friends or relatives.

This too will pass. I knew I could not bear to languish in regret’s melancholy embrace very long without it robbing me of my soul’s joy in the Lord. One has to practice what one preaches, right?

Peace Enters

This morning, when pain revisited my waking thoughts, the phrase  ‘Peace at the Center’ also entered. Peace at the Center is an old Quaker saying, one I have appreciated and repeated during many a woe. Peace at the Center is a phrase to cling to when you are in distress and also when you are not in distress. Just the saying of it can soften the edges of a stressed condition with a gentle sense of peace.

You can secure peace at the center when you choose to seek it and rest in it. Peace at the Center can chase away bad thoughts, similar to how “In Christ” you can find the strength to go through the time of difficulty.

God helps us absorb peace in the core of our being. You encourage beauty in that sentiment, in its words, in the strength of God being with you–come whatever may come. My thoughts still go to the source of my pain where an element of distress remains, but God’s peace through Peace at the Center brings immediate relief. In the saying of it, “peace at the center,” a sigh then uplifts, relaxes, and bears me up.

For All of Us

Misfortunes happen. Life hurts us and causes pain to our loved ones. Circumstances befuddle and confuse. Dreams die a painful death. We lose what is dear to us, think we get the short end of the stick, realize we are not quite so secure as we thought.

You try to make sense of what happened by looking at what is true. Then you allow the truth to set you free. Grace gives its abundance as you work it through until relief comes in and sorrow wanes.

Peace at the Center is a gift. No one has to bear their sorrows alone. God is with us. He is peace on earth, good will to men–to all, to you, to my dear ones, to your dear ones, to me. I cannot live without Him, without His peace. God is my life. He is my hope.

“Peace at the Center.”

To God be the Glory

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