Peace is a word you hear a lot in yoga culture. I teach peace in my classes. I use scripture to remind my students of the peace that comes from God. But what does it look like to live a life of peace?
Maybe someone who is not easily angered? Someone who is patient or someone who is happy and content? Yet I have been thinking about peace a lot lately and I realized that peace does not exclusively relate to our current conditions.
We can be at peace with the way things are and look perfectly normal. Yet we are hiding turmoil deep down that stems from the way things were in our past.
It’s one thing to be thankful for who we are today. Maybe we lived a life of evil, hurt people we loved, hurt ourselves, or just hurt our relationship with God. We can be thankful we are no longer that person but can we find peace with that person from our past?
How many of us still shudder and cringe when we remember a dorky remark you made during an encounter with someone you highly regarded? Probably all of us.
Whether insignificant or significant, our embarrassments and insecurities shape who we are, until we let them go and refuse to still be tormented by the past.
Do this. Make peace with your past through a meditation. Find a quiet spot. Completely solitary. And spend some time breathing deeply. Let it clear your head. And be patient. It will take time. Then speak those memories aloud. Let God have those feelings attached to them. And find peace through his promises.
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, s/he is a new creature; the old things passed away;behold new things have come”
It is so wonderful that God’s mercies and grace are new every morning.
Each day we need to come to Him and let Him renew us.