Pieces

 Pieces.  My heart, body, mind... life... feels as if it is lived in pieces.  I am fragmented.  From the inside out.  Fragments of time--schedules (mine and others).  Fragments of space--outside, inside, work, home, school, store, church.   Fragments of thought--God, needs of my husband and daughter, practical living, money, work-related thoughts, bigger pictures, leadership, future, worry, memories.

Every piece of me feels as if it is pulled in a thousand different directions.  There is no center.  There are pieces strewn around a broken and nervous bit of more pieces called my heart.  But even my heart lies fragmented and divided in its direction and loyalties.  

In short, I'm a mess.  From the inside out.

Peace.  Just the word makes me breath deeply.  Not because I possess it.  But because, by definition, it is a restful place to be. The hope of the existence of such a thing makes me relax for just a second.   I found this on a website this morning--

"Peace is the absence of disturbance, a calm and composed soul. It is a quiet equilibrium even if surrounded by tumultuous events."

Peace.  It is not fragmented.  It creates unity... from the inside out.  It is quiet. 

It would stand to reason that, by this definition, inner peace would be an unfragmented and quiet inside.  Those who possess it are not ruffled by stress or circumstances.  They experience the same (or worse or better) than the rest of us, but somehow their core remains undisturbed.

Oh how I want this peace. 

And that's really all I have for this morning.  The want.  The desire to breath deeply with all my parts--body, mind and spirit--in complete, unfragmented unity.  It's happened before, and my prayer is that as I begin this crazy year (crazy for me, anyway--full time course load, 30 hours/week of work plus working a side business and doing homework and projects... in addition to being a mom, wife, long-distance family member, church member and volunteer), God will "hem me in, behind and before".  He will speak peace to my innermost parts.  He will keep his promises and hold me close.

 And I will let Him.