Choose Love; Have Peace

I saw it all over Facebook at the start of the year--choose your word for the year! I thought it sounded nice and perhaps I would come up with a one-word motto for the year. It sorta reminded me of college football teams. They select a word, post it on a sign, and then hit that sign as they run out of the tunnel onto the field. It's their inspiration.

My problem was that I couldn't come up with a one word motto for my year.

Not that it mattered because I could definitely proceed along my walk with the Lord without having a one-word slogan. He wasn't going to be too disappointed in me for that one (I give him a list of other things I do that he shakes his head at). I just filed the thought away and didn't put much consideration into it again.

Until one night... I have these horrible dreams sometimes that something has happened to my children or my husband and I have a hard time waking myself from them. I feel myself being so sad and try to talk myself out of these thoughts and dreams but it seems like such a challenge as I lay there in slumber. Perhaps this fear of something happening to your off-spring is just the burden that every mother carries but the bible tells us not to live in fear. This is one thing that I try to remind myself of as these thoughts occur--fear not!

This particular night though as I laid there struggling with my mind I got a new message--choose love. God so gentle whispered it that I could barely hear it in my distraction. I said the words in my head--"choose love." The fear seemed to start to fade. With each repeating of those words, I could feel the love and safety that God brings to me. Choose love.

I think because God is love that when I focus on that, I'm in turn focusing on HIM. I choose love.

And peace, it just seems to follow.

Once I choose love, God provides me peace. 

Psalm 29:11 "The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with peace."

So I may not have settled on just ONE word and ended up with a few, but I have something that God gave to me that is a pretty darn good motto for this phase of my life. Choose love; have peace.

Isaiah 26:3 "You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you."

Since that night, when I have those awful thoughts that enter my mind, I repeat to myself "choose love" over and over again until I feel the peace of God. And all is good.

John 14:27 "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."

With love,

Reynie