Article January 1, 2001 ISSUE

Adrift or anchored?

A feeling of peace ... always yours from God.

By Joan Sieber Ware

My daughter was in a fog—many big decisions were hanging in the air for her, and no clear answers coming. The more she searched for answers, the more confused she became. It seemed like she was a small boat being washed this way and that in a raging river, with nothing to stabilize her.

If we turn to other people for advice, we're in one sense turning to other boats on the "river."

I talked to her. It seemed quite clear that she wasn't feeling close to God. But I knew that a lecture from Mom would only slam the door on me. So I reached out to God myself in order to know what, if anything, I should say.

I knew that God saw her constantly as His own, forever at peace. As I prayed, an idea of God's peace developed. The perfect, calm, steadfast, unchangeable, immovable peace of God simply is. This peace exists. Now and always. It is everywhere and pervades everything.

What did this have to do with my daughter and my effort to help her? I realized that peace comes to us from God, the divine Mind, the only real Mind there is. As God's children, we each can experience the peace of God in every aspect of our lives. It calms and refreshes, dispelling turbulence and confusion.

I began to feel peaceful myself.

I held on to this peace. And some words came that I could share with my daughter.

I told her that life often feels like a turbulent river rushing here and there. Sometimes the river dahes off into little side-channels. At other times, big obstacles loom up in its waters. It feels like we're tiny boats washing away, tossed to and fro by circumstance.

The very thing that provides stability and keeps us moving steadily forward is the awareness that we are linked to God—that we are His image.

When we charge off with no thought of how we relate to God, we are often blinded to our source of peace and guidance. Then we may feel more like we're washing away in a raging river rather than living in God's gentle peace.

If we turn to other people for advice, we're in one sense turning to other boats on the "river." No person can ever be the ultimate source of stability and peace. These come from God. And we all can see, feel, and live our individual relationship to God.

My daughter was thoughtful, and she told me she liked these ideas. When I talked to her a few days later, she thanked me again, and said that she had gone to church. She was also thinking about daily communion with God. And she was feeling much more at peace.

We can at any moment move forward—safely and surely—by finding and feeling God's peace, in which no storm can ever touch us.

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