What would you give for peace?
A lesson from a famine-stricken land
I had just a few hours' notice to prepare a Bible study for a group of aid workers in South Sudan.
It was March 2017, and famine had been declared in parts of the country only weeks beforehand.
People were literally starving – eating leaves to survive.
I was there to gather stories for a fundraising appeal. It was hot, dry and desperate.
After I had shared some verses from scripture, I asked the group what they would like us to pray for.
I was 100 per cent expecting them to ask for prayer for people to have food.
But they all said what they needed most was peace. ‘Peace first, and then food will come,’ they proclaimed.
Peace first.
That took me off guard.
But when I thought about it, it made sense.
So many things can rob us of peace, and peace can give us so many things.
When you have a busy brain like I do, you crave peace most days, most hours.
I’ve got some fairly significant assessments coming up in relation to my busy brain. I’ll let you know what happens as and when!
I’m very aware that peace in the midst of a conflict in South Sudan looks very different from the sort of peace of mind I long for.
But what I’ve found helpful is to look at my life through the framework of three stories.
In fact, you may be aware that I’m writing a book called Three Stories – A simple guide to finding clarity in the chaos of life. It’s fairly early days, but it’s encouraging.
The core concept categorises life's challenges into three types: micro stories, which are small, immediate actions offering a sense of control; macro stories, representing complex, long-term goals requiring collaboration and patience; and master stories, the uncontrollable circumstances that necessitate acceptance.
As I write, I've been wrestling with big questions about control, collaboration and acceptance. All this while juggling some fairly hefty life and work challenges.
But ultimately it’s bringing me a greater sense of peace. And my aching hope is that it’ll help other people who are battling the chaos of life, feeling stuck or desperate to make progress, to find that life-giving peace as well.
Peace leads to so much open space, so much plenty and so much joy. My prayer is for peace.
I’d love you to join me on this journey.
I’ll be sharing more here on my Substack and on LinkedIn. A podcast is also being planned…
Hello! You may be wondering why you’re reading this. Well, I’m grateful that you signed up for my Substack a while ago when it was called Digital Wisdom. It’s got a new lease of life now and morphed into Three Stories. The writing will be just as good… but the topic will be a bit different – I would say better! Thanks for reading. :)