I have peace. Not as the world gives it, nor as it sees it. It is a peace in the midst of turmoil, of tempest and trial, peace in the midst of pain. The peace that comes from knowing that there is a God who is above all of it. I cannot grasp it fully, nor can I really put into words what it is like. But it is there. Like a wind, warm and strong that I cannot hold in my hands or see with my eyes. Yet it pushes me along, reminding me of a reality that is deeper than my memory or my imagination.
This God who gives it to me — I know Him. I love Him. Yet I get angry with Him, and O! so hurt by Him. Because I don’t always understand what He’s doing; I get confused, and I cry out to Him. And He says that it’s okay. I can be hurt, and I can be confused, I can even be angry, so long as I know that He loves me. And I do. I know that He loves me, O! so deeply. And that’s why I love Him. Because I know nothing else will do, nothing else will be enough. Nothing could ever match His glory, His beauty, His goodness. The limitless depths of His being are utterly beyond delving. And this is the God who has called me to Himself. This God has called me son, and friend. I don’t know why. I can’t understand why He should choose me, and I know that I didn’t choose Him. It is a mystery, and one that I am happy to live with. I am happy to be granted some little knowledge of Him who is unknowable. The one who knows me as I could never know myself. As mine eyes are opened to more of Him, I come to know even who I am. What a world I have been placed in — that to know myself, I must seek another. And what beauty there is in that search! Not merely in finding things which were lost to you, but in the realisation that you know so little, and yet there is Someone who knows it all. And He delights to watch us grow. What peace there is, in knowing myself a child!
I am grateful for it. I know that I don’t understand it all. I know that I am frail and broken. Yet I am held together by He who is truly strong and whole as no one else is. I am often hurt, and confused, and each day I draw closer to death. Yet also to everlasting life. And this without the tears and pain, but the life which I long for, which now I can only catch fleeting glimpses of. And what a day it will be! when I see at last the home for which I have longed, and Father who has brought me there. With unbound eyes and heart like a feather, I shall know in full the peace which I now only in small part experience. And though now I see but through a glass darkly, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And it will all make perfect sense.
— Joel