The Little Things
January 12, 2015

Last year I chose to word “brave” as my word of the year, and this year (while I’m going to continue to challenge myself to be brave), my word I want to focus on is peace. The year ahead has some big things (that I know of), and I want to make sure I hold onto peace as I face each of those things.

Back last winter, I was listening to a sermon at church, and the pastor said something that deeply resonated with me at the time (so much so that I wrote the following quote in a note on my phone):

Suffering doesn’t take away our shalom. 

I love that, and it’s something I’ve thought about often over the course of 2014. So, this past weekend, I did a little google search (which means that I’m not in any way claiming to be an expert on this word) on the word shalom. I found the following:

The Hebrew word for peace, shalom, is derived from a root denoting wholeness or completeness, and its frame of reference throughout Jewish literature is bound up with the notion of shelemut, perfection. Its significance is thus not limited to the political domain‑-to the absence of war and enmity‑-or to the social-‑to the absence of quarrel and strife. It ranges over several spheres and can refer in different contexts to bounteous physical conditions, to a moral value, and, ultimately, to a cosmic principle and divine attribute. In the Bible, the word shalom is most commonly used to refer to a state of affairs, one of well‑being, tranquility, prosperity, and security, circumstances unblemished by any sort of defect. Shalom is a blessing, a manifestation of divine grace. (source)

peace quote

This year, I will be consciously focusing on peace and shalom in my life. Regardless of the suffering and the hard things in life, it doesn’t take away peace and shalom. The bigger story is that it is well (and luckily I have that tattooed on me so I see it every day). 

Now it’s your turn to share! Do you have a word for 2015? How do you seek a place of peace and shalom in life?

←

One response to “Peace.”

  1. The Little Things says:
    December 21, 2015 at 2:43 am

    […] the start of 2015 I picked the word “peace” as my word for the year. In a post I wrote last January on peace, I said the following: “This year, I will be consciously focusing on peace and shalom in my […]