Here’s what I know about peace: It rarely, if ever, arrives simply because life has quieted down. It doesn’t usually come with a soft breeze, a tidy calendar, or a calm exterior. Usually — and most often for me — it is the breath that we are able to take within the noise, inside the chaos.
It’s a stillness that Jesus brings, even when everything around feels unsettled or scary.
For me, peace feels like the loosening of my shoulders. The softening of that inner critic who loves to sound alarms. A gentle reminder that somehow, even here, even now, we are held. We are held by a peace that is far greater than our own strength or the chaos of this world.
Advent reminds us that in the long dark nights, peace is possible. It’s not because the problem gets solved or the whole thing finds a happy ending. It is only because the Prince of Peace has drawn near. We’re able to lean into His presence — not our perfection or any given circumstance that we are walking through.
So this week, let us gather the kind of peace that Jesus brings. This is the kind of peace that meets us exactly where we are. Not when we’ve earned it. Not when we’ve cleaned up the mess. But right now — in the thick of our real lives.
This poem is a favorite of mine — “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry:
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.
I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.
For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
My invitation to you is to light a candle — whatever you have, wherever you are — and sit with it quietly for one minute. Can you give it one minute and ask Jesus to bring to mind one moment from this year where His peace, however faint, was present. Place your hands over your heart and say, “Your peace is welcome here, Jesus.”
Darlings, may the peace of Jesus meet you in the very place that you need it most today.
This season, I created an Advent Guide for my Substack community with rituals, blessings, poems, readings, and journal prompts.
if you’d like access to my full Advent Guide: Gathering the Light – A December Journey of Hope, Peace, Joy & Love, click here to subscribe.
This Advent Guide is not a checklist, a Bible study, or a rigid plan. It’s a companion for December — a month that pulls at our hearts in a hundred directions.
Each week includes:
- A weekly reflection to help you slow down and notice your life with tenderness.
- A poem chosen to stir something true and steady inside you.
- A simple ritual you can do at home — nothing elaborate, just small sacred practices for real women with real weeks.
- A meditation to anchor your heart in the Advent theme of Hope, Peace, Joy, or Love.
- A spiritual reading or blessing (written in a liturgical, nourishing style) to speak light over your days.
- Optional journal prompts for when you want to go a little deeper — gentle, not demanding.
