peace that passes

There's a fun song that I learned in church when I was a little kid. I don't remember the name of it, and it was a very simple song, but little did I know how those words, repeated over and over would come to minister to me on a very regular basis.

The first verse went like this:
"I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.
Where?
Down in my heart.
Where?
Down in my heart.
I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.
Where?
Down in my heart to stay!"

Eventually, we got to the tongue twister verse...well a tongue twister for a little kid, anyway. The faster you sang it, the harder it was! You try:
"I've got the peace that passes understanding down in my heart."

When I finally accomplished that verse, I didn't really care what it meant. I was just proud that I could sing it all without messing up! But having sung it over and over again, the words were ingrained on my heart.(And thus is the valuable part of repetitive choruses.)

Let me take you through the non-peace-that-passes-understanding parts of my life real quick. I suffered from shyness, stomach aches, and anxiety from a very early age. This eventually turned into an anxiety disorder with full-on panic attacks that affected my life for about 10 years. And by "affected" I mean that it totally disrupted all I had going on. It pretty much ran my life.

After a while (again, 10 years), I had a good understanding of my anxiety disorder and my panic attacks had pretty much subsided. My dad was diagnosed with cancer and our family walked a pretty distressing road with him. He passed on to be with Jesus a little over 10 years ago and that was heartbreaking. I struggled on that road, but it was my first glimpse of that "peace-that-passes-understanding."

Jumping ahead 10 years....

And here we are today. My mom just (on Tuesday morning) underwent surgery to have a large malignant tumor removed from her large intestine. It was less than two weeks ago that we even knew it was there. Do you know how crazy it is to go from diagnosis to surgery in that amount of time? Do you know all the appointments and prep that has to happen? I mostly watched from the outside as my incredible mom went to every appointment and prepped for surgery, which is no easy task. And tonight she is sleeping (hopefully!) in the hospital, recovering from surgery and I'm going to go ahead and call her a survivor because as far as I'm concerned with what I've seen her go through over the past 8 months leading up to the diagnosis: she has survived much already!

But you know what I understand more clearly now? The Peace That Passes Understanding. From the beginning, from the moment the doctor told me that he was 90% certain that my  mom had cancer, God has wrapped me in a warm blanket of peace that I cannot explain. Me: a stress-case from a very early age. I used to worry about answering the phone! (Ridiculous, yes. But that was the reality of this shy girl's life.) But I have not freaked out once. And that is not like me at all.

And my mom, I know that she has had moments of fear, but there is an undeniable, underlying peace that is completely in control of our hearts right now. I have no logic for it.

But God doesn't just work in the world of logic. He works beyond that. And if you've ever experienced this peace, there is no way you can doubt Him. Praise God for being beyond our understanding!

(And I'll tell you something else: God knew what He was talking about when He told us all to pray for one another. But I'll save that awesomeness for another blog post.)

Much love from my family to you all,
KC