I sometimes imagine spiritual peace as the reward for giving up something I enjoy.
Perhaps I must become less ambitious, less opinionated, less attached to ordinary pleasures, or endlessly available to anyone who needs me.
A God who requires deprivation is difficult to approach honestly.
I remember considering a boundary with someone I cared about. Part of me believed that choosing peace meant continuing to absorb conversations that regularly left me depleted.
Saying no felt like sacrificing the relationship. Saying yes felt like sacrificing myself.
Neither sacrifice was required.
I could care about the person while changing the form of my availability. I offered a time when I had capacity and declined the expectation that I must always respond immediately.
The relationship had to adjust, but love was not removed.
God’s mercy does not demand self-abandonment. Nor does it require me to harden my heart in order to protect my limits.
Today I want to notice where I believe peace requires someone to lose.
The answer may involve compromise, grief, or releasing a form that cannot continue honestly.
But pain and sacrifice are not automatically the same.
Sometimes letting go is the way both people are released from an arrangement built on fear.
God’s peace does not take life from me.
It removes the belief that suffering is the admission price.
A PRIVATE REFLECTION
What is coming up for you?
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