With the snow comes peace

We have had lots of ice and snow in Nebraska this winter! After one of our snowfalls recently, I looked out my kitchen window the next morning to see the sun shining on the new fallen snow like diamonds everywhere. It appeared that the snow was sticking like glue to everything including trees, trunks, branches, mailboxes and the leftover plants poking out of snowbanks after summer. I was thinking that maybe snowflakes help us think of PEACE for our world....and ways to bring peace.

PEACE could come just as quietly as snow in the night if we could all envision it daily for our world and work for it in our own lives maybe?

Maybe we could all try to find new ways of creating PEACE in our lives and telling others how much we seek it and yearn for it..... by sharing our stories of sadness and wonderings about war and desire for PEACE for all people.

And like the snow shining in the sunlit morning, PEACE could come for all those who are suffering from war on both sides and their loved ones at home waiting for their return..... and no more tortured good-byes for anyone in war.

Now that we have recently learned our dear son-in-law matthew is on a list of ten persons from his reserve unit to return to IRAQ the end of January, my thoughts are of PEACE even more deeply, simply and intensely. I find myself thinking of PEACE.

My Christmas and New Year's prayer is for PEACE to come to IRAQ and many other places so that loved ones can go home again; and so that the heartache, sadness, suffering, and destruction can stop and end. I would pray that no more father's or mother's children would have to go to war or would be living innocently in a war torn country.

I pray for the Invisible Children of Uganda who have suffered for 20 years from the awful kidnapping of children to train them to fight in a terrible war there too. I would pray that all wars would cease like many snowflakes pf PEACE.

I would also pray for the Nuba Sudanese who had to flee from their villages in Sudan and now find their homes in Grand Island.... and all persons who have to flee from wars and become refugees.

How would I want to be a refugee, an immigrant, a prisoner or not have a place to SHELTER ME (like a Sweet Honey in the Rock song) or be sent to IRAQ in the army reserves?

Now as we head for Colorado to be with our grown kids before Matt leaves for training again in IRAQ, I think of ways I can hope to find peace in all of this pain as we share some holiday time together this week. I hope that their young marriage can find some ways of peace through all of this and all their loved ones.

I think how they will have to make changes in their plans and projects, how this means leaving studies, leaving dear families behind and leaving our dear daughter again. I think of how this will change things for so many families in many places.

It seems like thinking about the snowflakes and the sun shining through in the morning helps me somehow. Snow comes to me as a sign of HOPE and peace. Many people are looking for signs of peace, justice and hospitality rather than war.

I will be searching more deeply now for signs of peace through our sadness at Christmas. Our hearts ache and break as we think of each person leaving for IRAQ and other wars like in Afghanistan rather than their returning home. I think of all the hopes and dreams that are being postponed now and being replaced with anxiety, pain and sadness.... so I will keep looking even more ardently for joy and peace.

The quiet snow comes softly to bless the earth with promise and moisture for spring.

As I look out my window and see the beautiful white snow and then go out to shovel the light and airey few inches of new snow in our driveway, I pray that peace will come into our lives and our into our world like the quiet snow overnight and stick like glue!