Peace

I sat this evening for a while on my front porch.   I listened to crickets chirping and frogs singing their Springtime hymns, watched my boy pretend to be Hercules out on the grass with a backdrop of mountains and purple sky behind him.  The  pretty pink carnations I bought to plant in the yard sat, still potted just near me, the cool evening breeze wafting over them, washing their scent over me.

It has been a long while since I embraced peacefulness.  Even with the swoosh of a passing car here and there, the grunts of my boy as he fought his unseen foes out on the grass, I kept my own quiet. I honored it, cherished it, let it become a part of me.

I know how lucky I am to be in this place.  Not just in this house or in this town, or even on my front porch  or even on this Earth.   I am lucky that I survived the last few years of my life.  Lucky to have escaped dire situations, to have counted on and not been let down by so many people who love me.  I know I am blessed with purple skies and mountain views, cool evening breezes and songs of nature. I am blessed with a chatty little boy, a porch light when the sun goes down, and the great comfort I have in knowing that if I made it through the last few years, I can make it through pretty much anything.

I am happy I've survived, for without merely surviving, I would never know this kind of peace.  This is the peace I prayed for so many times in the midst of turmoil, in the height of all the things swirling around me that were anything but peaceful.  I am taking this moment to be grateful then, that the thing I longed so much to possess, is finally possessing me.  It did not come without heartache or sacrifice, but I found it here, this April evening on my front porch.  The very thing I so desperately sought somehow found me, and I, in my exhaustion and weariness, have embraced it so fully that it has given me new life.

It is all I've ever wanted.

The peace that passes all understanding.