I told my friends last week that all I want for Christmas is peace in my house. It was kind of a joke, but it was mostly true. I’m late in writing my advent post this week. That’s mostly because I feel unqualified to write on this week’s topic—peace.

I heard the bells on Christmas day. Their old familiar carols play. And mild and sweet their songs repeat. Of peace on earth good will to men. And in despair, I bowed my head. “There is no peace on earth,” I said.

To be very transparent, my home has felt pretty much everything but peaceful this week. My kids’ trauma histories and mental health challenges are threatening to take over. And anyone who has children from hard places can tell you that the holidays bring. it. all. out. It’s all out, guys. And the peace seems to be walking out the door with it.

This is the time of year that adoptive parents love and dread. Of course we love Christmas! It is simply the most wonderful time of the year! But all of the excitement around the season heightens anxieties for the little ones we love.

Grief over broken relationships looms strong. The longing for first families pulls at their hearts in a way I will never know. And this is what I dread. I wish it weren’t so. It can be so hard as a parent to calm their anxious and grieving hearts and to bring peace to their precious souls.

I think we all are feeling a little bit of this. Of course, everyone’s life and circumstance is different. But I think it’s safe to say that this year, perhaps more than in the past, we all long for a little whole lot more peace here on earth.

This pandemic has stirred up discord, and I do not have time to list all the ways we have “no peace.” But that’s what makes this week’s reminder so glorious.

Then rang the bells more loud and deep. God is not dead, nor doth he sleep! The wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, with peace on earth, good-will to men.*

Praise the Lord, God brings peace for our weary and broken souls! He promises peace for those who fix their eyes on Him.

You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on you
because he trusts in you.
Trust in the LORD forever,
for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.

-Isaiah 26:3-4

This season, we can remember that God is working. He is in control. He is everlasting. He will keep us in His perfect peace.

And we can remember, especially during this advent season, that God loved us so deeply that he sent his son Jesus to rule and reign in our hearts and in the Kingdom to come.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

-Isaiah 9:6

May we remember that God has promised to bring peace to our souls. Friend, cling tightly to this promise! May He keep us all in his peace, overflowing to our lives and homes-—even when our homes seem chaotic and unruly. God is bigger than the unrest of our human hearts.

Share the promise with your children, and pray that it may bring rest for the tumultuous waters of their hearts, too! And may we look forward with anticipation to the everlasting peace we will enjoy forever when Jesus rules as the Prince of Peace.

*For the rest of this great, Christmas-time hymn from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and a timely history of its context, read this from Justin Taylor.