peace be Still

Dusk is falling too fast, but not fast enough to shut out the breath taking sunset that spreads across the sky.

It's changed from the pink and orange that it was to the dark gray and blue against the last remaining light of the day. I want to take pictures, but its too late for my little camera to capture the beauty. Instead I just sit and take in the display of colors. The air is coated with silence and I find myself thinking deep wondering thoughts.

Everything is lovely and I want to push the pause button and just relish this little piece of life.

Interrupting the silence though is a siren. Piercing the night air with an eerie noise that signals that somewhere something has gone wrong for somebody on this lovely night.

I find the contrast quickly. I sit there looking at the  beauty God has created, while at the same time listening to the very opposite of beauty...the pain life interrupted by unpleasantness.

There I sit in the calm of a balmy fall evening while thousands of miles away people are preparing to bed for the night in a room filled with hundreds of other people who have fled the storm. No quietness surrounds them, even in their minds they wonder what will be left after the storm has finished with their homes and livelihood.

I'm watching the sunset and everything seems so lovely.

Wind is shrieking and ran is coming down too fast. Lights have gone out and there is nothing to do, but let the storm rage.

"peace be still"

Sometimes there is no outward way to calm our surroundings, but inwardly we can find the strength and peace of God.  Peace sometimes is not the halting of problems, it is resting in the strength of the Lord.