Seele contributor, Thomasena Thomas shares how 2020 has been a transformative and eye-opening year, a year where she has learned to find God’s peace in the midst of a challenging and unprecedented year

Wow, what a year it has been, we are already wrapping up the 8th month of the year. This year for me in particular, has been transformative and eye-opening. I have learned so much about myself and the world around me.

One thing that I have been grounding myself in during this time is finding peace and restoration. Restoration in the sense of restoring myself in Christ because, during times like this, we can become overwhelmed, disheartened, and fearful of the days to come. I learned that I have to constantly be in a state of restoration and know that God is in control, it may be hard to see His hand in my life, especially amiss a pandemic but I am thankful that He is God and I can find peace in Him. 

To me, peace is not only a state of being but also a mentality. Peace is a mindset that we develop over time. We are never going to be in a constant state of peace because it is something that is consistently worked on. When we find peace, we can get to a point in our minds where we know that it's all going to work out. We may not know how it will work out but once we cultivate that trust with the Lord, we can be at peace in whatever space we are in.

Peace is a state that we love to just say we are in but it is harder to live out in our lives. When the storms of life are raging, the last thing that is on someone's mind is peace. Most of the time, we are trying to solve the issue ourselves. When we lean into peace, we are instead trusting in the Lord to work things out, we are believing that He is who He says He is. 

Isaiah 52:7 tells us that we must “proclaim peace” in our lives. When we proclaim it, we are aspiring for it to fill our hearts and minds. Something I had to learn to do in stressful times in my life is to develop the mindset of speaking things into existence in my life. We sometimes have to invite the things we want into our lives. We have to welcome peace and to do that, we have to rid ourselves of the things that may combat peace in our lives. This is a process and that's why I mentioned that peace is a mindset, it is a practice that we have to cultivate in our lives because as humans, our first instinct is not to be peaceful. 

A beautiful way I have allowed peace into my life is by surrounding myself with plants and life-giving objects. Speaking life into my life is something that I do continuously and having lively tangible objects in my life helps that to flourish in my life. Plants have not only brought a huge amount of peace into my life but also patience. It has caused me to slow down and tend to them. It caused me to remember that we have to take things one step at a time. It is a process about trust and pouring into something with life. I hope you have found some activities that bring peace into your life as well during this unprecedented time in our world.