Do you remember when music was played from cassette tapes stuffed into oversized "boom boxes" or the ever-cool walk-man?
I do.
I'm THAT old.
Since I was a young child - music has been my thing.
So, you better believe, young Niki was super proud of my Kathy Troccoli and Amy Grant tapes...and don't get me started on Michael W. Smith's "Go West Young Man."
I learned every song on side A and then flipped it to crush the ballads found on side B.
I knew them all by heart - singing my guts out to the imaginary audience in my bedroom and dreaming of the day I'd write songs like that.
But then...the inevitable would come - the unraveling.
On one fateful, unexpected day - the music would be silenced by a squeal and then a rush of tape exploding from the cassette.
I would try in vain to slowly wind it back in, mustering up all the patience young Niki possessed (which wasn't much) ...but, in the end, would have to say goodbye.
I just couldn't fix it.
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And I wonder if your life has ever felt like this?
Like everything has unraveled and you just...can't...fix...it.
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I heard a song this past week called "Firm Foundation." I've heard it a million times. But THIS week as I sang along with the lyric, these words hit differently:
"I've still got joy in chaos. I've got peace that makes no sense."
They hit differently, because I'm in a different place.
A place where peace and joy could easily be lost.
A season of unraveling.
I'm in the "chaos," the "makes no sense" of life.
And yet, I'm okay.
Somehow, someway - my tangled tape is still making music.
There is hope in my unraveling.
Because God is here.
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Philippians 4 (please read the whole chapter because it's beyond good) says that we can walk in a "peace that passes all understanding" that will "guard" our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
But it doesn't say the "peace of Me" or the "peace of this world" or the "peace of my circumstance."
It says, "The peace of God."
That's the only peace that survives the "unravelings."
It's the only peace that can be found in "chaos" when it "makes no sense."
And that - that is worth remembering.
Because whether my life is gliding smoothly along - like the perfect tape in my old Walkman - Or it's a mangled, chaotic mess of what was....
I CAN HAVE PEACE.
And even if no one around me has it...and the world offers me nothing but it's opposite...
I CAN HAVE PEACE.
In God - there IS always peace.
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Today, my prayer for you is that you too would find hope in your unraveling and the peace that is found only in Him. I can't encourage you enough to open up your Bible and spend time with Him. Philippians 4 also encourages us to pray about everything and be anxious about nothing. I cling to this often. Nothing is worthy of anxiety, and nothing is unworthy of bringing to God in prayer. I can "cast my cares upon Him" and you can too.
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