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Topic: Peace (03/15/04)
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TITLE: The Price of Peace By Elmari Viljoen 03/21/04 |
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Charlotte McKaye sat down on a wooden bench overlooking the beach. The sunrise was beginning to shade the sky a lovely pink. Soft wisps of clouds streaked across the sky and absorbed the rays, reflecting it even brighter than the surrounding sky.
The forty-year-old woman sat with turmoil in her heart. Her blue-grey eyes were marked with worry and age far beyond her years. Locks of light brown hair, streaked with grey, played around her creased forehead in the breeze.
Johnny was away for almost a year now. Today was his birthday. She missed him so much; he was her life and her joy.
But now as she sat there, she knew there was something else she missed too: inner peace. Years now she’s been carrying more than her rightful share of burdens. She had almost gotten used to it, but every now and then there comes another tragedy or another report and she is thrown back into turmoil and depression.
“This has to stop; I can’t take much of this any longer.”
“My son, a soldier!” she rehearsed aloud the statement, that sounded so honorable in the beginning of all this. “ You must be so proud ma’am,” they all said.
Now the words filled her with bitterness and remorse, worst of all: fear.
She didn’t care about this stupid war anymore, whatever the ‘objective’ was or what the two countries had against each other.
She didn’t care about politics; she just wanted her son back, back in her house, safe.
What would be the cost of peace? How many innocent people would have to die? Which one would be the last? The final epiphany of ‘enough’? Would it have to be her Johnny?
She looked again at the ocean. Near the shore she could see the breakers rolling in, each wave building up only to crash down again into the sand. Then farther out she saw past the waves, where the deep blue just stretched out into endless calm. There was a single fishing boat drifting peacefully, no doubt there since long before sunrise.
What was the price of peace? For her? How many news reports would she have to sit through, how many sleepless nights, before she could lay her burdens down? When would that ‘last drink’ finally be the last?
In Sunday school she learned that Jesus once taught from a fishing boat like that. Didn’t He promise peace to His people?
“Oh God, if you’re really there, what would be the price of peace for this war and for me?”
It came to her; a single train of thought, but as clear as the sun that rose before her…
One sacrifice, one man, one price; already paid. My son: Jesus.
Suddenly she understood. There was a price to peace. But she could never pay it and neither can Johnny. But God could, and He did.
But there still was one thing that she had to do: she had to accept it, as she knew Johnny already did.
She looked down at her hands, clenched around the little book she found in Johnny’s room this morning. The New Testament.
A tear rolled down her cheek and onto the page where she opened the book.
“God, my Johnny is safe with you. Will you from now on keep me safe too?
I accept your peace.”
“Cast all your burdens on Him, for He cares for you”
1 Peter 5:7