PEACE Series

Hi everyone (or the one that hasn't given up on me posting to the blog again)! This month has been a true testament of how God can use you even when you're tired and uninspired. In my last post, I mentioned that I would be teaching my Sunday School this month and the topic that was suggested was peace. At the time this topic was suggested, I had a minimum amount of peace and had pondered how to make my life peaceful on several occasions. Well, driving home from work at the end of April, a wonder acronym for the word peace came to me. Since there are five Sundays this May, I decided to teach about one letter/word of the acronym per Sunday. I am very grateful to God for this acronym. Not just because I could have something to teach the class, but because it made me like the last three years of really living for God have not been a waste. Some days I am a better Christian than others, but when knowledge from God hits me the way this acronym hits me, I remember the beautiful feeling of God using me for a bigger purpose. It is not me, and it's about God's kingdom and delivering real messages that will change lives and my life as well. This PEACE Series can relate to anything in area of your life, such as having peace about decisions you've made, forgiveness (whether giving or receiving), job stress, family, friends, home life, your appearance, etc. There are several things that may disrupt your peace. Hopefully this acronym will help you.

Here is the acronym for PEACE and the lessons behind them:
P stands for Pause. What I mean by pause is to take the time to realize you don't have any peace. You know yourself enough to know when something is off with you. The first step is to recognize that you don't have peace. For the first class, I had everyone write down the signs that indicate when they do not have any peace. Not people in general but themselves because the goal of this whole series is for everyone to have an action plan of how they can maintain/regain peace. Some of the things I listed for myself, include crying for no reason, bitterness, over-eating, avoiding people, mad, and not sleeping.

E stands for Exercise Caution. This lesson was called, "God's Gift of Peace, the World's Gift of Drama." For God's gift, I used John 14:27 and for the World's gift I used Psalm 120:6-7. We all have people or things in our lives that bring us drama and hence, disturb our peace. For this lesson, I had everyone list two people. places, or things that bring you drama. Along with listing them, I had write down the feeling associated with the people, place, or things, why they feel this way, and what they should do when drama is brought to them. This exercise was great and effective because everyone had different things and it is something that may apply as soon as they leave the class, meaning the drama may be in their own home and now they can prayerfully handle it better once they've thought it out.

A stands for Accept Responsibility. It is important to accept responsibility for your part in why your peace is disturbed. Even if the worst thing in the world happen to you and you are truly the victim, you still have responsibility. In that case, you are responsible for your healing. You should say to yourself, "Ok, this happened to me. Now what?" Believe it or not, the worst thing that happened to you could be where you ministry comes from. You could heal from your situation just by sharing your testimony with someone else. So for this lesson, I had everyone write down their actions, feelings, and ideas for healing about the situations in their lives that are causing them not to have peace. This was a hard class. It required honesty and a commitment to making your own life a better place.

Since the last two Sunday's haven't happened yet, I'm still working on their lessons, but here are the acronyms and meanings for the 'C' and the second 'E'.

C stands for Corrective Action. Corrective Action is taking control of your life and doing activities that will bring you peace. For example, when I have a hard day and want my peace back, I may do any of the following things: listen to music, exercise, read a book, shopping, etc. This year I started getting magazines at home again and sometimes after a hard day, it's nice to come home to big fashion magazines with good articles and pretty pictures. Your peaceful activities can be anything and whatever it is, is what will help you during a trying time.

E stands for Exhale. Once you have peace, you should be a little less stressed and literally be able to breath easier. Peace doesn't mean that everything is going well and the people in your life that bring you drama go away. I don't want you to think that. Having peace is all about being able to handle the bumps of life, not get rid of or avoid them. There's the saying, 'grow where you're planted'. That's a tough saying to swallow for me sometimes, but God has constantly worked that way for me. When I have prayed for another job because my job gets tough, God doesn't give me the new job because he wants me to shine and truly look like his in my old, terrible job. When I have looked for other states and cities to live in, God has told me for now to stay put and that he can bless me and work with me here in ways that might not work in a bigger city or sunny city. Turning your test into a testimony requires looking within and doing some hard work and practicing patience sometimes. So this overall lesson deals with having peace, not necessarily getting rid of anyone. Sorry!

That's the PEACE series in a nut shell. If you have any questions or suggestions, please put them in the Comments section or email me. If you would like to see the materials from the classes thus far, email me and I'll send them to use. Please post comments on how you're doing with maintaining peace in your life. God bless and sorry it took so long!