Peaced Together
What if we don’t need to pull it together ourselves as much as we need to be "peaced" together by another?
I often bless others by saying “Peace to all your parts.” Perhaps I’ve even said it to you.
There are several words for peace in the Scriptures. The one we may know best is shalom. But today I want to focus on another: eiréné. Defined as wholeness, it means when all essential parts are joined together. It’s the opposite of being pulled apart.
Selah.
Pause and think about that.
When a woman, long-suffering and unsolved, came to Jesus to steal a healing, he called her out. She wasn’t going to get away without a blessing. “Eiréné,” he spoke to her.
“Daughter,” he said with tender awe in his voice, “your faith has healed you. Go in peace (go in eiréné) and be freed from your suffering” (Luke 8:43-48).
Be freed from that which has fragmented you.
I love the wording the Amplified Bible uses. Instead of simply saying go in peace, it says go into peace. As if it’s waiting right there for you.
May you go into a place where you’re pulled together and not apart. And may you be freed from your suffering.
I think of the strong admonishment in anxious hours that we need to pull it together! Meaning, we need to clamp down and calm down and control our frightened feelings.
But what if we don’t need to pull it together ourselves as much as we need to be peaced together by another? What if the fragments are too far flung for us to gather on our own? Might the God who knit us together in the first place, “peace” us together now (Psalm 139)?
“God made my life complete,” the Psalmist once said, “when I placed all the pieces before him” (Psalm 18:20 Message).
Peaced Together: Our Little Life Words of the week.
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DEEPER DIVE
Ponder:
What is pulling you apart?
What parts need to be “peaced” together?
Practice:
As a daily act of prayer this week, present your pieces to God.
Play:
Our song of the week is a blessing sung over us: Grace & Peace by Fernando Ortega.
Pray:
“Peace” me together.
Peace to all your parts, dear one.
xo,
Ah, yes. You have indeed said, “Peace to all your parts” to me. And I felt that deep...in my bones, in my heart, in all my parts that needed to hear it.
I think 2024 might be my year of Eirene...the year that Spirit pulls my peaces together. The way they are meant to be. 😘