As 2025 wound to a close, a local friend posted on Facebook that he could not remember a year more full with tragedy on our island. Honestly, neither could I.
A friend’s missionary-teacher daughter was shot with an arrow in her neck. She required immediate evacuation and surgery, thankfully making a full recovery. Another missionary teacher in a different village was killed in front of her students—attacked by a man with a machete as she helped her class plant trees.
Multiple missionary families evacuated their villages due to treats of violence. Other missionary friends suffered the loss of their school buildings burning down.
I stood next to my friend and her children as we watched smoke in the distance and realized her home was on fire. A teenage MK passed away right before Christmas from complications with dengue and pneumonia.
Dear friends ended their terms serving in our town and prepared to move on. In addition to all of the usual security threats, landslides, flooding, and illnesses.
Where do we turn when our hearts are anxious and pain seems to be around every corner? How do we last on this field? How do we serve God in very hard places?
In his book Searching for and Maintaining Peace, Fr. Jacques Philippe writes:
The essential truth that we wish to present and develop is the following: To permit the grace of God to act in us and to produce in us (with the cooperation, of course, of our will, our intelligence and our capabilities) all those good works for which God prepared us beforehand, so that we might lead our lives in the performance of good works (Ephesians 2:10), it is of the greatest importance that we strive to acquire and maintain an interior peace, the peace of our hearts.
I came across Fr. Philippe’s book this past summer while listening to a podcast. Our family had just returned to the field from an unplanned month-long break following my husband’s close encounter with burnout. Peace seemed a long way off, especially the kind Fr. Philippe seemed to be pressing for.
Lord, I’m trying to do the work you’ve given me, but it’s hard! Where is the peace? I wondered.
Fr. Philippe goes on to use the image of a lake:
Consider the surface of a lake, above which the sun is shining. If the surface of the lake is peaceful and tranquil, the sun will be reflected in this lake; and the more peaceful the lake, the more perfectly will it be reflected. If, on the contrary, the surface of the lake is agitated, undulating, then the image of the sun cannot be reflected in it. It is a little bit like this with regard to our soul in relationship to God. The more our soul is peaceful and tranquil, the more God is reflected in it, the more His image expresses itself in us, the more His grace acts through us. On the other hand, if our soul is agitated and troubled, the grace of God is able to act only with much greater difficulty.
With that image, my pursuit of peace — real, true peace of heart — began. I understood the stakes. Not only would my fears and undulating heart be harmful to me but would hinder God’s ability to work through me. And isn’t that why we’re here (in this field, on this earth) in the first place?
I am not a naturally peace-filled person, though. At my sickest I was diagnosed with OCD and severe anxiety; at my best I’m a bit of a worrier.* Yet true peace of heart is not only available but promised to us:
Peace I leave with you, My own peace I give to you; a peace the world cannot give, this is My gift to you. Let not your hearts be troubled or afraid. (John 14:27)
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7)
Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you. (2 Thessalonians 3:16)
These truths at times seem utterly at odds with our present reality, but that doesn’t make them false. Lack of safety, lack of health, lack of finances, lack of relationships. We may experience all of these things but will never be in lack of God himself. What a truth to rest in!
Amidst pain and uncertainty, there is a deeper truth that sustains us: the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. Whatever our external circumstances, God’s presence remains a constant refuge.
True peace is not the absence of hardship, but the ability to trust in God’s sovereignty in the midst of it all. By surrendering control and embracing His providence day by day, we can experience that peace of heart, a peace that enables us to continue serving, loving, and reflecting His grace even in difficult places. Our challenges are real, but so is God’s promise to be with us. It is in that truth that we find the strength to persevere, with hearts at rest in His unshakable peace.
*Please don’t read this post as a “Just have more faith!” pat solution to walking out a peace-filled life. I needed a mental health diagnosis and therapy to work through and understand my OCD. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy gave me the tools I needed to sort through what was real and what was OCD talking in my head. If you suffer in this way, please know there is help available and that your difficulties are likely highly treatable.
