How I Found Peace That Transcends Understanding After Losing My Brother

Today is the second anniversary of my brother Z's passing, and my verse for the day could not have been timed better. "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:7.

I used to be in a place where I hated life. I was depressed. I stayed because I was raising my son and told myself once he was raised I would be done too. That was my real thinking for a long time.

Today I'm sitting in my prayer corner watching the sky move. Trees, clouds, that blue that only shows up on the good days. I miss my brother. Life is different without him, less funny, less entertaining. Every relationship leaves its own shape when it ends, and I'm learning to hold the sadness of losing him right next to the gratitude that I had him at all, even for a short time. I cry, and the tears carry both. Grief for the loss. Joy that I got to be his sister. Peace because I surrender to God and read His word daily, and that relationship is what carries me through days like this one.

I love how a narrator from International Christian Center in Mombasa describes this kind of peace. Not surface level, not calm while everything churns underneath, but unshakable.

Paul wrote these words from a prison cell, with no control, no comfort, and probably no idea whether he would walk out alive, and he had peace anyway. It reminds me of Peter in Acts 12, asleep in his cell the night before he was set to be executed, chained between two guards, sleeping so soundly an angel had to wake him up to get him out. Some of us can't sleep because a bill is due or a health scare has us spinning. Peter was hours from losing his life and slept like a baby. That is the peace we are offered, and I promise you it is real and available.

I've been trying to remember the exact morning I first received it. I think it might have been the day I told God I was done. I laid on the bed, gave up, and before I could even hit the mattress I felt myself being lifted. The pressure came off my heart, my mind, my soul, all at once. I remember thinking about the way Joel Osteen talks about your troubles coming to an end, right in that moment. If that was the day, it might be the best day of my life, right alongside the day Jordan was born and the day I found out I was pregnant with him.

A second devotional I read, Peace Beyond Anxiety, talks about how we are surrounded constantly by reasons to worry. Safety, conflict between people and countries, chaos in our own lives. Every time Jordan is out of my sight I think about his safety. I worry about my family's health, my friends' needs, the tension between people who can't get along. There is an endless supply of reasons to spiral.

We get to choose. We can let those thoughts pull us into anxiety and overthinking, or we can submit them to God in prayer and remember He is the only one with the power to actually protect us. Guarding your thoughts and submitting them to God is easier to say than to do, and I don't think anyone fully explains what that looks like day to day. But when we do it, He gives us a peace that goes past anxiety and past whatever is happening in the world around us.

Surrendering doesn't mean life suddenly goes smooth. When I was in the middle of a move, I had real anxiety. I questioned my decisions, missed deadlines, didn't have the money for things being asked of me. But I kept praising Him, kept reading His word, kept reminding myself of His promises, and that practice is what let peace win over the anxiety instead of the other way around.

We don't have the power to change our circumstances or our own thoughts on our own. I've tried to handle things by myself and it always gets worse, never better. But when we hand Him our concerns, our anxiety, our depression, our shame, our guilt, our bitterness, He gives us peace in return. What a trade.

So the next time you feel anxious, pause. Pray. Tell God exactly what you're feeling in that moment and let Him take it. He is always in control, and He is always with you.

God offers a peace the world cannot give. That line deserves to be on a billboard.

Peace, Love and Joy always. Infinite Faith and Favor | kharisco.com