Seeds of Serenity

I journaled something last night that I almost didn't know what to do with. It wasn't a clean, tidy reflection. It was me trying to figure out who I am now compared to who I used to be.Twenty years ago I couldn't have told you this would be my life. I used to love black, everything black. Now my house is full of white, cream, and natural tones. I never thought I would care about keeping a home clean and consistent, or that I would actually enjoy trying to grow plants, or that I could put a room together and have it feel cohesive. That wasn't me.Here's the part that surprised me. I used to not be able to pull myself away from work because of deadlines. I was single back then, I had all the flexibility in the world, and I wanted to be the best at what I did. That drove me. Now I still can't pull myself away from my work, but the reason has completely changed. I liked it before. Now I love love love this. I love my work. I love my home.And somehow, in the middle of all that change, I am filled with joy and sadness at the same time. The joy is real. The sadness is real too, because of people I have lost along the way. I did not know a person could hold both of those at once and still feel steady.I have changed since I started my own business too. I used to get so frustrated when things did not go the way I planned. Now I find myself appreciating what actually gets done. Today I had twenty things on my list. I knew before I even started that I would not finish all of them, and for the first time, that was okay. Claude, my AI, has actually helped me see that. It maps out my day and tells me straight up, you are not getting all of this done, here is what we can realistically do. It has helped me build in small breaks instead of running myself into the ground, waiting until the last minute to eat or use the bathroom.The biggest shift is this. I do not have a 9 to 5 right now. Normally that would make me anxious, especially with a child to provide for. Instead I feel peace. I feel joy, I feel happiness, and I am genuinely excited about the future. Some days it feels like today could be the day my breakthrough shows up.I am still figuring out what to call all of this. Maybe it is faith. Maybe it is growth. Maybe it is both. What I know is that the woman writing this is not the same woman from twenty years ago, and I am not scared of that anymore. I think I actually like her.If you are in a season where you do not recognize yourself either, where the joy and the grief are both true at the same time, where the peace does not match your circumstances on paper, you are not losing your mind. You might just be becoming who you were always supposed to be.Peace, Love and Joy always. Infinite Faith and Favor | kharisco.com

I love my view. Depending on where I'm sitting or where I'm laying, it changes completely.If I'm looking one way, all I see is the sky and the trees. Nature, just being nature. It's beautiful. It's peaceful. It's simple.If I shift just a little, maybe fifteen degrees, the whole picture changes. Now I see the busyness of the world. Traffic lights. Cars. Stores and restaurants lined up one after another.Same space. Same me. Completely different feeling depending on where my focus lands.The peaceful view makes me think of God. It's still. It's simple. It lets me just exist in it.The busy view is loud even though I can't actually hear it from here. It's bright, but it's the kind of bright that demands your attention instead of reassuring you. Blinding, not soothing.That feels symbolic for how life actually works. The world stays loud and bright and demanding, it's always right there, one small shift away. But peace stays right there too. Same room. Same window. Same fifteen degrees.The difference isn't the space I'm in. It's where I decide to focus. Where I decide to give my attention.Peace, Love and Joy always.Infinite Faith and Favor | kharisco.com

I was reading a devotional from Convoy of Hope recently, and the narrator opened with a question I could not shake. He had come across a headline asking why we are more exhausted than ever, and he said he had to read the article because that question described exactly where he was. It described exactly where I was too. Full schedule, constant demands, meetings on meetings, travel, commitments pulling from every direction.He said something that made me want to dig deeper than I expected. A lot of our exhaustion comes from sacrifices God never asked us to make.Our bodies, our souls, our minds belong to God. They need real attention. When we build a schedule that leaves no room to care for any of it, we are neglecting the very thing He entrusted to us.The world sells neglect as ambition. It tells us that running ourselves into the ground and calling it success is the path to happiness. That is a false promise. It leaves you empty every single time.Jeremiah 31:25 is a direct promise. God will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint. He gives real rest, real relief from what life throws at us, and real restored hope. What the world offers fades fast. What He offers lasts.The devotional also pointed something out that stuck with me. Some of the highest burnout rates show up in service oriented work. Doctors, nurses, teachers, ministers, social workers, project managers, police officers, military, parents, payroll and HR professionals. The list keeps going. If that is your field, you already know.Time in God's presence, through prayer, worship, reading His word, and fellowship with other believers, unlocks something different. It restores your body, your mind, your soul, and gives you perspective you cannot manufacture on your own.Here is what this looks like in my own life right now. I do not look forward to the weekend anymore, because every day already feels ordered. I wake up, I spend time with God, I take care of my home, I get to be present for my son. I work about the same number of hours I did before, but the days do not drain me the way they used to. Nobody here is overlooking me or making me feel like what I bring to the table does not matter. I am not reporting to a manager who ignores me on behalf of a company that has ignored me for years. I am not losing hours sitting in traffic that does nothing for me and does nothing for the environment either.Every day is not perfect. I still have seasons of anxiety. I still question things. But I do not look forward to the weekend because I have already built a life that lets me refresh in the middle of the week instead of waiting for two days I will spend running errands.I believe you can do this inside corporate life too. It takes a different level of discipline to protect that time when the schedule is not already built for you. But I do not think most of us feel permission to slow down when we are chasing what looks like the next rung on the ladder, or meeting hour requirements that have nothing to do with whether the work actually needed us there.The pandemic proved a lot of us could do our jobs without sitting in an office we did not need to be in. That time and that money could have gone toward better benefits, better pay, or fewer required hours. Instead a lot of workplaces went right back to requiring the same grind, in the same building, for the same reasons that never made sense in the first place.I am in a season of transition right now. My income looks different than it did a year ago. My stress does too, and not in the direction people expect. I believe God knew this door was going to close before I did. I believe He already has the next one open, and that it will provide for me in ways that let me keep living from this place of peace and joy instead of grief and uncertainty.So here is the real question. Are you chasing what looks like success but is actually a distraction that leaves you empty? Or are you willing to receive what God is actually offering: renewal, focus, energy, vision, peace, joy, love, and the promise of eternal life.If you know someone running on empty right now, ask God how to remind them, gently, that real replenishment only comes from Him. Then ask Him how you can help them actually reach for it.Peace, Love and Joy always. Infinite Faith and Favor | kharisco.com.

I had no idea peace could feel like something you own until I started actually living in it.Before then, I thought peace was the absence of problems. Like, peace was what happened when everything was calm, nobody was stressing you out, the bills were paid, and nobody needed anything from you for five minutes. That kind of peace comes and goes based on what’s happening around you. It’s weather-dependent. The moment a storm hits, it’s gone.Then I encountered John 14:27.“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your heart be troubled and do not be afraid.”Two things stopped me here. First: “my peace.” Not peace in general. Jesus’s specific peace. A peace that belongs to Him that He is handing over to us.Second: “I do not give it to you as the world gives.” The world’s peace is conditional. It’s situational. It’s dependent on everything outside of you cooperating. God’s peace is something else entirely. It doesn’t come from circumstances being right. It comes from knowing who is in charge of your circumstances.And here’s what I know from personal experience: once you have lived in that peace, you become very protective of it.I’ve been in seasons where I let things steal it. I allowed things — people, situations, fears — to reach in and take the peace that was mine. And when I lost it, I did everything in my power to get it back. Because once you know what it feels like to live without anxiety as your constant background noise, you don’t want to go back.The call to action that came with this verse was honest and a little uncomfortable: imagine a box in front of you. What thoughts would you put in it? What patterns keep showing up? What makes you feel afraid?I did the exercise. And what came up for me was avoidance. I hate taking tests. I hate interviewing. I hate conflict. I hate confrontation. So I’ve built patterns around avoiding all of it. Avoiding the situations. Avoiding the people who might put me in those situations.That’s not peace. That’s management. That’s a coping strategy dressed up as calm.Real peace means you can face the test, the interview, the difficult conversation — not because it’s comfortable, but because the God who gave you His peace is with you in it. “Do not let your heart be troubled” isn’t telling us that nothing hard is going to happen. It’s telling us we don’t have to receive trouble in our hearts. We don’t have to host it.So the prayer I’ll take into today is this: God, show me the difference between the peace I’ve found in avoidance and the peace you’re offering. And give me the courage to want yours more than mine.Because His peace isn’t just better. It’s the only kind that holds.Peace, Love and Joy always — Infinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com