How to Have Peace in Times of Pressure

“How are you so peaceful?” a new acquaintance asked me one day. “When I look at you, all I see is peace.” I took that as the greatest complement I could be given. Unfortunately, I wasn’t super confident in how to answer her. Since that day, the question has come back to mind a number of times. Both at times when I wasn’t “feeling” very peaceful, and at times when I was. I’ve been thinking more about the process I went through, and how to answer that question better. My peace has been such a blessing during 2020. It is important to share more about how that peace has settled into the core of my being.

I have focused on having more peace for over 10 years. For me, a core foundation in having peace is having a relationship with Jesus. That has developed into a faith and trust in Him that is unshakable.

I had a mentor who had a lot going on in her life, and it seemed that no matter what was thrown at her, she managed to gracefully overcome. I heard her describe it as being a “duck on water.” She said, “the feet may be moving quickly to paddle, but on top, it looked like it wasn’t doing anything but gliding across the water.” I thought to myself, how do I become more like that?

Prayed to Have Peace

The first thing I did was pray for peace. Did you know that when you pray for peace, you immediately end up in positions where you have to exercise opportunities to be peaceful? Every time I hear someone now say they are praying for peace, I say, “Oh boy! Are you sure you want that? Do you know what that means you are going to be coming against?” It’s like the enemy wants to tell you that you can’t have it.

Spoke Scripture on Having Peace Instead of the Circumstances

I also heard that when you want something, it is best to find that promise in scripture and speak the scripture, instead of talking about all the crazy stuff you are going through. One particular evening comes to mind. I was trying to make dinner. I only had two kids at the time that were one and 2 years old. The kids were at the dinner table screaming, and I did’t know what to do. They both wanted things from me right away. Unfortunately, I was trying to get dinner made, and if I paused to get what they wanted in that moment, food would burn.

I was so overwhelmed that evening. I thought to myself, “How does anyone do this? Other people have more than two kids. I don’t think I can manage these two, how would I ever have more. This is so overwhelming….” I remember stopping my thought process and saying out loud, “I have peace that passes all understanding.” I repeated it over and over a few times, then prayed for God to give me His peace to get through that moment. 

It helped. Reciting scripture to get me through the tough times became a step in my journey in getting closer to the Lord. As I grew in my relationship with God, I would develop more and more faith in what He wanted me to do. As my faith grew, I was able to lean into God more and more. Then I was able to trust that he was going to be my provider, and make everything right.

Trusted Jesus with it All

I would face challenge after challenge and have to trust in God a little more to get me through. When I could whole heartedly stand on my relationship with Jesus and what he has promised, I was able to have more peace in the midst of the chaos.

I remember a crazy time in my life where I worked from home full-time, but traveled across the country for work a few days every week. I had two little kids at home who were 3 and 5, and I was in my first trimester with my third child. My nanny got sick and had to take 6 weeks off work without any backup childcare. I homeschooled my oldest, and my husband and I ran a business on the side that required a lot of time, AND I had an additional business on the side of all of that.

To say I was busy was a huge understatement, but no one in my life, other than my husband, really knew what all I was doing. I showed up to every meeting, for every business, and brought my A-game. I had faith that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, and it was only for a season. Every day, I prayed for God to prioritize my day and to help me get done what needed to be done that day. I planned every second. If my plan got messed up, I scrambled under the surface to rearrange the most important things to make sure they were still accomplished. I trusted God to help get me through, and was proud of the logistical genius that I was able to be at times.

“Consider it great joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. But endurance must do its complete work, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.”

James 1:2-4 (HCSB)

Pressing into God

Throughout this whole crazy time, I pressed into God more every day. I knew that if I was going to do all that needed to be done, and be successful in it all, it was only going to be because God was working harder behind the scenes than I was. The stronger of a relationship I developed with God and the more truth I poured into my heart and mind, the more I trusted in Him and all His promises. The more trust I had in God, the more peace I would develop in my heart.

God has brought me through many other crazy times like this that have given me the opportunity to exercise my “faith muscles” and choose more peace in the midst of storms. In 2017, God asked me to trust Him with our finances and leave my corporate career to be home-full time with my four children (at the time). This was a huge challenge for me because my income was a large percentage of our family’s income. I eventually came to a place in my relationship with the Lord, where I decided to firmly trust Him to provide for us instead of trusting my job to do so. He has provided for us ever since.

Huge Leap of Faith

In 2018, when my fifth child was only a few weeks old, my husband and I felt God leading us to move closer to our parents and siblings. Timing was terrible, and I really didn’t want to leave my friendships that I had developed over the last 15 years. It was really hard, but we knew it was what we were supposed to do.

That next year and a half of my life was such a tremendous refining process. During the moves, (yes, we moved to a different state, 8 hours away, then, 6 months later, moved into our house, which was another 3 hours away from there) we continued to trust in God, and lean into Him for guidance as challenge after challenge came our way. It wasn’t easy, but there were “nuggets” along the way that kept telling us we were doing what we were supposed to be doing. We knew that just because we were supposed to do it, it didn’t mean that we wouldn’t be fought along the way.

Overcoming the Challenges

We figured we must have really been on the right path to have so many obstacles to overcome, especially when God kept working them out for us. There were many opportunities to get stressed, frustrated, discouraged, or even depressed. He always put the right people in our path to help us. There were so many instances of things coming together by the grace of God. We learned that we never would’ve been able to do it without Him.

Just after we got settled in our new house, a mentor that I really looked up to, and valued the opinion of, attacked me and my character. That one rocked me to the core, but it revealed to me so many things that I was valuing more than God. The biggest thing I learned was that I valued the opinions of others more than what God wanted me to do. I was so committed to certain events and people, that I wasn’t willing to say no to them in order to follow a leading from God instead.

How I shut down the Mental Chatter

During that time, not only was I dealing with the loss of that friend, but there was a constant barrage on my mind trying to get me to think negatively about her. My mind would try to replay the story over and over again. It continued to try to make me upset with her. These negative thoughts would swarm my mind and constantly try to take control whenever I was quiet or by myself. I would instantly know these thoughts were not of peace, joy, and love, which is the character of God, and I needed to not allow myself to dwell on them.

I ended up writing the story down, in case I ever needed to discuss it with anyone, and gave it all to God. After that point in time, when the person or situation would come to mind, I would pray blessings over everyone involved and give it all to God. Pretty quickly I was able to quiet my mind about it all and walk in love toward the situation.

Peace in Challenges of 2020

By the time 2020 started, and things were becoming shut down for COVID-19, I felt like it was the beginning of a season of shaking. I felt as though God was trying to get the attention of his people. Maybe He was shaking things they were trusting in more than they trusted in Him. Health was being threatened for the majority of the world because of COVID, but there also seemed to be a huge increase in cancer diagnoses. Many jobs were lost and people didn’t know how they were going to earn money. There were so many uncertainties in the world and many people were afraid.

Turn from Anxiety

There were times when I would be reading an article on the updates of COVID-19, and became aware that my chest was starting to get tight. I would immediately realize that it was coming on, and shut my phone/news source, and pray to refocus my mind and trust in God. I had worked on my relationship with God enough, up to this point, to know that whatever happened, He was going to be able to use it for good. The bible doesn’t tell us that as Christians, we won’t have to go through struggles, but it says that we need to have hope and endurance through those trials.

“Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have also obtained access through Him by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know afflictions produce endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

Romans 5:1-5 (HCSB)

Turn from Loneliness

There were also times, especially during “quarantine”, living in a new state, where all my friends were at a distance, I would start to feel “lonely”. For a short time, I thought that if I just had a friend to go for a walk with, it might help. I spent some time with some people who I had met, but it wasn’t helping that feeling. I had some phone calls with friends far away, and it still didn’t fill that void.

One day, I was supposed to go on a walk with a new friend, but she had to cancel last minute. I ended up deciding that I wanted to take a walk in nature with Jesus and just think and reflect. In that moment, I was reminded that Jesus is always with us and we are never truly alone. That nagging lonely feeling was because I was no longer consistent with some of my special, quiet times with the Lord that I was used to having.

I knew I could stand on the promises of God and focus on the good that might come of this time. I learned that through relationship with God, and pouring more truth into myself, I developed more trust in Him. That trust would help me to develop a more firm foundation of faith in my life. A foundation that I knew would not waiver.

“You rejoice in this, though now for a short time you have had to struggle in various trials so that the genuineness of your faith – more valuable than gold, which perishes though refined by fire – may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

1 Peter 1:6-9 (HCSB)

If you would like the peace scriptures that I’ve been dwelling on through 2020, please let me know by signing up for my email list below, and I will send you a copy. If you would like to discuss any of this further, I’d love to hear from you!