The Peace of God

What ensued next was something I heard and then, I instinctively knew what that sound was. A large-caliber pistol going off in a closed room is very distinctive and for most of us, we must investigate to confirm. Even if what we want to find could potentially be horrifying or deadly. After breaking through my son's locked bedroom door, I gained a picture in my mind that will never be erased.

Indeed, time stands still for significant moments in our lives. A second can seem to last an eternity when from one monumental experience, a torrent of separate emotions comes into our minds. I do not think I could fully describe what a pistol to the head does when it is fired, with the traumatic carnage from a bullet entering and leaving the skull—coupled with the fact that this was my flesh and blood who was sitting there on the bed.

I don’t think there was a single negative human emotion absent in me in that very moment, including a violent, physical revulsion. The picture in my mind that morning was one of physical sickness and deep horror, and certainly the ugliness of death. Now, some 24 years later, with a more completed, spiritual view--- that picture includes so much of this peace, because Christ with outstretched arms is standing in that picture.

From this tragedy, I found the start of peace that passes all understanding, [Phil. 4:7]. My trust in God is more solid in so many other situations in life. It is my deep desire to continue to learn of Him and always to find my way back to His Peace, no matter what the situation.