Not Alone Series: Peace

This week, we posed the questions "Where do you find peace? How do you keep it? If you struggle finding/keeping peace, what's holding you back?"

(inspired by Jen's Follow the Peace post)

When I was a freshman in college, I knew a missionary who forever changed my perspective on "peace".

She would talk about certain situations or people she'd encountered that "took her peace" and how she would avoid anything that could potentially take her peace.

I'd never thought about peace in that way, and now we're talking about not only how to keep that peace, but where to find it! I can think of lots of things that take my peace, but I think it's much more productive to identify what DOES bring me peace so I can continue to seek those things out!

Productivity

Ending a day when I've accomplished so much brings me peace. I like being a productive person. I LOVE lists and being able to cross most (if not all!) of it off brings me waves of peace that stay with me. To keep this peace I try to avoid anything that will stand in the way of my productiveness. Like multiple coffee breaks or too many trips out of the office. I try to consolidate my day and make a P.O. run at the same time as Office Depot to make the most of my time.

Not being lazy

I find peace when I give my all throughout my day. It's when I hit the snooze button too many times, or waste time on Facebook at work, or take a too-long lunch, or just don't get enough done that I lose my peace. This links with the first point, but they're different because I can not be lazy on the weekends without being super productive. I make an effort on a daily basis to shake off laziness in order to keep my peace. I always feel unsettled going to bed at night when I know that I was just a slug of a person that day.

Sacraments

The beauty of our Catholic faith is that I can receive this source of peace on the daily. But it's when my laziness gets in the way that this peace is stolen from me. Ugh. I have the opportunity to go to mass and/or confession every. single. day. [since my office is right under the chapel] But as much as I know that mass ALWAYS brings me peace, there are days when I just can't tear myself away from work. It's frustrating. So I try to schedule it into my day (or better yet, put it on my to-do list!) and make it a priority.

Prayer

Being centered in prayer gives me the peace I need to keep chugging along. Even if I only pray in the morning and at night before bed, I really try to make SOME time to speak with our Lord. One thing that really helps me is to always be praying a novena or something like that. I've prayed multiple novenas to St. Anne and St. Joseph and Pray More Novenas helps with that, too!

That's all I can think of right now, but I'm excited to read about how YOU find peace! Share and link up below!

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Next week's topic:

Should/can women pursue men?

What do you think? Any and all perspectives welcome!!!

Jen and I are making a new topic schedule! Is there anything you'd like to talk about? Please email me or email Jen and let us know! We want to write about what YOU'RE interested in! :)