One of the best pieces of advice anyone has ever given me, the one I refer to the most when helping others, the one that I would nearly credit for saving my life, came from my dear friend Audrey. It is so simple, yet so profound on so many levels.

Follow the path of peace.

I don’t know about you but my insides do a pretty remarkable job of telling me when I’m not at peace. Unhealthy choices are almost always accompanied with feeling like a sack of rocks just landed in my stomach. Stress and tension set up camp in my back. Confusion and chaos cause whirlwinds in my brain. My hands shake. My vision blurs.

And sometimes I can barely even see the path of peace.

Even though I’m fairly competent at making decisions, I still find myself often torn in two between my spirit and my flesh. Everything in my physical being pulls me one direction while my still small voice cautions against it.

Follow the path of peace.

I found something interesting in this process. No matter where I am in my decision-making process, the path of peace is always only a step away. At any point, I can decide that this turmoil isn’t for me any more.

At any moment I can extend the first olive branch in a strained relationship. At any moment I can turn to start walking away from an addiction. At any moment I can look up from my hurried craze. At any moment I can stop, I can pause, I can shift.

Follow the path of peace.

I’m not perfect, but I’ve come a long way. I’ve begun to listen to the triggers in my body and my head, my still small voice when it cautions me. I’ve decided to spend a lot of time on this path.

The path of peace isn’t always interesting, It’s not always an adventure. It isn’t always exciting. It is almost never fun. It doesn’t seem to meet my demands or feed my cravings. But after just a few steps down the path, something else becomes very apparent.

None of those things matter.

All the excitement and cravings and adventures and risks and intriguing and productive things in life won’t ever meet your needs. We can jump from event to event, relationship to relationship, opportunity to opportunity and still be in turmoil. We can test the waters on possibilities of things we know we should stay away from, but our intrigue will never be fulfilled.

Follow the path of peace.

I’m an opportunist. I love adventure. I love relationships. I love productivity. I love to make the most of every moment. Sometimes those are along the path of peace, sometimes they are not.

When I find myself questioning if something is right or not, it probably isn’t. When I start pushing myself to exhaustion to pull something together, I should probably just stop and rest. When I am grasping at thin air trying to hold a friendship together that is slipping away and isn’t coming back, I should probably just let it go. When I start losing sleep, feeling the rocks in my stomach, the tension in my back, the whirlwind in my head, the tremor in my hands, I should probably reevaluate where my feet are slipping and how I can regain my footing.

Follow the path of peace.

Peace is where we rest, where we listen, where we are rooted. Peace is where we drink deeply, where we sleep deeply, where we love deeply. The path of peace is where we don’t have to wonder if what we’re doing is right or wrong or if we’re missing something that we might enjoy. The path of peace is the best place for our whole being. If it’s not on that path, it’s probably not for you.

Follow the path of peace.

Last year at this time I was the strongest physically that I’d ever been in my life. Following the birth of my second son, I’d gone through a year of intense postpartum depression that led me to finding healthier ways to live. That next year I lost over sixty pounds and was more fit than I’d ever been. I had started a successful home-based business and woke up at six nearly every morning to go running and make my to-do lists for the day. I was enrolled in college and had begun re-making time lines for an eventual career that I’d given up on long ago. My house was almost always clean and I rarely ran out of baked things for the kids to snack on. My meals and budget were well planned. Everything had a tight order. Everything was working.

But on the inside I was slowly dying under the pressure of it all. And I didn’t even know it.

Somehow in my search for wellness (which is a really great thing and I don’t regret making good changes), I’d circled back to performance-based self worth. I’d gotten back to striving, trying to make every day perfect. I shoved God back into the corner of needing him to answer quickly and accurately but also letting me make my own decisions but somehow blessing me in that. I had a warped sense of love and what it meant to give and receive it. I had tainted relationships. I was always searching for something that I didn’t even know I was looking for. I had trouble resting, relaxing, refocusing. I was caught in cycles that seemed to have no way out. I couldn’t loosen my grip – I could loosen the grip that was on me, either.

I prayed for a way out. More like pleaded for one. It was the kind of prayer that was short and messy and mostly crying and yelling.

Two days later, I was picking apples with my son. He threw a sizable rock above my head to knock the apples off the tree. The jagged stone fell down with such a force and precision that the blow gave me a concussion. After two weeks of not being able to read or drive or even walk very well, I finally had gotten back on my feet, barely. I was still struggling with my short term memory and energy levels, but I was registered for a women’s retreat so I went. Twenty-four hours into the retreat I had such a bad pain on my backside that I couldn’t sit through one more session. I spiked a high fever and couldn’t walk by the time I called my husband to come get me. He took me straight to the ER where they ran test after test and eventually sent me home with a few meds that didn’t work and I was back in the next night. I was hospitalized over night and the next day they performed a surgery on my perirectal abscess – a term for something I didn’t even know existed. The doctors were never sure how or why this condition started, other than it was possibly stress related. I didn’t know it then, but that would be the first of at least four surgeries for the same problem – a problem that would resurface repeatedly with more pain than I could ever imagine over the next twelve months and have me laying in solitude for hours with nothing more than my own thoughts.

My way out had come. And it wasn’t at all what I had hoped for.

I’m such a determined person that I literally think nothing else would have slowed me down like this has. I’ve been so angry and desperate at times and have pleaded and pleaded for God to heal me. And he still has not. But what I have learned in the searching, in the quiet, in the devastation, in the pain, is beyond what I already knew.

I already knew that God could heal the sick. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, many times. I’ve been healed. I’ve prayed over people who have been healed by God through those prayers.

God wanted to teach me something further.

I didn’t know that God was still good even when he fell silent, when I barely could find him, when I didn’t feel him at all. I’d heard that he was, but I didn’t know it for myself. I didn’t know that he loved me at my worse – when I cursed and yelled and curled up in a ball and tried to will myself to disappear. I didn’t know that when everything else was stripped away, I’d be more aware of his presence than the very air that I breathed. I didn’t know that he could help me learn to love myself even if I couldn’t work out of weeks or months. I didn’t know that he loved me even when my house was chaotic and my tears never stopped flowing. I didn’t know that he’d hold my hands as I faced my greatest fears. I didn’t know that he’d give me strength when mine was all gone.

But I know this all now. I know it with such certainty that no one can take away from me.

I’ve had many physical limitations, and I still do. As I lay here, recovering from another surgery, I am aware that I can’t pick up toys. I can’t run. I can’t bake. I can’t scrub the shower. I can’t run a business. I can’t lead worship. I can’t be my fittest self yet. I can’t perform at all.

I can only be.

I have been stripped down to the bare bones of who I really am – just me. No pretty clothes, no styled hair, no to-do list. Just me. I’ve had time to ask God what he thinks of me. I’ve had time to read books about his love and grace. I’ve listen to podcasts and sermons. I’ve finally read my Bible. I’ve found a peace that didn’t depend on working out or have my lists done – the peace that just is. The peace that comes because the Spirit is in me.

Every day isn’t perfect right now. Not even close. I don’t even bother making lists any more – sometimes not even grocery lists. Things get left undone constantly. I move at a slower pace. I watch my boys play. I get lost in books in the middle of the morning while they build Legos – a perfect time for productivity. I lay down and stare out the window and just think thoughts, consider life, dream dreams.

I finally feel content with being at rest.

I’ve become friends with my own thoughts. I engage the ugly ones, feel the hurt ones, I speak to the broken ones. I consider the gifts I actually have – not the abilities. I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I really want to do with my life, and if having a clean kitchen floor 24/7 is really part of that bigger plan.

Some days I still fight this with a vengeance. It still upsets me. I want my house to be perfectly clean. I want my body to be perfectly fit. I want to be perfectly productive. But then I remember to take deep breaths. I remember to look at myself and know that I’m still okay. I’m still loved. I’m still God’s child. I have value beyond what I do.

I have value just because I’m here.

And that is something no one can take from me.

When it comes to healing, you can’t force the process. You can’t will the pieces of your broken heart back together again. No amount of willpower will dull the pain of sorrow. You simply have to be patient in the process.

The process of healing is a long one.

I wish I could tell you that you’ll be able to just “move on” from your pain, but you can’t. Your pain will follow you. It will tear a hole deep into your soul. It will cloud your brain until that is all you think about – constantly reliving the moments that pain entered your life.

You need to live in the pain, through the pain, and eventually past the pain.

Don’t let pain become part of you. Don’t let pain define you. Recognize it, give it a name, ask what it has done to you, and speak to those broken places. Speak to them like pouring water into the cracks of the desert ground. Speak life to them.

Speak softly to them.

The pain isn’t your fault. No matter what reasons people have given you or you’ve given yourself, it is not your fault. Pain is an awful terrible thing. No one deserves it. And yet it comes.

It comes, but it doesn’t need to stay.

Let yourself grieve. Let yourself rage at the injustice. Let yourself mourn the scars that have fallen into your life. Let yourself be angry at the way it tried to break you. But don’t stay there.

Some day, when you are ready, you’ll start to climb out of the gaping hole inside yourself. You’ll realize that pain is just pain. It doesn’t need to break you.

But it’s a long climb, my dear.

You’ll cut yourself open on rocks. You’ll gash your skin and you’ll bleed. You’ll burst open the deep chasms of pain that you swore you’d never open again. But this time, your pain will have a purpose. Your pain will have direction. The pain of healing is a pain that you choose – because it is the only path to wholeness.

This is what healing is like. Like climbing out of a pit. It isn’t easy or clean or beautiful. It is messy and it hurts like hell. But it’s a different kind of hurt. It is a healing hurt.

Healing is the most important kind of pain.

It is the pain you can’t bear to bypass. It strengthens you, it proves what you are made of. It empowers you as you look the ugly hurt straight in the eye and not let it win over, not today.

I wish healing was like walking through an open field and letting the sun melt all your broken pieces back together again. But it isn’t. At least not the beginning of it. But some day, darling, you’ll be out of the pit and you’ll never look back.

Embrace the pain of the journey. Fight for the healing. Let it empower you. And never look back.