One recent morning, in my quiet time, I came across the well known verse in Psalm 34:14: “Turn away from evil and do good. Search for peace, and work to maintain it.” (NLT) I paused there for a while. Thinking about all of that – about good and evil and peace.

In my experience, there’s plenty of emphasis in the Christian life on the concept of turning from evil and doing good. But what about that second part: “Search for peace, and work to maintain it”?

I thought about the peace (or lack of) in my life. There were entire seasons where peace seemed like just an unattainable theory. Wracked with turmoil, addiction, performance, depression, and emotional upheaval, I’d lost almost all concept of peace.

Then I thought about my life now. I’m sitting here taking deep clear breaths in the morning air. My mind is still. My life, though, is pretty full at the moment – with parenting and working and house-maintaining and all the things that go in between those titles. Needless to say, I sleep so hard at night.

There is busyness, but there is also peace.

I think about the Psalmist and how he threw in that little tag at the end, “work to maintain it”. I’ve found peace before. I haven’t always worked to maintain it.

What does that look like?

For me, peace looks like a thousand tiny choices in a thousand tiny moments. As I’ve said before, life is rarely the giant cataclysmic moments. Instead, life is made up of the daily. What we do in those daily moments determines the whole course of our life.

We need to create space for peace to grow. Sometimes that means letting go of things in my life. Quite often, that means just creating quiet space: negative space, where there aren’t any screens or noise or deadlines – where I can just sit and read and ponder and breathe.

For so long, I let those moments slide. I toyed with the edges, I figured a little bit of murky waters wouldn’t destroy me – but they began to, over time. I’d found peace here and there, but I certainly didn’t work to maintain it. I didn’t hold onto it in the way it needed to be held onto. I didn’t cling to it with all my worth. I would let the tide roll in and roll back out, taking with it some of the best of my sand.

I’m not perfect by any means, but I’ve come so far in this. And when you come far in something, it’s okay to celebrate that.

By now, I have definite boundaries that weren’t in my life previously. Those things don’t hold me back. Instead, they keep me anchored. They keep me at peace in the midst of the roaring storm. They keep me steady even in the calm, so that I don’t drift too far.

At first it was difficult, setting those boundaries. I don’t say that lightly. I mean it was like grinding my teeth and fighting against everything inside me that had drifted. It was blood, sweat, and tears. It was crying through the nights and fighting through the days. It was headaches and swollen eyes. But eventually, it began to pay off.

I think we all need to come to a place at times where we truly believe that God’s design for our lives is what is going to bring us the most fruit – the most love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. When I look at that list, what more could I want? I haven’t been alive very long, but long enough to tell you that what the world seems to offer out there really aren’t the things that are going to make us happy and bring peace.

Peace brings us happiness. But it needs to be maintained. Like a flower, we water it. And it brings us life. And the longer we maintain it and nurture it, the stronger it will grow.

I’ve found so much value in peace – peace of mind, peace of heart, peace of emotions – to not be tormented and conflicted daily with my choices. There is work. But there is peace to be had. And so much of it.

Search for peace, and work to maintain it.

Lately I’ve had a few discussions with other moms about the things people tell us in various stages of life, and how those things often don’t exactly help. In fact, many of those things just pile on the guilt that we’re already feeling.

I think back to the stage when I had a toddler and a newborn. Life felt like complete chaos. They were both challenging in different ways. My toddler had a few delays that made his toddler years extra difficult and my infant was colic and wanted to be held constantly. Time felt like it was dragging, like a little slug on a hot day… a slug that possibly fell asleep. Or maybe died. And we would just be here, forever, waiting for it to wake up. My head felt like it was under water. And my eyes like they had too many tears and not enough sleep.

Four years later… my boys are so much more independent now. They basically feed and clothe themselves and come up with their own things to do. At this point, I’m more of a facilitator or referee. We do more activities outside the home. My kiddos were built for adventure and I love that. I’m right there with them.

As I sipped my coffee this morning and watched my youngest flip his water bottle (why is this a thing??), I was flooded with guilt that I should have enjoyed those younger years better. I should have embraced them more, smiled more, taken in the “moments” more, not cleaned the house as much and just kissed my babies all day long. People told me “it’d get better”, and I suppose they were right. But that didn’t help the days when I felt like I was drowning. Some told me to make the most of those days, that the days were long and the years short, to embrace every moment…

Let’s face it, there are certain things that are just not that simple to embrace. Some of us can do it with ease and gratefulness, and some of us struggle with that. The longer I think about it, it seems like the helpful thing to hear in those stages, and in any stage, really, would have been this: Just do your best. Right here, right now.

Hey, if someone told had told me this then, or even today, I’d thank them and possibly offer them a cookie. If your best is putting in headphones for five minutes while the chaos ensues around you so you don’t yell at your kids one more time, then do that. If your best is grinding your own wheat, then do that. If your best is sending your kids to bed at 6:30 because they won’t stop fighting, do that. If your best is structure and home school and crafts, do that. If your best is keeping your house a clean space for your kids’ creativity, do that.

Our “best” looks differently for all of us, even depending on the day or season. Only we know what we’re really good at. But instead of getting wrapped up in what we should or shouldn’t be doing/saying/thinking, what if we asked ourselves what our true strengths were and tapped into those?

Looking back at some of those crazy years, how young I was, how much maturity I lacked, how much personal growth I had coming and didn’t even know it, I now feel a surge of pride instead of guilt. I’m proud that I held it together on those “drowning” days, doing the things that didn’t come naturally for me, getting us through those times, relatively unscathed. I’m proud that I stayed present and available. In that season, that was often the best I had to offer.

And now, dealing with the school things and the preschool things and more things that feel over my head, I tell myself to just do my best. That’s not a cop-out. I’m aware that I’m not just automatically doing my best. Sometimes my best needs to push me out of my comfort zone. I might be the best at preschool snack Pinterest fails. I accept that. But my actual best might be talking about friend problems with my kindergartener and reminding him that he is a great person no matter what. My best might be having worship jam sessions with my preschooler. My best might be bike rides and picnics and not so much the grinding wheat and home-schooling. So be it.

Focus on giving your best and don’t look back. When we look back we forget that we were knee-deep in diapers and we think, “I should have sang to them more” or something like that. You are not Mary Poppins. Or maybe you are. If you are, please sing. If you’re not, do the thing that is your best. Because your kids were given to you. And they like your bests.