Text: “Perfect Peace”

A friend of mine sent me the following text which very much touched me in my heart. Thank you, dear friend!

Perfect Peace

(originally translated from French into German, English translation by me)

I do not look back. God knows my unfruitful efforts, the lost hours, my sins and regrets. I leave everything to God, who has given me a Savior and forgives me in grace, erasing all my disobedience.

I do not look ahead. God knows my future, the road, long or short, leads me to the Father’s house; Jesus will be with me in every trial and will bear the burden of my sorrows.

I do not look around me. Terrors besiege me, so great is the tumult of the sea troubled by life, so dark is the world full of wickedness, and so fleeting the hope of the happiness and peace it offers.

I do not look at myself, which would make me completely unhappy, because there is nothing in me to put my hope in. I see nothing but bankruptcy, transgression, weak determination that crumbles in the dust. 

But I look upward, upward to Jesus, because there my heart can take hold, there my fears calm down; there I find joy and love. The divine light dispels the shadows and brings perfect peace and fullness of hope to my heart.