Finding Peace in the Midst of It

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” 

— John 16:33

Jesus never promised us an easy life. In fact, He promised the opposite. “In this world you will have trouble.” Not might. Not maybe. Will.

For LGBTQ+ people of faith, those words often feel painfully accurate.

There is the trouble of coming out. The trouble of wondering whether family will still love you. The trouble of sitting in a pew where sermons sound more like warnings than good news. The trouble of being misunderstood, misrepresented, or dismissed. The trouble of carrying faith and identity in the same body when others insist the two cannot coexist.

Jesus did not deny that trouble exists. He acknowledged it plainly. But He did not stop there.

“In me you may have peace.”

That peace is not the absence of conflict. It is the presence of Christ in the middle of it.

Isaiah 43:2 says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.” Notice it does not say if you pass through. It says when. God does not pretend the waters aren’t real. He promises to be with us in them.

For many of us, the waters have been deep. Some lost friends. Some lost churches. Some lost years trying to pray away something that was never a sin to begin with. Some, like in earlier generations, feared losing jobs, safety, even life itself. And yet we are still here.

Why? Because Christ has overcome the world.

Romans 8:38-39 reminds us that nothing “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future… nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That includes rejection. That includes misinterpretation of Scripture. That includes the fear someone tried to hand you in God’s name.

The world may give trouble. Christ gives peace.

And this peace is not fragile. It is not dependent on universal affirmation. It is not rooted in cultural approval. It is anchored in the victory of Jesus Himself.

John 14:27 says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” The world’s peace is conditional. Behave. Conform. Be silent. Blend in. Then maybe you can belong.

Christ’s peace says: You are Mine.

When I think back to moments of fear in my own life — fear of disappointing people, fear of being condemned, fear of not fitting the mold I was raised with — the peace that ultimately sustained me did not come from everyone understanding. It came from realizing that God already did.

Trouble may still come. It probably will. But it does not get the final word. Jesus has already spoken that word: “I have overcome the world.”

If you are struggling today — with family tension, church wounds, internal doubt, or the exhaustion of simply being yourself — remember this: your peace does not depend on winning every argument or convincing every critic. Your peace rests in Christ, who has already overcome everything that tries to diminish you.

Take heart. Not because the world is easy, but because Christ is victorious. His peace is yours.

Pic of the Day

Moment of Zen: Music

Pic of the Day

Finally Friday

Thank goodness it’s Friday—and I’m working from home today. I’m off all next week for spring break and had some vacation time to use, so I’m really looking forward to a full week to relax and recharge.

Sorry this is posting a little later than usual. I got distracted this morning and almost forgot altogether, so I’m keeping this one short and sweet.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Pic of the Day

Sleepy Side Effects

Fair warning: today’s post is more medically informative than my usual reflections—it’s still personal, but a bit heavier on the details than you’re accustomed to here, and I suspect this medication may also make me a bit loquacious, as Susan could probably attest after our conversation last night.

It’s not often that I wake up and still feel this sleepy. I have a migraine medication that I rarely take because it can make me drowsy for a couple of days. Most of my other medications work fine, so I tend to avoid the ones that linger like that. I think this morning’s drowsiness is also due to a migraine medication.

At my last appointment at the Headache Clinic, they gave me a new medication to try. It’s one of the newer CGRP medications. I’ve tried several over the years. This one is interesting because it can be used as a rescue drug, though some CGRP medications are used as preventatives.

I take Qulipta daily as a preventative. Ubrelvy, however, is a rescue medication. Most CGRP medications are taken once a month, once every three months, or daily. Ubrelvy isn’t taken that way. It’s meant to be taken at the first sign of a migraine—usually an aura.

Auras look different for everyone, but they’re a signal that a migraine attack is imminent. For me, my auras are small twinkling lights that float in my vision. They aren’t dramatic, and they rarely last more than a few seconds—never more than 30 seconds. I don’t always see an aura before a migraine, but if I do see one, I will get a migraine.

So instead of taking it at the beginning of the headache itself, as with most triptans, Ubrelvy is taken when the aura appears.

Yesterday, I saw an aura and took a dose of Ubrelvy. I never developed the migraine. That alone feels like a victory.

Ubrelvy has three potential—though still somewhat rare—side effects: nausea, sleepiness, and fatigue. Most people experience side effects within 30 minutes to an hour after taking a medication. However, because of my liver issues, medications can take longer to become effective or for side effects to appear. Some medicines, including Ubrelvy, are metabolized in the liver. When liver function is compromised, metabolism can slow down, which can delay both effectiveness and side effects.

That seems to be what happened with this dose.

About three to four hours after seeing the aura and taking the medication, I became very drowsy and fell asleep in the middle of reading a book. It took me a bit to fully wake up, but once I did, I seemed fine. Then last night, the drowsiness hit again. I fell asleep early and slept through the night—even through Isabella’s usual insistence on being fed.

I woke up at 4:00 a.m. when she made her presence known, but I went back to sleep. When I woke again around 4:30, I checked the time and made myself get up, feed her, and put on some coffee.

I’m awake now, but I could very easily lie back down and fall asleep again—even after being up for an hour.

I’m hoping this doesn’t last all day. I’ll drink my coffee, watch the news, and take a shower—all of which should help me wake up more fully. I was out of work Monday with a migraine, off yesterday, and I have an important meeting at 9:00 a.m., so I really need to be at work today. If this drowsiness continues, it may not be a full workday—but hopefully I’ll shake it off and get through.

I’ll likely make a strong cup of tea when I get to work this morning.

To make up for how boring this post may have been, here’s Isabella’s Pic of the Week (with a little bit of me thrown in the mix):

Pic of the Day

Early to Bed, Early to Rise

In 1735, Benjamin Franklin wrote in Poor Richard’s Almanack:

“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

One thing I know for sure—he wasn’t correct about the “wealthy” part. And I’m not entirely convinced about the “healthy” and “wise” either.

Last night, I had one of the worst migraines I’ve had in a while. It had been building all day and finally came to a crescendo around 7:30 p.m. By 8:00, after taking my migraine medicine, I was asleep. That part, at least, would have made Mr. Franklin proud.

I woke up around 11:30 p.m.—thankfully without the migraine—but it took me over an hour to fall back to sleep. In fact, I was awake enough to finish reading a novella I’d started the day before. There’s something oddly satisfying about finishing a book in the quiet middle of the night, when the world feels paused and suspended.

Once I finished the novella, I did what many men do when they can’t sleep and nearly dozed off watching a particularly unexciting video that should have been stimulating but instead worked better than melatonin. I was awake just long enough to turn everything off and slip into dreamland.

You’d think falling asleep during that type of video might lead to some interesting dreams—perhaps something that wood be pleasant—but no such luck. The dreams were as boring as the video. In one, I was in the middle of a very colorful parade reminiscent of a Pride parade. Only it wasn’t a celebration—it was a protest. I never discovered what we were protesting, even though dream-me kept trying to find out. The other dream was so unremarkable that I can’t even remember what it was about.

I suspect the second dream was interrupted by Isabella wanting to be fed at 3:45 a.m. I successfully fended her off for about thirty minutes before surrendering. At that hour, resistance is futile.

Now I’m writing this post with a slight headache lingering, contemplating whether I should just go back to bed.

I’m technically off work today because of a scheduling error I made and decided not to correct. Officially, I’m “at a doctor’s appointment at Dartmouth.” It had originally been a Botox appointment until they shortened the interval between shots from twelve weeks to ten. Since I do actually have a headache, the sick leave for the first part of the day still applies. I was planning to take vacation time this afternoon anyway.

So here I am—early to bed, early to rise—and not feeling especially healthy, not remotely wealthy, and certainly not particularly wise.

Perhaps Mr. Franklin should have added a footnote:

“Results may vary. Especially for those with migraines, midnight reading habits, and insistent cats.”

Pic of the Day