A car accident took the life of a four-year old on the interstate just a few miles from our home Friday morning. Snowy roads caused the driver to lose control.

My husband visited a couple of men in jail yesterday who are awaiting trials, verdicts, sentencing. Their families are waiting too. Scared, sad, uncertain of what tomorrow holds.

A friend of ours is at the hospital this morning after spending the night in the emergency room with his wife. Doctors are not sure what has caused her seizure: a blood clot in the brain, a stroke, they just don't know yet.

Another friend of mine stopped by yesterday to talk. She's worried about her son's health.

So, I read the verse above and try to find some comfort.

I remember reading this verse one night in the hospital years ago when Nick was having terrible trouble with his IV. We had been told by a nurse that she would be back around 4am to give Nick medicine through the IV but that she couldn't promise the IV wouldn't "blow." These words came after many, many tears and several new IVS throughout the day.

Nick was exhausted. I was exhausted. My mom was exhausted. Tim had gone home to be with our other kids for the night, and we felt very alone in a hospital room several hours from home.

And then I read this verse. I read it out loud to mom.

I still remember her voice in the darkness when she said with a sense of sadness, "Well, He's not here yet."

I guess that's where the lifelong question of "Where is God when you need Him?" comes from.

Knowing that God created this world. Knowing He is the Master of the Universe.

And then getting phone calls, emails, knocks at your door.......

All of which deliver news that does not ring with the sound of peace.

So, I sit here this morning looking out at a beautiful snow glistening with sunshine and I realize that it's not so much about God promising "earthly peace." It's about him offering "inner peace."

See, after I read that verse to mom in the darkness of Nick's hospital room, I had this spiritual nudge to go call a friend and ask her to pray with me.

Not long after that a nurse saw me crying and came and actually prayed with me right there on the hospital floor. She then came and did Nick's IV medicine herself. It was amazing. It was God bringing peace in a world that has trouble.

We live in a world that has been tarnished by sin.

The beautiful white snow here eventually shows the effects of dirt, gravel, and mud.

We have to remember how it started. White, spotless, glistening.

And we have to believe that one day this world will be made new!!

My prayers this morning are for this family who is facing the loss of their little boy. That God will send people to pray with them. Family members and friends to love on them. Signs from above to comfort them.

And for the men in jail...I pray the same.

And for our friends at the hospital.....I pray the same.

And for my friend who is concerned about her son.....I pray the same.

For Nick, I don't have to worry anymore about IVs going bad or MRIs holding devastating news. Peace has arrived in the most perfect sense for Nick. He has been made perfectly whole and new!

So my prayers are for me, my husband, my sons, my daughter, my parents, his friends....everyone who has to put life back together somehow with a missing piece.

We all have missing pieces in our lives, don't we? Somehow. Maybe it's a loss. Maybe it's a bad memory from our childhood. Maybe it's divorce or a child who has rebelled or illness that keeps us from feeling and healing whole.

My prayer today is that while we all live with some sort of missing piece.......

We won't live a life that is "missing peace."

Remember, Jesus says, "in me you may have peace."

Thankful for the Master's peace in a troubled world,