Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:27
I am a word nerd. I love words and have from as far back as I can remember. According to the meticulously kept baby book my mother saved, I started talking at nine months and never shut up. She recorded a long list of words and the age that I first spoke them. I learned to put words together in a sentence at fourteen months. As a child, I enjoyed reading the dictionary as much as I did a novel. It sometimes got me into trouble because I used words whose definitions I knew, but pronunciations I did not. I can still remember being mortified when I used the word debris and pronounced it “deb ris”, emphasis on the s. You would not know it now from the hastily constructed posts on this blog, but as a teenager, I enjoyed diagramming sentences just for fun. Identifying the parts of speech and how they went together was a great game. Slanty lines for inserting adjectives, underlining nouns, oh, it was so exciting! My favorite authors have always been the ones who put words together like a jeweler strings a precious strand of pearls. Well crafted books are more important to me than a good story line and ones with both I reread over and over. I say all of that to explain why in the hours spent on the back of my husband’s motorcycle as we came home from Cedar Key, I spent some time pondering the difference between the words, tenuous and continuous. It wasn’t until I got home to my dictionary that I discovered that the root of the two words is different. Though both come from Latin, continuus, from continēre to hold together and tenuis thin, slight, tenuous, I can’t help but think somewhere back in time, they were related not just because of how they sound but because they both are adjectives referring to space. Tenuous means thin, unsubstantial, lacking in clarity while continuous means uninterrupted in time, without ceasing, immediately connected. Now, don’t roll your eyes at this vocabulary mumbo jumbo. Be patient, I do have a point. Today on “In Other Words” the theme is peace and the verse listed above. Where the world’s peace is tenuous, thin and unsubstantial because it is based on circumstances, things or people, God’s peace is continuous because it is based on Him! Not only does it never cease, but when we are connected to God through a relationship with Him, He grants us the only peace that really lasts. It means remembering that God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He holds it all together. Like that simple children’s blessing, “God is great and God is good.” Peace does not come from living in a box, safe, secure and free of heartache. It comes from living a life in obedience, service and love. When I look at it from heaven’s perspective, I see the road to peace. Still, I have to continuously choose to walk on it.
Go here to read other bloggers who have posted on peace today:
http://www.typingone-handed.com/2009/10/i-am-hosting-in-other-words-today-true.html
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