A man or woman has suffered the heartbreaking loss of a spouse and has then rejoiced as God has provided a second husband, a second wife. In almost every case, this second spouse had previously been unmarried and had reluctantly accepted that, though they desired to marry, God had not provided a spouse. They had settled into a life of contented singleness, but then unexpectedly met this widow or widower and his or her family. And they had decided that this was God’s provision and God’s calling.

You broaden your perspective on the Christian life when you diversify your reading—and perhaps especially when you read a healthy mix of older books to go along with newer ones. You come to realize that some topics and some themes remain constant while others rise for a time and then fade away.
In my reading of older books, I have come across a few family roles that were once lauded but are now seldom mentioned. One of them is the woman who would deliberately remain unmarried so she could care for her aging parents and other family members. In an era before retirement communities and nursing homes, this was regarded as a sacred calling, a life of sacrifice and service. When we hear an antiquated term like spinster we may think of someone who had the opportunity to get married pass her by, the reality may be that she chose a life of singleness so she could be the family carer. Though I have read celebrations of those women and their calling in historical writing, I am hard-pressed to think of an example in contemporary writing.
Another role that was once considered especially noble was the role of the step-parent. While today we tend to associate step-parents with divorce, in previous centuries they were almost exclusively associated with death and with either widow- or widowerhood. In an era in which lifespans were shorter and, therefore, a greater number of parents died while their children were still young, there was a distinct and honored role for these second or substitute parents. Economic and practical necessity often dictated that bereaved husbands and wives remarry very quickly after the death of a spouse. That new spouse would immediately become a substitute mother or father to children who had suffered a great loss.
Abraham Lincoln serves as a well-known example. His mother passed away when he was just 10 and his sister was only 12. The Lincoln home soon began to crumble without the care and influence of a woman. Their father Thomas was able to arrange a marriage of convenience with Sarah Bush Johnston who proved to be a kind and loving mother to her step-children.
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We are not our own because we are bought with the precious blood of Christ. (1 Cor. 6:20) So let us live for God; our rightful Owner; our righteous Master; our all-wise Creator. And as we joyfully live for Him and sacrificially live for others, we know deep inside our hearts that there is where our utmost joy can be found. 

Apart from the transforming grace of God, it is natural for us to live for ourselves. We want to pursue our dreams, desires, and plans without due regard if God is also pleased as we pursue these things in our lives. As we pursue these things for ourselves, we realize deep inside our hearts that there is always something missing. We also realize that it is tiring to live for one’s self. We are not meant to live for ourselves. Our selves will always fail us. Our selves will just want more and more and more of what we pursue. It’s a never-ending vicious cycle of wanting more and being empty in the process.
We are meant to live for Someone bigger than ourselves. We are meant to live for the One who created us; the One who made us for his purpose and design.
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The path of peace is a precious one. There you hear the promise of God’s presence, you find hope and assurance that there is still more peace to be had in Jesus, and you receive a benediction. “Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all” (2 Thess. 3:16). This is worth working for.

We have heard the message of forgiveness, but the signal becomes weak with certain sins. For example, do you have regrets? Persistent regrets often carry a message that says to the Lord, “What I did was really bad, and I feel really bad about it”—a message that can quickly drift toward legalism that acts as though deeper contrition will find more grace. You will not find peace on that path. We can be prone to categorizing sins into our own eclectic version of venial and mortal sins. Common sins such as speeding and a brief loss of temper are easily forgiven; uncommon and public sins are not. Look for old sins to which you privately say, “I can’t believe I did that.”
Regrets might be a result of the continued consequences of those sins. For example, if your negligence left you or other people with enduring struggles, those reminders are persistent and weighty. Yet regrets can never be left unattended. They are evidence that all things have not yet been made fully new, though they will be. Meanwhile, God forgives fully from all iniquities (Ps. 130:8), for “with him is plentiful redemption” (Ps. 130:7). He forgives completely because He is the forgiver, not because you are forgivable. He washes you clean; He Himself does not see you according to your sins, but you share in how the Father sees the Son as, by faith, you have been joined to the Son. Also notice how the Apostle Peter writes that spiritual malaise can be a result of forgetting that we have been cleansed from “former sins” (2 Peter 1:9). Regrets from past sins are not to be trifled with. Best to give them fully to God as a way to honor the work of Jesus Christ.
Look, too, for sins done against you, especially by those who were responsible to love you. As a general rule, if you have been treated disgracefully, you believe you are a disgrace, and you are left on high alert for when your disgrace will be fully exposed. Peace cannot abide with such shame. That path toward peace is possible only when shame is met by hope that “those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed” (Ps. 34:5).
Things future. Even without resonant guilt and shame, we all have our fears and anxieties, and these likewise compete against peace. Many of those fears are well founded. A very hard event may, indeed, be at hand. And these fears appear against a backdrop of fears and anxieties that are present no matter what the forecast. In my own life, if I simply turn my attention to my children and grandchildren, I find that there might be a passing moment in which everything seems fine, and then I suddenly remember one trouble, then another; one future danger, then another.
All this is to say two things. First, if you feel burdened and anxious, Jesus’ words of peace are directed to you. Second, peace will encounter more resistance than you might expect.
Peace Pursued
Now the work continues. We all desire peace, but we don’t all pursue it. We might seek peace as an occasional hobby rather than a need that borders on desperation. So we proceed by remembering that this is a promise of God to us, and we can insist that His Spirit lead us on the path of peace.
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