This past weekend, I was stranded trapped fortunate to spend the weekend with my kids while my wife was living-it-up dutifully trying to return home due to the snow storm.

After the twelfth bloody nose, eleventh tattle-tailing, tenth broken ornament, ninth nerf bullet landing, eighth neighborhood kid a-showin’, seventh Cam interception, sixth load of laundry, fifth Soaked Snow boots, fourth beds a-makin’, third meal a day, second kid a-crying and one pug that is deaf…I found myself screaming “Just give me some peace, already!”

Christmas is the promise that Jesus comes as the Prince of Peace–yet it seems to bring the sheer opposite.

The Hebrew word for “Peace,” though, is not like our English word that typically means “tranquility” or “freedom from disturbance.” Peace in the Hebrew Scriptures is “Shalom.”

Shalom is a beautifully complex word that means wholeness, completeness, and harmonious peace. It is a stitching together of the broken pieces into one.

This Prince of Peace is a prince that brings wholeness to ourselves. The Devil’s desire is to tear us apart–to drive a wedge that splits us from God, from each other and from ourselves. The world wants to pull us apart.

Jesus’ desire, however, is to bring wholeness back. To bring our inner thoughts in line with our outer actions. To unite our desires with our reality.

How are you being pulled apart this Christmas?

Spend some moments today reflecting on the Prince of Peace who can stitch you back together:

Mark 4:39: “Peace! Be still!”
Luke 24:36: “As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, ‘Peace to you!'”
John 20:19: “Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.'”
John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”
Luke 7:50: “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”