How Busy Women Can Find Perfect Peace

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Have you felt more stressed out lately than usual?

Do you feel like you’re on the edge of burnout?

Maybe you’re worried because you know that the holidays are coming up, and there will only be more responsibilities and pressure added to what you’re already not handling very well.

Statistics show that women are feeling more stress and pressure than men these days.

So often, the advice we receive is to “find time for yourself” and “make time in your day for self-care”.

While perhaps this isn’t bad advice on its face, for many women, this only seems like one more thing we should be doing, but don’t because we don’t have the time.

There is a difference between the peace that God wants to give us and the serenity society promises through self-care and cozy spaces.

Eventually, our self-care routine will come to an end, and we’ll have to leave our cozy space to enter a chaotic world. And then what?

How Busy Women Can Find Perfect Peace

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for in YAH, the Lord, is everlasting strength. Isaiah 26:3-4

What is perfect peace?

When you look at this verse in Hebrew, the words perfect and peace are the same word: Shalom. So, the verse reads: “You will keep him in shalom shalom…”

What is more, the word “keep” means to guard, be blockaded, or to be kept close, like in a secret place.

The Lord wants to keep us close, guarding and protecting us in a secret place that provides us double peace – but there is a qualifier here. There is a condition.

“…whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” We have to want to go to that secret place. God isn’t going to come and kidnap us to the secret place. We have to make the first move and go.

Did you notice that the secret place is the mind?

Perhaps God knew that moms of little ones rarely ever get a moment to have a secret place – not even the bathroom!

More than that, He knows that our greatest battles of unrest, anxiety, fear, doubt, regret, and disappointment are waged in our minds.

That’s where He wants to give us shalom shalom.

Do you need shalom shalom today?

Let me give you 5 beginner steps for finding that perfect peace in the secret place of your mind.

1. Set aside a time and place – Please don’t close this blog post yet!

I know, you might be thinking, “I don’t have either of those right now”, and I get it. I was there, too.

Not very long ago, I was a mom of two toddlers, battling chronic illness, with a husband working three rotating shifts who rarely got days off.

There were times when he worked 2-3 weeks without a day off, and I didn’t have family or friends close by to help me.

We lived in a small home, and even our bedroom wasn’t a “secret place” because it was attached to our kids’ room.

So, I 100% get it that setting aside a physical time and place may be next to impossible — or maybe completely impossible.

This is where you can get creative:

Time = folding laundry, Place = couch (with the kids playing on the floor at your feet).

Time = after lunch, Place = on a walk with the baby in the stroller.

Yes, this can become your secret place! Just keep it consistent and intentional.

2. Quiet your heart

If you’re like me, you will find this the hardest step of all.

Not long ago, I began to practice total silence in God’s presence. At first, I found myself wanting to keep praying in my mind, but I soon realized that I was the one still talking while God was waiting to speak.

This would be like my husband and I going out to coffee and him sitting there the whole time listening while I carried on my endless monologue before I stood up and said, “Okay, let’s go!”

How sad that he wouldn’t have a chance to reply or offer anything at all to the conversation.

Sister, a conversation isn’t a conversation if it’s only one-sided. A conversation requires two parties, with both parties engaged.

At some point in our prayer time, we have to learn to be quiet in our hearts, minds, and tongues, so that we can hear God’s voice speaking to us.

But, in our culture, we have grown very uncomfortable with silence.

We fill up every bit of silence with noise: digital noise, music, TV, phone calls, conversations, reading…and our lives have become an endless cacophony that drowns out God’s voice.

Begin spending just 2-3 minutes at the end of your prayer time, completely quiet in God’s presence.

No praying. No thinking. Nothing – just silence.

Then, slowly increase that time day by day. Before you know it, you will begin to hear God’s still, small voice speaking to your heart.

And more than that, you’ll begin feeling a warm peace flood your heart as His shalom shalom takes over!

3. Journal His words

As you begin to hear God’s voice speak to your heart, write down what you hear.

You may say, “But I’m not sure if what I’m hearing is really God speaking or just my own thoughts.” And this is a valid point.

Write down what you hear anyway, and then you can take those words and compare them to what Scripture says.

As you do this, you are practicing recognizing the voice of God.

There may be times when what you hear is, in fact, not God’s voice – and you’ll know it’s not His voice if what you hear doesn’t line up with the Bible.

If this happens, do not give up. Do not feel ashamed or frightened.

Learning to recognize God’s voice over other voices takes practice.

Most of us have been raised with the voice of society, culture, and worldly systems in our ears, telling us what to think and shaping our worldview.

That is the voice we’re most familiar with, and it’s the voice we recognize.

The way we learn to recognize God’s voice is by taking what we’ve heard and going to Scripture to see if it lines up.

If what we’ve heard doesn’t line up with Scripture, we can take what we’ve heard and reframe it so that it does match up with Scripture and make that our meditation so that we replace the lie with truth.

For example, you may hear, “I just want you to be happy!”

Is that really God’s goal, that we just be happy?

What if what makes us happy violates God’s Word? What if what makes us happy is having an affair because we’re unhappy in our marriage?

No, God isn’t nearly as concerned with our happiness as He is with our holiness.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say that God wants us to be happy, but there are many verses that command us to be holy.

So, we can take that thought and rephrase it, “I want you to be holy.”

Now, what will that mean for me to be holy? Well, this may lead me to ask myself, “Is there anything that I’m allowing into my life that defiles holiness?

Movies? TV shows? Gossip? Music? Books? Magazines? The language I use? My self-talk?

Allow God to expose areas of your heart where you have allowed the defilement of the world, and then take steps to become more like Christ in that area.

This is practicing listening for the voice of God.

These three things don’t necessarily require a physical space where you get alone.

They don’t even necessarily require your surroundings to be quiet, but they do require that you learn to quiet your heart and mind so you can hear God’s voice.

You can do this in the car, while on a walk, or even while doing housework.

As you daily practice consistency in finding a time and a place to quiet your heart, listen for God’s voice, and then journal what you hear as you learn to discern what God’s voice sounds like, you’ll discover God guarding and keeping your heart in his shalom shalom.

Even when chaos is happening all around.

It won’t touch you, because you are guarded and protected in God’s perfect peace!