Finding Peace in Your Everyday Life

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Find them at focusonthefamily.com slash kids mags. I feel like peace feels like a really warm blanket on a cold day. To me, God's peace feels like calm in the middle of a storm.

The rock at the beach, the waves are heating it, but the rock doesn't care. The peace of God feels like an exhale after holding in my breath for multiple weeks. Well, what does peace feel like to you? Today on Focus on the Family, we'll have some observations and strategies for you and your family to intentionally seek out peace in your everyday life. Thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family.

Your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller. John, I love our relationship with Ray Vanderland, who we've done that video series with, That the World May Know, a Jewish scholar. And one of the nuggets I've taken away from my interactions with Ray is this concept of God's shalom to combat the world's chaos. And I love that concept because shalom is Hebrew for peace. And that's the deep redemptive peace that we have between us and God because of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross and our acceptance of him as the son of God. But it can be difficult to bring God's peace to others if we aren't experiencing that ourselves. And that's where it has to start. It has to start with us in our own hearts.

Actually, in the book of Psalms, we're told very directly we need to seek peace and pursue it. So today we've invited our good friend Kay Wyma back. She's a busy wife and mom. And yes, she did the career thing and worked in the White House at one point. So she's had some incredible experiences. But she wants to express the importance of peace and challenge you to a 30-day experiment, the 30-day peace project. And that's the topic today.

Yeah. And we've had Kay here a number of times. She always brings some great stories from her own personal life. And she's so approachable.

She's written a number of books. And as you said, Jim, the one that really is foundational for our conversation today, the peace project, a 30-day experiment practicing thankfulness, kindness, and mercy. We've got that here at the ministry.

The link is in the episode notes or call 800, the letter A and the word family for your copy. Kay, welcome back to Focus. Oh my goodness. Thanks for having me. I'm already grinning ear to ear because we love having you on and your stories are so great because they're so transparent. Thanks for the pressure. Now I have to come up with a good story. I'm just kidding. Everybody relates to your stories because they're the everyday story.

It's what we all experience, but you have such a gift of expressing them. Okay. So starting right out of the gate, your peace experiment started one day when you were pulling out of your driveway and you encountered a big truck driving by. How did that start your peace journey? Well, unexpectedly. I mean, I didn't really think we were on a peace journey until that morning. What happened? Okay. So, you know, the morning began slightly unsettled because, well, I had women coming over.

I have a meeting, a Bible study meeting every Tuesday at my house and I'm pulling together for the coffee. I go in the fridge and there's cartons of milk, but there's no milk in the cartons. Please say I'm not the only one. Like, am I the only one? Oh my gosh. I think it just happened to me this morning. Seriously?

Yes, I'm dead serious. It's like that and the cereal. Like their dust, the cereal boxes are destined to be empty, but why are they sitting there? I don't understand it. Yeah. So needless to say, I walked out going, well, now I have to race to the grocery store to be able to get the milk, you know? And I'm like, and our block, we live on a block where people still have driveways that you use.

So you back in and out of it. And there's lots of cars on our block. And so already it was piled. And I look at the end of the street and there's a truck coming, like a working truck coming my way. And he was so nice. Like he saw me trying to back out. So he pulled to the side and I start backing out. I get into the street and lo and behold, this huge black truck is barreling up on me.

And I, in my head. From the other side? No, cause he, the guy pulled over, the black truck decided he was pulling over for him. Yeah. So he's like, and, and I'm sort of seeing her going, this is my street.

Like, no. And I happy thoughts are not in my head and neither are nice words. And so this guy's like face off with the truck and me and I have no choice but to back up. Okay.

So lots of discord, very much, no peace in that situation. I start backing up and I look up and this unbelievable sky, this sunrise sky is staring at me. And I think for a moment, what am I doing? Like, why am I so grumbly and crabby? Like I have a study coming. Yeah, that's the contrast.

That's what's so funny. And so I start sitting there going, I am in a car. It is a hot Texas day. I have air conditioning. I'm going into a grocery store where the milk will be in a cooled refrigerated cabinet that I can pull out.

And probably somebody is going to say, hi, Kay. And I'm sort of like, so instantly gratitude. Again, I have no idea what's happening here, except that all of a sudden I feel better because that's what gratitude does. It starts to like dial down whatever's going and fire up just feelings that are good, which physiologically occur in your brain. You have no idea that it's happening, but it does. I'm laughing about this whole thing about I got to get some milk for my Bible study, get out of my way. It's so true.

I mean, but whatever. You realize the benefit of looking up, the blessings in your life. So the thankfulness actually inspires right in that moment and act of kindness. I had to back up three or four cars and pull to the side because there were that many cars on our street.

But instead of like Russia, Russia, you know, I happily did it. I thought, you know what, I'm moving. There's this act of kindness that occurred in that moment. And as the car barreled by, I thought for a moment, I have no idea what's no idea what's going on in that person's life.

Like none. They could be racing to the hospital. They could be, you know, late for a meeting.

They could be a really crabby, terrible person, which wouldn't be a fun way to live, you know? And instantly in that moment, I had compassion on that person and it mattered so much. I went in when the ladies arrived and I told them, because I was sort of like, you're going to believe what happened this morning. This weird thing happened.

I can't believe how good I feel. And the next week, one of the ladies said, can you tell that story again? And another lady said, I did that thing because I had said to them, I think the key components were thankfulness and kindness, like altruistic.

I wasn't going to get anything out of it. And the compassion part, which it didn't take long to realize that that's actually what mercy, that's one of the components of mercy, which I'm going to tell you in this whole story. Mercy is phenomenal. It's a killer. And I don't think we talk about it very much about practice. It's interesting. And we're going to go through those three and talk about different stories and different concepts there. But I think sometimes in the society, we think those are soft things. And we talk about winning and we talk about, you know, those other things that are more warrior like attitude, right? Mercy is kind of tender.

Oh, but let me tell you, I love that you said that because it actually is a warrior aspect. All of them are, they're so so powerful, and they feed life into any situation that has discord, unsettledness, frustration, and it brings into the equation, humanity, you actually through mercy, the most powerful part about it is that it brings dignity back to the human being, the one that mercy is being given to, as well as the one that is giving it so powerful. Okay, what's so good about that in the broader cultural context, you know, so many people rightfully are clamoring for greater civility in everything going to the store or driving down the road, the economic situation, the political situation, we just feel like we're unhinged now. And we're not capable of showing each other these attributes. And people wrap it in the word civility. But it is these things of mercy. That's part of civility and humanity. So for the person, I'm thinking of the frazzled mom, and we have frazzled dad, so I get that, but just the picture of that person, like Kay, who says, Kay, really?

You like that, like Kay? But that 30 day challenge, you know, the 30 day piece project really is someone's going, I can't do it for an hour. How do you expect me to do this for 30 days? Okay, but they're so easy, and anybody can do them.

And here's the thing, some days you want, okay, so thankfulness, kindness, and mercy. It's like, let's define what those are. So when I started it, because when they said, Hey, I did it, I didn't know it was something to do. And then once I knew it was something to do, I was like, let's try it. And so I got my kids on board, which they are. Why?

Why do they say that? I think they're just so tired of me that they'll be like, Yes, we'll do another. And, and it was great. So I got a little notebook for them.

I had all my friends from that morning wanting to do it too. So we really actually embarked on it to see if it was something and we defined it thankfulness. So 30 days doing these three things. Thankfulness is just like one thing to be thankful for and writing it each day, each day, and I made the rule with my kids, it couldn't be the same thing. The second thing kindness, it has to be an altruistic act of kindness, which could be anything like kindness is so simple to do.

And the opportunities are everywhere. And what it does for human beings is insane. It does something for the giver, and it does something for the receiver. And so if you're dealing with anxiety, if you're dealing with depression, if you're dealing with discord, interpersonal, or interpersonal, just inside of me, these impact what is going to be the highest travel pathway in your brain, it's fascinating. But as you do these things, the practicing of the kindness, it fires things in your brain that you can't cognitively do, which is fascinating. And altruistic kindness is different than kindness where I do it to get something from you.

Okay. And then the mercy, it's having compassion or forgiveness on someone that actually could possibly harm you, including yourself. And so we go into those definition of what compassion looks like what forgiveness looks like.

And it's mercy is so I call it mysterious mercy and magical mercy. We're gonna peel these all back. Let's start with thankfulness, the first one and in fact, you have a story of your 13 year old son, who had a little bit of a dilemma, I guess. Well, yeah, cuz we're just people. Okay.

Yeah. So when I started this, I dropped him off at school literally on day one. And I said, Okay, today, we're going to do this thing.

So try to practice thankfulness, kindness and mercy. He gets in the car when I pick him up. And it was a long day for me. I had just come off of a week I was dressed because I just left a funeral the day before I'd gone to a different funeral.

So needless to say, it they were not highs. And so this kid gets in the car. What are you? So what are you thankful for today? And he goes, I have nothing to be thankful for.

And I sat there in my own moment of just what and I did I leaned into it. How could you not have anything to be thankful for? Let me tell you what my days you know, bloody blah, blah. And he looked at me with these wide eyes because I was like, I'll tell you what you have to be thankful for that your mother is picking you up from carpool and you have someone in your life and and his eyes were so big and he was like, Well, how could you say that to me?

Like, that's my biggest fears that you wouldn't be here. So I apologize to him in that and explained to him my day. And then we instantly met each other in that moment, which was so filled with mercy and life is breathed back into it. In the moment life is breathed back into it. He's instantly on thankfulness going I love him. I'm so thankful for Mrs. beggar, my art teacher and and then that it's like a starter fluid to fire up the rest. Yeah. Before we move to the next one.

Yeah, still on thankfulness. You had an experience in I think a checkout line. You had a rug that somebody didn't like.

Yeah, this is good. Please say to my right. We have rude people that cross our path. I walked into this great store to return a rug that I had purchased for one of my college kids, you know, and it didn't work in the dorm room.

So I'm taking it back. And I should have noticed that there was an issue when I walked in as I'm standing waiting for the cashier. And these people are getting in line looking at me rudely. I'm holding this rug and I just was going to return it. And I step in to return it and everyone's gruffy at me because apparently I've cut the line to go.

I mean, I know cut the line. I did. Okay. That's it.

Yes. And so I was very rudely put at the back of the line by the cashier going the line starts back there. So I stand in the line, the lady that I'm behind is mad at me for some reason. And so she's talking with the cashier about how rude it was that I cut the line. I'm sitting there going I'm here like is that am I being punked?

You know, is somebody filming this because this is hilarious. I you're in the back. You were at the back of the line. But I think my rug was bothering people.

I'm not exactly sure what was bothering no wonder your daughter didn't like it. I probably I didn't hit anybody. I don't as far as I know, I wasn't hitting anyone.

And it's okay. So I had a choice in that moment, similar to the black truck. I could either enter it in and go, Oh, you people, you know, get a life start swinging that rug.

Just that's right. I could have poked her a little bit and pretended like I didn't. But but I know, you know, we're sitting here doing this practicing thankfulness, kindness and mercy. I was like, Okay, I'm unsettled.

Like I feel the discord of these people talking about me even in front of me. So there's, there's no peace in that situation. And I was like, Alright, I'm going to fight for it. And so I know that thankfulness fires it up. And I sit there going, I have a rug for a daughter who's in college. I'm so glad I have that daughter. She's, you know, just sort of taking through. And as the thankfulness goes, and we know it happens every time.

If you can do anything, start ticking through thankfulness, and you will instantly start to feel better. And so I do. And I noticed that the lady in front of me who was so crabby didn't have the change in her purse to be able to pay. I had to change in my purse and, and I just quietly put it there, you know, not really saying anything. And I'm like, it's yours.

It's yours, no worries. And so in that moment, it allowed me to really hit compassion because now I actually cared like legitimately cared for these ladies and thinking, I have no idea. It almost is every time I have no idea what's going on in their day. And that is probably one of the most powerful statements to hit to the why. Why is somebody being rude?

Why are they honking at you? Why? Because if you can go to the why on any of this, it's, and it addresses kind of things like cancel culture, all these things that are hitting us that are so overwhelming. If we can go to the why, then we can see the humans involved in it and lead with compassion. Okay, let's move to the second focus of the experiment, which is kindness.

Yeah. You cite a fascinating study. I really this was interesting about letter writing and people struggling with suicidal thoughts.

I thought that was really breathtaking. Tell the listeners and viewers what you discovered because letter writing such an easy thing. It really went off of a psychiatrist who was dealing with people walking alongside people that are dealing with things like PTSD, a lot dealing with depression, depression, folks that had been off at war. And he started writing letters, just simply writing letters, small letters, two, three sentences. It wasn't much, but it had their name on it. It saw them, it addressed them. And it was like you, I see you, you're living, you matter, you matter. And so as the people received these letters, it actually impacted them that someone did notice and that they did matter. And there was a gentleman who actually is one of those people that survived jumping off a bridge to end his life, and he did not end his life. And he received those letters afterwards. And it actually lowered the depression in his life.

I mean, it gave him enough, enough oomph in his life to be able to continue, because he mattered to someone. And that's where I just, it's so compelling to think, are we that empty? And I think right now, the answer is a lot of people are empty. Do we see the people walking next to us? Do we say the names of the people walking next to us? Do we notice them?

Do we, and if it's something as simple as letter writing to even go through your own list of people in your life that have impacted you, oh my gosh, if you would just write a letter saying to your teacher when you were in grade school, you have no idea how much you meant to me in my life, the tiniest little things. And what that does to the person receiving it, oh, it puts wind in their sails. And in the strangest way that this kindness thing does, it puts wind in your sails too.

It is the biggest win-win. Okay, let's move to the third one, mercy. You light up with that word. I see it in your face and your smile. And it's a beautiful word, mercy. It's a beautiful word. It's what defines us as being made in God's image, right? It's human, and it's an attribute from our Creator. I think the neatest thing about mercy is this is the one you genuinely, absolutely cannot do on your own. I think that's what's so powerful about it. And that when you practice mercy, you experience God. You just can't, there's nothing in us that goes towards this. It's His character.

It's His, it's Him. Yeah, okay, so even all of these things, I was so hit by the fact that if you look at the greatest commandment, love Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love others as yourself, this is living out because loving the Lord your God is thankfulness. Loving others is, and even ourselves, there's a kindness aspect to it. But genuinely going to the compassion part is mercy. And I think that's why these are so powerful.

I can't tell you enough how deeply practicing these impacted each one of our lives and the people that did it. And they're so simple. I mean, just five days simple, but it takes thought. Yes, and effort. And the thing about mercy, it takes a couple of more things.

One of them is willingness, which is huge. And the other is humility, because you have to be able to walk into it with humility and willingness. And you also is so critically important to walk into mercy with your identity set with your unsettledness settled.

Because if you go in on my own power, I'm in trouble. I can only genuinely practice these things if I understand who I am. And I know we've talked about identity before.

I'm not sure it doesn't fold into every conversation, because I think we have identity issues. Well, and what for the person that doesn't know, what does that mean identity, this means being fully grounded in who God says that you are, okay, what does that what are the adjectives that describe that known, you're known, you're seen, you're loved, you're wanted, you're valued, almost your value is so high, that it's invaluable. And we talked about that in Ephesians two, it says that we are God's workmanship, which the other word is masterpiece, which the Greek word behind that is poema, which is this amazing creation that he has done that you I mean, he would set you in a room like you, there's no value that could purchase you except someone did. Because of that value, you're so valuable to him that he gave everything.

I mean, it's just like, whoa. And so you have to go into mercy. And maybe that's part of practicing it is that you have to rest in that some way, even if you don't believe it. Because in order to get compassion, I have to genuinely care about the other person, which means I'm not focused on myself.

And therein lies the greatest freedom ever, like to not have my eyes anchored on myself for a minute is ginormous. You know, your father in law, had a great he, I mean, you said he was a great example of Jesus's mercy while taking care of his wife that quickly described that story and how that demonstrated God's mercy. They served on the mission field for 50 years in Bolivia, about the time that she started to have dementia. And so his life changed. And it wasn't exactly what he expected, because we have mismatched expectations, again, which bring discord. And the beautiful mercy as he sat with absolute compassion, wanting nothing out of life, except simply to serve her, which was a challenge. The more he surrendered to it, the more beautiful it got to the point where he would even help her chew her food.

And so the beauty that surrounded these moments that were so different than he ever thought that they could have the compassion he had on her, the compassion that he had on himself, and the life that was so full and something that looked like there was no life at all. And therein lies this power of mercy to bring life into situations that look absolutely hopeless. So why do we do it? Because if we don't do it, we hit this point where we are, I think, in society, as you were starting out the show saying, there's discord, there's people that won't talk to each other, there's all this hate speech, and there's hate against each other, political, social, I mean, just fill in the blank.

And it seems like that is actually too much to handle. But what if? What if we do this? Like, what if we change it just slightly? Because the best place to start a change is in the home.

Because you can do it. And we aren't, you know, it goes back to the it is finished part of our life, that we aren't victims to this stuff. We can meet it head on. What if you brought out of your house and raised in your house, people that saw the ones around them as human beings of great worth? Oh, my gosh, you know, what if we led with thankfulness, that was your your instinct, you know, to get into the situation, go, this doesn't feel good, remind me what I have to be thankful for.

I heard Johnny Erickson Todd, she's phenomenal on this issue, because she does it constantly. And I mean, she does. And it's like, could anything more bad happen, and painful? And she leads, I saw her the other day, and she said, I moved my mouth, uttering the words of gratitude that I didn't want to say.

And the minute she started doing it, she started feeling better, fire up the thankfulness, act on it with kindness, and then bathe it. Oh, my goodness, and mercy. And the fullness that you get this year has been so hard for us. I can't even, I just can't even so much further than anything we experienced with COVID. Thank you. It's the intensity.

There's I just can't even begin to describe it. This got us through so much that we never could have gotten through on a drive home with one of my children that has been hurting so desperately, because of something that happened to him when he was little. We pull up to a cross and a couple of busy streets in Dallas, and there was a homeless guy standing there.

During COVID, I did keep money in my console. And I pulled out what I had. I called him over. And I said, This is all I've got.

It didn't seem like enough. And I said, What is your name? And I just I said, I want you to know the Lord sees you. And he told me his name. And then he asked me my name. He said, What is your name? I said, My name is Kay. And he looked at me and he said, Can I pray for you? And I was like, Well, yes. He prayed for his sister Kay. And for the provision and the protection as we went forth in our day. And I see they're going, I have no idea what your life is like, I can not living your life.

He had no idea what was going on in our life. And it was like heaven met us right there on that busy intersection as two human beings went to the place where there is life, having compassion on each other, and seeing each other as humans with dignity and great work. Yeah, now you got me all teared up here.

But what a beautiful place. This is the power of what you're talking about. And, man, let me just say on Kay's behalf, take the challenge. I mean, what she's talking about is developing your spiritual essence, your relationship with Christ. That's what it's about the peace project and a 30 day challenge to write those things down what you're thankful for, and showing kindness and showing mercy. Kay, this is God's message. He lent it to us. I don't even he lent it to us. I'm so thankful because it gave us life in a time when I didn't know there was life.

And so it's not ours. Come join the ride. It's a good ride.

Well, listen, that is what we're looking for. And Kay, again, we're so grateful that you've been with us. Thank you for being here. Thank you. It really is always a pleasure.

You guys are amazing. Well, and let me again encourage you to get a copy of Kay's book, The Peace Project, and all that comes with that. And if you can't afford it, just get in touch with us. We'll trust that others will cover the cost of that. But make a gift and we'll send it to you as our way of saying thank you. Get in touch today and get a copy of this book, The Peace Project. And if there's anything else we can send along your way or do for you, let us know, please. Our number is 800, the letter A and the word family.

And the link is in the episode show notes. Joe, let me read something. I think you'll appreciate Kay. This is from a listener and she said this. God's been trying to reach me for a long time, but I've always maintained a distance. In the last couple of weeks, every time I listened to the broadcast, I hear something about my marriage or my kids that I needed to hear. I feel such peace I've never had or realized I needed. Thank you for being God's voice to me so I can listen to him.

I think a lot of people listening to the program today will say, yes, that's true. So that's what you do when you participate in ministry with us. We're there for people who are hurting and need to hear from the Lord. Yeah.

Donate as you can when you call 800, the letter A and the word family. We're stopped by the episode notes to see the links. And coming up next time, why the biblical concept of leaving and cleaving is essential for your marriage. If you have a tough day at work and you get in the car and your first person you're going to call is your mom, not your wife, that's a problem. That's going to prevent you from the second half of Genesis 2 24, the two becoming one. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ.