There are gaps between how things are and how I wish they could be in some areas of my life, and somehow the holidays highlight those gaps in ways I don’t notice at other times of the year. Today more than ever, I need to hear a simple phrase I’ve heard many times before:

May the peace of the Lord be with you.

It’s what our hearts desire most at times, isn’t it? Something eternal and inexhaustible to fill and sustain us in every area of our lives, through all the joys and especially the sorrows. Looking back on the past year, these seven words matter. Almost everyone I know has been carrying heavy things through the holidays, with grief and loss of one form or another. We all need the peace of the Lord in the deepest parts of our hearts!

An old hymn from my childhood country church came to mind this morning — 

The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin

The light of the world is Jesus

Like sunshine at noonday His glory shone in

The light of the world is Jesus.

Come to the light, ’tis shining for thee

Sweetly the light has dawned upon me

Once I was blind but now I can see

The light of the world is Jesus.

-Philip Paul Bliss

How else do you walk through the longest, darkest days but to look up at the Light of the World with full confidence that He is the only One who can work in our hearts to bring us the peace we long for? Come to the Light – discover the peace of the Lord for each moment of 2026.

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” (Colossians 2:6-7)

May the peace of the Lord be with you this year!