The Evolution of My Peace

(How my quest for racial harmony led to personal conviction, inner-healing and ultimately to peace as my life and work.)

It was 1991, and I was tired—tired of race being such a factor in our lives. For as long as I could remember, I had looked around me and wondered why people of different races could not get along and yearned for the day in which we would.

I was angry—angry because it seemed as though the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. In fact, race relations were getting worse instead of better. I wanted so much to make a positive difference, but felt so powerless to change anything.

Then, an answer came from what I know now was the voice of God. It said: “Peace, be still.” It told me that if I wanted to help bring about racial harmony in this world, I had to first be at peace within myself. 

I felt convicted by a truth that had never occurred to me before—that racial harmony is an individual decision, not a group effort. One-by-one, we not only make the difference, but we are the difference in this world based on the condition of our own hearts.

This was a great revelation for me that at first I didn’t understand, or maybe didn’t want to understand. I had always imagined myself to be a basically good-hearted person, and yet I knew that what God was telling me was true—I needed to examine my own heart first if I really wanted to make a positive difference.

While I knew this was true, I didn’t know how to begin. By this time, I wasn’t sure of what truth was in my heart. There were so many confused feelings. There were so many false beliefs that somehow, somewhere along the way I had allowed myself to buy into as my own beliefs. I discovered that I didn’t know myself. I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t love myself. I thought I did, but I didn’t.

With this realization, I went to work. I went to work on myself. I began to pray like I had never prayed before—for direction, for clarity, for forgiveness. I began to read the Bible and every other positive written work I could find for comfort and answers.

I felt so ashamed of how confused I had allowed my life to become. What was worse, I felt I had really let God down. And because I felt I had let God down, I couldn’t imagine—I couldn’t believe he could actually love me.

So many things convicted me as being lost and confused, but most of all as being a hypocrite for saying I loved God, but acting to the contrary. I cried many times—sometimes in reaction to a thought, a song or an expression.

I continued to pray, and cry and read and meditate. I was spiritually led to begin writing my thoughts and feelings about all this down as they occurred to me, because it was too much for me to carry around in my head and in my heart any longer. I wrote it all down as brief notes in a small pad I carried with me for two years.

In time, I came to believe what God had been telling me all along—I had just been too blind to see and to deaf to hear. I came to believe that God loves me, with all of my imperfections. He loves me unconditionally and always. He loves us all.

It was only when I had come to this point of knowing—not just understanding intellectually—but knowing this truth in my heart, that I was finally able to embrace and share the insight God had given me.

I realized the answers had come in the form of the expressions I had been writing in my little notepad. I initially thought they were just for me to see. I never intended for anyone else to ever read them, let alone to publish them in a book. But God helped me see that it was not only insight that would help me but that I should share it with others—many others.

The result of all of this became my first book, Peace Be Still—Inner Healing for Racial Harmony that I published in 1998. Although it is a small book, it conveys the big message that if we want peace and harmony in the world, we can have it, but it first has to come from within.

To take this message even further, I published an accompanying workbook, entitled Peace and Racial Harmony Inside Out, from which I conduct workshops. I’ve also published two additional books since then entitled: I Know How You Feel, and Peace Tips for Life.

Through the years, I have come to realize that many others are seeking to experience more peace in their lives on an ongoing basis--regardless of racial and other differences. As a result, I have committed my life to continuing to promote peace whenever and wherever I can.

While I know my inner and outer work is not nearly finished, the difference now is that I have a greater peace with God than ever before and a much more loving and willing heart. With that, just as God told me he would, he is helping me make a positive difference in the world.