“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Reflection
I read these words today with my hands tight on the steering wheel, my chest heavy, my thoughts loud. I am 23, still young enough to believe the world can be better, and old enough to feel how much it hurts when it is not.
I drove past fields that have always felt like home to me. Blueberry rows. Warm dirt. The quiet dignity of work. Something felt wrong. Not loud wrong. Quiet wrong. The kind that settles in your stomach and refuses to leave.
I have tasted this country in handmade tortillas and shared meals. I have seen it in early mornings and long days, in accents that sound like my friends, in hands that feed people they will never meet. I was raised by neighborhoods, not just a household. A German family who treated me like their daughter. A Haitian nurse who held my hand when I was scared and alone. A Colombian girl who could not share my language, so we shared drawings instead.
None of them needed to explain themselves. They simply showed up. Somehow, that made me whole. Jesus says there will be trouble. Not might be. Will be. That honesty matters. Faith is not pretending pain is imaginary. Faith is refusing to believe pain gets the final word.
What I feel lately is grief mixed with love. Love for a place shaped by many cultures, many stories, many kinds of courage. Grief that fear is trying to cut away the roots that hold us together. It feels like watching a mirror crack and choosing not to look, afraid of recognizing what stares back. And still, John 16:33 keeps whispering, “take heart.”
Peace, I am learning, is not the absence of conflict. It is the presence of courage. Peace is choosing tenderness in a world that rewards hardness. It is believing that overcoming the world does not mean conquering it, but loving it fiercely, even when it breaks your heart.
I believe God is present in fields and hospital rooms, in shared food and shared silence, in rain that falls like grief and grace at the same time. I believe every person who has shaped my life across cultures is a thread in something sacred. Something stronger than fear.
This is not about sides or slogans. It is about remembering where we came from and who we are to one another. Trouble is real. But so is hope. And hope asks something of me.
by Ali Clark
For Pondering and Prayer
Prayer: Amen.
