Today, Cochabamba is anything but peaceful.  Brothers fighting brothers, clashing ideologies, fear fueling hatred – will it be possible to be at peace in this city of Eternal Spring?  Our children are beginning their life in a world where atomic power is not thought of primarily for its humanitarian uses but as a weapon of mass destruction. 

They see masses of people used as pawns of leaders.  They see diseases that despite modern medicine, take the lives of their loved ones and huge percentages of modern nations.  What can they do?  Where is peace?

While I do not wish to trivialize this universal problem, I wish to show that peace to an individual starts with himself – its something inside each of us.  It may not solve world problems of peace, but it may allow each of us to live our personal world in peace.  We may be able to help our children to make sense in this torn apart world of ours.

A ship was wrecked in a furious storm and the only survivor was a little boy who was swept by the waves onto a rock. He sat there all night until he was rescued the next morning.

“Did you tremble whole you were on the rock during the night?” someone asked him.

“Yes,” said the boy. “I trembled all night – but the rock didn’t.”

Is there a rock we can sit on while storms are all around us?  Yes – absolutely yes!

Thomas Watson said it well: “God the Son is called the Prince of Peace.  He came into the world with a song of peace: “On earth peace…”  He left the world with a legacy of peace: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.”  Christ’s earnest prayer was for peace; He prayed that His people might be one.  Christ not only prayed for peace, but bled for peace: “Having made peace through the blood of His cross.” He died not only to make peace between God and man, but between man and man. Christ suffered on the cross, that He might cement Christians together with His blood; as He prayed for peace, so He paid for peace.”

The peace I’m talking about is an internal peace that lies so deeply in the heart of a believer in Jesus Christ that it cannot be reached by any external disturbances.  Do you – do I -- have that peace?  Have you brought your children to understand the option of having that peace?

None of us are perfect as individuals – nor are our marriages perfect.  As we work together to maintain our love and a strong marriage, our homes will be a good environment for growing and happy children.