Sunday Afternoon Musings
Peace, Be Still
This morning at church, I played “Master, the Tempest Is Raging” on the organ. It has been a favorite since first singing it in church as a young girl. But this morning as the congregation sang, it felt different—I felt different.
Perhaps it’s part of the natural aging process. Hymns we have sung our whole lives begin sounding like pieces of our own story.
The organ was full and all-encompassing. And then, just before the chorus, I changed registers to a much softer sound that built with the energy of the words until it was back to full register. And something about those words swelling through the congregation—through a room full of people living through storms of their own—pierced my heart.
As I played, I pondered on the storm the apostles were talking about—wind and waves threatening to overturn the boat where the Savior lay sleeping. They must have been terrified. I know I would have been. Boats are not my thing—especially without a life jacket.
When we finished singing, I thought about other storms. Not the storms of nature. The storms of life that come uninvited and often overstay their welcome. Some are loud and public. Others—some of the scariest and most painful—are private enough that almost nobody sees them.
Through the years, I have watched storms roll through marriages, families, churches, schools, and entire communities. I have watched people pray for relief while trying to hold onto faith with weary hands. And I have done some of that praying myself.
During the pandemic, I wrote about this same hymn. Back then, I waited for the storm itself to stop. I prayed for dramatic miracles and quick answers. I longed to wake up to the news that everything had settled and all was right with the world.
But life rarely unfolds that way.
I thought about Mary Ann Baker, who wrote the hymn after experiencing tremendous loss in her own life. Her parents died of tuberculosis and left her, her sister, and her brother orphans living in Chicago. Later, her brother was stricken with the same illness. After Mary Ann and her sister gathered what little money they had to send him to Florida for treatment, he passed away a few weeks later.
Mary Ann later explained that she became rebellious, believing God didn’t care for her.
“But the Master’s own voice stilled the tempest in my unsanctified heart, and brought it to the calm of a deeper faith and a more perfect trust,” she said.
There is something comforting about knowing that many of our most beloved hymns were written by people who understood sorrow firsthand. They weren’t writing from easy lives untouched by grief and disappointment.
Maybe that’s why the words still reach us.
I yearn for the day the Master will raise His hands and command the earth and its inhabitants with the words, “Peace, be still.” I know that day will come, but I don’t know when. So, I seek for peace in my soul. I can’t control the violence, the corruption, the chaos, the fear, the anxiety playing out across cities, counties, states, and nations. My puny arms aren’t strong enough to lift the world from its ills. But my knees are sturdy enough to kneel. My voice is strong enough to pray. My faith is steady enough to believe.
Peace doesn’t always come by removing the storm.
Sometimes peace comes quietly while the winds are still blowing.
Sometimes it settles into your soul while your hands rest on organ keys.
Sometimes it comes through music you’ve known since childhood.
Sometimes it comes while sitting beside people who are carrying storms of their own.
And sometimes it comes in the simple reminder that even when the waves feel high and frightening, the Master is still in the boat.
— Charlene