The Middle

Working downtown brings its own strange beauty and chaos, sirens echoing off glass towers, people rushing by with earbuds in, a man asleep on the sidewalk as a woman in heels steps past without even glancing down. For someone who grew up surrounded by open fields and sunrise skies, I never expected to love the hum of a city. But I do. There’s something fascinating about the rhythm of it all, the energy, the pace, the people.

Still, there are moments when I miss the wide-open spaces. I miss watching the sun rise over rolling hills or seeing it dip low behind the horizon. I don’t miss mowing those hills or the upkeep that came with them, but I do miss how the light stretched across the land, those quiet minutes that felt like the whole world was breathing. The city doesn’t give me that. The sky here is smaller, broken by buildings. And sometimes, that’s hard.

City life has taught me a lot about contrasts, beauty beside brokenness, movement beside stillness. Most days, it all blends together into something almost ordinary. But every so often, something happens that reminds me how fragile that balance really is.

Last week, there was a threat made against one of the buildings where I work. It turned out to be an empty one, no real danger, but for a time, we didn’t know. There were long minutes filled with uncertainty. At first, I didn’t quite believe that someone was threatening to harm us. Then time seemed to slow, and I found myself on edge, waiting, for sirens, for security, for someone to say something certain. I remember thinking, Why isn’t anyone moving faster? But they were. It just takes time for help to arrive when your heart is pounding and your mind is racing ahead.

Eventually, the police did come. They escorted us out to our cars, and the threat proved to be nothing. But even after it was over, I couldn’t shake the unease. Maybe it’s because I’ve lived through hard things before, a house fire, moments when safety disappeared in an instant, but I didn’t just bounce back this time. I’ve worked and functioned and smiled since then, but inside I’ve felt shaky, unsettled. Fear has a way of revisiting old rooms in your mind.

The Bible says, “Do not fear,” 365 times, once for every day of the year. But sometimes fear doesn’t feel like a choice. It feels like something that rises uninvited, a deep-down reaction that you can’t always reason away. Still, even in that moment, standing in uncertainty, wondering what might come next, I felt something else: peace. A quiet reminder that if the worst did happen, I would be with my Savior immediately.

That realization didn’t erase the fear, but it steadied me. It reminded me that even if the world feels fragile, the promise of eternity is not. And isn’t that the heart of the gospel?  That death has lost its finality? That in the midst of fear, we can still rest in the truth that it’s already been defeated?

Peace Be With You

They had locked the doors.

The bolts slid into place with a dull scrape, the kind of sound that feels final. No one said much after that. The room was small, heavy with the smell of oil and sweat, the same room where they had shared bread and wine with Him just days before. Now the walls felt closer, the air thick, the light from a single oil lamp flickering shadows across anxious faces.

Someone whispered that the Roman guards were still searching. Someone else said the Pharisees wanted every trace of His followers gone. A cup tipped over, startling them all, nerves frayed, hands trembling. Peter sat apart from the rest, his jaw tight, his eyes hollow. John leaned against the wall, silent tears tracing lines down his face. They were all replaying the unthinkable: the nails, the cross, the moment hope seemed to die.

Jerusalem was still loud outside, merchants calling, carts creaking, life pretending nothing had changed, but inside that upper room, fear had made time stop. They didn’t know what came next. Maybe arrest. Maybe death. Maybe silence forever.

That upper room had been a place of laughter once. Just days earlier, they had argued over who was greatest, passed bread from hand to hand, listened to Jesus speak words they didn’t fully understand, “This is my body… this is my blood.” He had washed their feet there. He had prayed for them there. And now they were back in the same place, but everything felt broken, emptied of meaning.

And then, without warning, He was there.

No knock. No sound of hinges. Just presence, alive, unexplainable, holy. The light in the room seemed to shift, brushing across the walls and the stunned faces of those who had mourned Him.

For a moment, no one moved. They had seen Him die. They had watched the stone rolled into place. Every part of them knew what final looked like, and this was not it. Their hearts raced, minds scrambling for an explanation. A ghost? A vision? Grief playing tricks again?

Peter’s breath caught in his chest. John’s hands shook as he leaned forward, unable to look away. The others whispered to each other in disbelief, the air thick with both terror and awe.

And then Jesus spoke.  His voice, the same voice that had calmed storms and once told them not to be afraid, broke through the fear with words that wrapped around every trembling heart:

“Peace be with you.”

They hadn’t realized yet what day it was. They didn’t know this moment would become the one we now call Easter Sunday. To them, it wasn’t celebration. It was confusion, wonder, and holy disbelief all tangled together. The resurrection hadn’t become a story yet; it was still mystery, raw and real, standing right in front of them.

They shrank back, eyes wide, bodies pressed against the wall. Their fear was honest, the kind that comes when hope collides with disbelief.

But Jesus, always gentle with human weakness, raised His hands.  “Why are you troubled?” He asked them softly. “Why do doubts rise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself. Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

He stepped closer. The lamplight caught the faint edges of scars, proof that death had left its mark but not its claim. The disciples stared, half-believing, half-dazed.

And still, even with their eyes fixed on Him, joy and doubt mingled together. Scripture says they “still did not believe it because of joy and amazement.” Their hearts wanted to trust, but their minds couldn’t yet bridge the gap between grief and glory.

So Jesus, with almost tender humor, asked, “Do you have anything here to eat?”

Someone handed Him a piece of broiled fish. He took it and ate it in front of them, a small, ordinary act in an extraordinary moment. The sound of chewing, the flicker of the lamp, the scrape of a clay dish, all of it too real, too human, to be a ghost. The disciples couldn't take their eyes off of Him, the room echoing in silence while He ate.

And the doors were still locked. Their fear had sealed them in, but even locked doors can’t keep God out. They hadn’t invited Him in, hadn’t even dared to hope, yet there He was, passing through barriers both wooden and human, meeting them exactly where they were.

That’s what His peace does. It doesn’t wait for danger to pass or fear to subside. It enters right into the middle of it and stands firm, a steady voice saying, You are safe, even here.

Safe, Even Here

It has been nearly a week now since the police escorted me to my car in the parking lot. The anxiety has begun to settle, like dust slowly drifting back to the ground after something has shaken it. Life has returned to its pace, as it always does. Emails to answer. Meetings to attend. Deadlines that don’t pause just because someone was afraid.

It’s almost strange how quickly the world moves on. How something that felt so sharp, so unsettling, can fade into the background as if it never happened at all. People go back to work. Traffic flows. Coffee gets poured. The calendar keeps turning.

But I keep thinking about the moment, not the fear itself, and not even the uncertainty, but the quiet whisper that came right in the middle of it. In the thick of my racing pulse and unanswered questions, I felt something still and steady settle over me. Not because I was brave. Not because I was calm. But because I realized I knew where I was going.

I didn’t have to think it through or reason it out. There wasn’t time for theology or reflection. I didn’t sit and quote Scripture to myself. It was just there, like Jesus standing in the middle of a locked room. A peace that didn’t wait for the danger to be resolved. A presence that wasn’t stopped by walls or fear or what-ifs.

I knew that if the worst happened, I would be with Him, and that knowing cut through the panic like light through a cracked door.  Just like those disciples on that first resurrection day, before anyone knew to call it Easter, before the joy had time to take root, before hope had a name again, peace entered in the middle of fear, not after it.

If you’ve ever felt fear tighten your chest or steal your breath, I hope you hear this:  Peace can meet you there, not after the fear, not once you’ve figured everything out, but right in the middle of it.

No locked door can keep Him from His own.