ChatGPT as Ann Voskamp
The kettle hums low in the hush of the morning, and I count.
One more breath.
One more gift.
One more moment where the world still spins aching with sorrow—and I dare to name it holy.
Because shalom isn’t what waits on the other side of answered prayers or perfect days.
Shalom is what dances in the kitchen when your heart is cracked wide open, and you still choose to lift your eyes.
1.0 A Braided Peace
Shalom—it’s not the porcelain peace of Instagram mantels and tidy hearts. It’s the braided kind, like challah bread—twisted through with:
- threads of suffering,
- cords of hope,
- and strands of Presence, binding it all together in grace.
I used to think peace was something I could finally get to. A meadow on the other side of the fence. A hush after the kids grow quiet.
But the Prince of Peace doesn’t hand us stillness like a souvenir—He enters our chaos and whispers, “This too, beloved, is sacred.”
2.0 The Broken Hallelujah
Peace is not found in running faster, fixing harder, or praying prettier.
Peace is in the pausing.
The naming.
The breaking of bread at the table where nothing is finished and everything is grace.
I stand at the sink, water hot and brimming, and I name them out loud:
- the apology I wanted but never got,
- the diagnosis,
- the dashed hope—
And still I whisper thank you, like a fool in love with a wounded world.
Because that’s what shalom is: not a circumstantial stillness, but a cruciform wholeness.
Not absence, but abiding. Not retreat, but return.
3.0 The Practice of the Dance
You don’t find peace by wishing for less noise.
You find it by learning the choreography of the Kingdom:
- bend low in humility,
- step forward in mercy,
- spin in the joy that comes not from having everything, but from holding everything loosely.
And when the music stutters—when conflict rises and the floor gives way beneath your feet—you keep dancing.
Because Christ is the rhythm,
and the Spirit is the song,
and the Father is the floor that holds you.
4.0 Shalom is a Person
Peace isn’t a place. It’s not a finish line.
It’s not a mood or mantra or goal.
Peace is a person—and His name is Jesus.
He is our peace.
He is our practice.
And He is always present.
So I count again.
One breath.
One grace.
One more trembling, grateful step in the dance.
And I find Him here.
In the whirl.
In the war.
In the shalom that holds even the broken together.
“And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts…”
– Colossians 3:15
Radically Happy 
Leave a comment