The Peace Train map gave me direction. The jewels gave me markers. But the greatest treasure was still hidden — waiting in the Mirror Pool.
At first, I resisted the mirror. Looking into it felt like blame. I thought it would only show me my failures, my flaws, my emotional explosions.
But Jesus showed me something different.
The Mirror Pool wasn’t accusation. It was mercy.
It reflected the agreements I had made — with lies, with shame, with blame. But it also revealed what was never mine to carry.
Run to the pain
For most of my life, I circled the valley of the shadow of death. I avoided emotional pain like it was a hot stove. Touch it once, get burned, never touch again.
Emotional pain doesn’t work like that. You can’t go around it. You have to go through it with Jesus.
Then The Passion Translation by Brian Simmons came into my life and gave me a new view of Psalm 23 TPT:
1 The Lord is my best friend and my shepherd.
I always have more than enough.
2 He offers a resting place for me in his luxurious love.
His tracks take me to an oasis of peace, the quiet brook of bliss.
3 That’s where he restores and revives my life.
He opens before me pathways to God’s pleasure
and leads me along in his footsteps of righteousness
so that I can bring honor to his name.
I was blown away from the first verse. He is my best friend?!?
I spent a lot of time in this chapter--especially in 2020. I prayed through this chapter from this translation for hours. I saw how this ties with the armor of God in Ephesians 6. It softened parts of me I didn’t know were still stone.
What is humorous for me now looking back is that I thought was whole and fully healed then. I had no idea.
Psalm 23 TPT became more than a verse — it became my map.:
4 Lord, even when your path takes me through
the valley of deepest darkness,
fear will never conquer me, for you already have!
You remain close to me and lead me through it all the way.
Your authority is my strength and my peace.
The comfort of your love takes away my fear.
I’ll never be lonely, for you are near.
5 You become my delicious feast
even when my enemies dare to fight.
You anoint me with the fragrance of your Holy Spirit;
you give me all I can drink of you until my heart overflows.
6 So why would I fear the future?
For your goodness and love pursue me all the days of my life.
Then afterward, when my life is through,
I’ll return to your glorious presence to be forever with you!
Now, when emotional pain rises, I don’t run from it. I run to it — knowing Jesus will hold me on the other side.
The Freedom of the New Covenant
I had spent years trying to live in the New Testament with Old Testament thinking — striving, working, proving.
But Romans 3:27–28 TPT unlocked something for me:
27 Where, then, is there room for boasting? Do our works bring God’s acceptance? Not at all! It was not our works of keeping the law but our faith in his finished work that makes us right with God. 28 So our conclusion is this: God’s wonderful declaration that we are righteous in his eyes can only come when we put our faith in Christ, and not in keeping the law.
And Romans 8:37–39 TPT sealed it:
37 Yet even in the midst of all these things, we triumph over them all, for God has made us to be more than conquerors, and his demonstrated love is our glorious victory over everything!
38 So now I live with the confidence that there is nothing in the universe with the power to separate us from God’s love. I’m convinced that his love will triumph over death, life’s troubles, fallen angels, or dark rulers in the heavens. There is nothing in our present or future circumstances that can weaken his love. 39 There is no power above us or beneath us—no power that could ever be found in the universe that can distance us from God’s passionate love, which is lavished upon us through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One!
This was the lemonade I knew but could not feel at the time:
I am deeply loved.
I am completely forgiven.
I am fully pleasing.
I am totally accepted by God.
The Hidden Station Revealed
The Mirror Pool showed me that emotions weren’t the enemy. They were clues. The lies weren’t my identity. They were invitations to flip the coin.
Every landmine I buried… every shadow I carried… every meltdown I regretted…
Jesus was already there, planting seeds where I only saw Landmines --to make Lemonade.
He is the Joy-Filled Lemonade Maker!
The invitation
Why share such personal stories? Because I am living proof that God can restore anyone.
He doesn’t waste pain. He turns it into treasure. He takes what the enemy used to bury us — and flips it into fruit.
And you? You are not broken. You are hidden. Your emotions are not your affliction — they are your breadcrumbs home.
I pray with great faith for you, because I’m fully convinced that the One who began this glorious work in you will faithfully continue the process of maturing you and will put His finishing touches to it until the unveiling of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6 TPT)
Jewel Echoes — The Mirror Pool
You’re not broken. You’re hidden.
Your emotions aren’t afflictions. Emotions are indicators.
Pain can be a path to Peace.
Jesus turns landmines into lemonade.
Mercy reveals what was never yours to carry.
(Pause. Let one shimmer in your heart.)--Stay on the Journey
If this resonates, maybe it’s time to begin uncovering your own treasure map.
Start with the What’s Good About You? Quiz—a gentle way to begin uncovering your own treasure map to see how you naturally process emotions and where opposite world might still be running the train.
Or, if you’d like to keep walking with me in the waiting room as we explore what peace really looks like in daily life, Subscribe to Land Beyond Emotions landbeyondemotions.com for free.
Breadcrumb Forward
This is the end of my story arc — but it may be the beginning of yours.
Because you, too, have jewels waiting to shine.
If you’ve journeyed with me through these landmines, explosions, and lemonades, thank you. My hope is that you’ve seen more than just my story — I pray you’ve caught a glimpse of your own.
The truth is:
You are not broken. You are hidden.
Your emotions are not afflictions. They are indicators.
Every landmine can become a breadcrumb leading you back to peace.
Your jewels are waiting to shine.
It is finished.
Christ in me, the hope of glory.
Peace. Be still.
Every knee will bow and every tongue confess — literal, spiritual, and digital — that Jesus Christ is Lord.