Peace Without Escape

Learning Surrender in an Uncertain Season

We weren’t supposed to stay.

Our mission work in Togo had concluded, our bags were packed, and our return flights were scheduled. We were tired in the good way that follows meaningful work, and we were ready to head home. Instead, after routine COVID testing required for travel, several of us tested positive. Our flights were canceled. Borders closed in front of us. And suddenly, we were stuck.

Not delayed for a few hours or mildly inconvenienced.
Locked down.
In a foreign country that didn't even know what its own protocols were.
Indefinitely.

We were told to quarantine for 10 days before we could test again. We were unsure where we would be allowed to stay, how long we would be there, or when we would be permitted to leave the country. Communication with home was limited. The anxieties of our families, along with our job and business obligations, multiplied. Information was inconsistent. Every plan we tried to form depended on someone else’s decision, someone else’s approval, someone else’s timeline.

The government was enforcing something that, like the rest of the world, they were still trying to understand. It made trusting our fate in their hands difficult.

Our illusion of control disappeared quickly.

At first, we did what most people do in situations like that. We tried to find solutions that got us home quicker. We tried to arrange new flights home at that minimum 10 day mark, but our contact could only move our flights to 14 days later.

We tried to manage our thoughts. We tried to distract ourselves. We tried to stay positive. But isolation has a way of stripping away pretense, and within a few days, the emotional toll was undeniable.

We fought the urge to become short-tempered with our travel mates as each of us began unraveling internally. Depression crept in quietly. Motivation waned. Silence from home felt louder than any noise. We were physically safe, but internally, we were not well.

About 8 days into our first quarantine period, during a conversation with the team, someone asked what the Lord had been speaking to us.

I didn’t have an answer.

That realization convicted me.
Not because God wasn’t speaking.
Because I hadn’t been listening.

I had asked God before the trip, weeks earlier, to help me focus on Him again. To quiet the noise. To bring me back to a place of attentiveness. And here I was, with every distraction removed, still struggling to sit with Him.

I retreated to my room with my journal and asked for forgiveness—not out of guilt, but clarity. And there, in the stillness I had resisted, God met me.

The circumstances hadn't changed. We were still quarantined. Still waiting. Still without answers.

But something shifted.

Joy returned. Not excitement or relief, but joy. A sense of being exactly where I was meant to be for that time period. I felt at home in a place that had previously felt foreign and restrictive. The landscape around me took on new beauty, not because it had improved, but because I had surrendered.

That day marked a turning point for all of us.

The following days were not easier in a practical sense.

Plans continued to fall apart.
Testing dates arrived, and failed test results followed.
Timelines stretched.
Setbacks stacked.
Nothing moved forward.

But something had changed internally. We stopped forcing outcomes. We stopped measuring success by escape. We stopped resisting where we were. It was a quiet shift, the kind that often happens as we learn to recognize God’s guidance in everyday life.

And peace settled in.

Not peace because we understood what God was doing or because the situation was resolved. Peace because we opened our tightly clenched fists. We relinquished control and trusted Him.

We began to see opportunities instead of obstacles. Moments to encourage one another. Chances to bless the few people we encountered. Joy surfaced naturally, no longer as a coping mechanism, but as a genuine response to God’s presence.

Our laughter wasn’t distraction—it was overflow.

The people around us noticed. People expected us to be miserable, anxious, defeated. Instead, they found us content. Grounded. Present. Spreading joy to others whenever the chance arose.

We had let go of a layer of control we didn’t realize we were gripping so tightly.

Scripture came alive during that time—not as verses we clung to for reassurance, but as confirmations of what we were experiencing. God was fighting battles we couldn’t fight. He was holding us steady. He was reminding us that His presence is not dependent on our plans succeeding.

Eventually, after nearly double the required quarantine period, we tested again. And just as quietly as the delay had begun, it ended. We were cleared to go home.

Looking back, I understand now that the delay itself was not the lesson.

The peace was.

God didn’t rush us out of there.
He didn’t explain Himself ahead of time.
He didn’t restore control to our hands.

He just stayed with us. And we learned that His control over our lives is all we need.

This experience reshaped my understanding of peace.
Peace is not certainty. Not control. Not the absence of hardship.
Peace is the presence of God when everything else is uncertain.

Later, I realized we had stepped into something Scripture had described all along. The steady heart promised to those who trust Him. The guarding of our minds even when circumstances remain unresolved. The quiet assurance that we are not alone in unfamiliar territory and that sometimes God fights our battles not by removing us from them, but by teaching us to stand still while He works.

This peace didn’t come from understanding.
It came from surrender.

Sometimes being on mission means working through human plans to serve others. And sometimes being on mission means learning to rest so deeply in God’s presence that His joy becomes the testimony.

That season taught me that peace does not need to make sense to be real. And that God can be trusted—not just to deliver us from difficulty, but to hold us within it.

Scriptural Framework

Isaiah 26:3 - the steadiness God promises to those who trust Him completely
Philippians 4:6–7 - our guarded hearts and minds even while circumstances remained unresolved
Isaiah 41:10 - God’s sustaining presence and strength when fear and uncertainty press in
Isaiah 43:2 - nothing will overcome us because God's presence goes with us
Exodus 14:14 - we need only be still
2 Chronicles 20:17 - we don't have to fight this battle, the Lord will deliver us