Although I sang this lyric countless times as a child and during my thirty-year career as a music/arts director, primarily in mega-churches, I never truly experienced peace as a Christian. My primary emotions were negative: guilt, fear, anxiety, shame, and judgment.

The first moment in my life that I felt true peace was soon after I escaped the cult of religion by fleeing my southern home for Austin, Texas. Gina and I rented a tiny loft apartment downtown at 2nd and Congress overlooking the Colorado River and Lady Bird Park. It was a modern concrete haven with floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking the river and the 2nd Avenue bridge.

Somehow in the middle of our life’s dramatic upheaval, the traffic streaming into the city in the morning and then out in the afternoon brought indescribable rhythm and serenity. It formed our ritual of morning coffee and afternoon cocktails, which are now a non-negotiable part of our daily life.

In a mid-life crisis time where every new event seemed cataclysmic, somehow, I felt a peace like I had never experienced. As we wandered to find our way, we moved eleven more times over the following ten years. And each time, I would comment to Gina, “why does it feel so peaceful here?” As I am prone to do, I asked that question repeatedly during the past decade.

And then one day a year or so ago, as we have settled into a place we treasure as home—we have lived here at our little beach house “Cocomo” longer than anywhere else—it hit me. It wasn’t the places we lived that felt peaceful. IT WAS LIFE WITH GINA. She personifies peace. Until you have something priceless, you don’t realize how life was previously empty without it. I had never experienced a life of peace before. It was a “eureka” moment.

Of course, it was also life without the religious trauma—but it was far more. It was the dawning of truth for me that a serene companion could bring peace to every aspect of life—peace like a river. I am grateful for Gina. She is a deep river. The obstacles she has overcome to become the whole person she is now have functioned much like that of fine wine. The grapevines must struggle through the rocks and the lousy weather to produce a precious vintage. That is why I call my latest watercolor of her “Fine Wine.”

Serenity is one of the four essentials of life I have chosen for my next stage of life. I’m grateful. At long last, I’ve found peace. And it is priceless.