A Peacekeeping Scar
I grew up in a big old house across the street from our church, in sight of my school, and behind my grandfather’s grocery store. On the back of the house was a screened-in porch where Mother did our laundry on a wringer washing machine every Monday. In school we learned to sing: “This is the way we wash our clothes, wash our clothes, wash our clothes. This is the way we wash our clothes on a Monday morning.”
Mother rinsed the clothes in these two wash tubs which I now use as laundry baskets.
It was that back porch that inspired me to put in a screen door when our friend transformed our run-down bathroom last fall.
One day when I was in the fifth grade I had two friends over. We all know what can happen when three little girls try to play together. The other two got mad at each other and I tried to be the peacekeeper. In that process, I ran up the two or three concrete steps at the back door and ran smack-dab into the door facing of the screen door.
Of course, I hollered. Mother came running, convinced that one of us had finally fallen while sliding down the banister in the hall. Instead of finding a child with a broken bone, she found me with my head split open. She grabbed our multi-striped family beach towel and off we went to the only clinic in town where I got twelve stitches.
I have to feel my head to remember exactly where it happened, but if you look very closely above my right eyebrow, you can still see my faint peacekeeping battle scar.
Seems like anytime you get two human beings together, peace gets strained. That’s a lesson we learn pretty quickly after the birth of a second child. Sometimes the role of peacekeeping and peacemaking gets mighty tiring for a mama on the front lines.
It’s worth it. I encourage you not to throw up your hands when that tiresome role gets heavy. God loves peace a whole lot.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called sons of God.
Matthew 5:9
Ouch! I bet that ended the argument in a hurry. I remember a friend who has 4 daughters always said that 3’s are a bad idea. I found she was right pretty quickly.
You know, I have no recollection of what happened to the other girls that day. The daddy of one of them worked at my granddaddy’s store so I guess she went there. Hmmmm.