Mama Peacemakers
Sometimes I think that if anyone asks me what I do, I’m going to answer, “Laundry.” Do you ever feel that way, too?
When I was in school, I learned a song with the verse: “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.” My mother actually did our laundry “on a Monday morning” every week. The house where I grew up had a screened-in back porch. Every Monday Mother washed our clothes in a wringer washing machine on that back porch. She rinsed them in these two wash tubs which I now use as laundry baskets.
I still have a scar I got running up the steps to that back porch. 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 the 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 our back porch.
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
Your encouraging words are such a blessing. Thank you. As a Mama whose children are almost all grown I’m so thankful for the years of raising them and the blessings which come to the diligent. Thank you for your ministry. God bless you.