Want to to know another word for peacemaker? MOM. Sometimes it feels as if every moment of my day is spent in service of creating peace. I think that my ultimate goal is always my own peace but, as a mom…okay as a woman…my peace is often directly proportional to the peace of those around me. But should it be?For instance, it is time for me to sit down and write a blog post for my weekly newsletter but my nine year old son has just come into my office. He is already bleary-eyed and pathetic from cedar fever and now he can’t find his homework “thing” that’s being graded.Of course, the world must come full stop until we find it, right? Maybe. Maybe not.In the past, I would have sighed, shut my laptop and begrudgingly gone off to dig through his backpack and the trash and the recycle bin, cursing under my breath and praying that his homework “thing” would turn up. But today – so far – I am still sitting calmly behind my laptop. Why?First, because I insisted that he at least first try to find it on his own, he did. Second, because I’m learning that I cannot ever truly be a peacemaker if I am sacrificing my own peace to make it happen. I can’t satisfy everyone else’s needs at the expense of my own. I mean, I could for awhile. But eventually I’d end up angry and resentful and maybe even using my son as an excuse for not getting my newsletter out on time.How about we stop blaming our kids, our husbands, our jobs for every time we sacrifice our own peace for the sake of theirs? What if we took responsibility for our own happiness? Our own peace – and put it first?! Revolutionary, I know. And, yet, what’s the old saying? “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”There is great wisdom in those words. We’ve just self-righteously convinced ourselves that we have to sacrifice as women. And sometimes we do. But I don’t think we really have to sacrifice our own peace nearly as often as we do.Journal Prompts:
- When do you sacrifice your own peace for the sake of others?
- How does it make you feel when you do it? Why?
- What are three areas where you’d like to reclaim peace for yourself?