Peace

Many years ago, my 19 year old daughter and I were relaxing in the kitchen when we were both surprised by the then 7 year old honey bunny running up the stairs and immediately tumbling through the corridor into the kitchen by way of 3 momentous forward rolls. The older daughter sharply reprimanded the younger one for stopping within an inch of her shins as I leapt to my feet in applause and delight! The older daughter scolded me a bit for encouraging this behavior. My defense was more like a challenge, I invited her to try doing 3 forward rolls with a sudden stop and a taadaa finale like her sister. She took a walk down the hall and began to bend into a ball shape that replicated the previous performer. At the end of it all I explained that I was so moved by the fluid motions of the younger that I could not help but thrill in her use of energy and flexibility. After the elder sisters labored efforts, she too could only agree that the task inspired a sense of honour when carried out by youth and executed with ease. The elder did not show olympic promise as a gymnist.



One persons sense of appropriatness can certainly hinder anothers ability to freedom. In discerning the balance of relational stregnth, there are times when opposites must learn to co-exist. Wheat must grow with tare, silence must have a voice, peacekeepers must have peacemakers.



Keeping infers ownership , making infers the work or production of a thing. Making peace means hammering out unrest. Keeping peace means enforcing a code of agreement. Seeing both sides of a situation can cause a better understanding of anothers position. This does not insure a shared conviction. It can however, reveal oppertunity for commonality. Relationships are work, wether it be sister to sister , or co-workers , or spouses. To create a peace means to view someone else as God sees them. To take in the amazing love God has for all he created in that individual and reflect back to them an awe about who they are morphing into. In other words, to see Christ alive and at work through the unique quirks of their personality. What one may view as a weakness or friction, God may see as a place to pronounce His Glory, to reveal His wisdom, to confound this present world with hope and evidence that His Son at work in all of us can and will redeem each of us as we find it in our own hearts, and graciously offer it to one another!

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God! Amen.