Blessed Are The Peacemakers

We sit in a circle, women with ages spanning five decades and we open up the Bible and talk about how the words penned in those pages are a part of our everyday loving,doing,walking-around-life,and we memorize portions together,whole chunks of passages,because we know living this loving-doing-walking life can take huge chunks right out of us,and we who are the image bearers of Godneed the breath of his words flowing off our tongues,in our minds,bathing our hearts:

"What a heart knows by heart is what a heart really knows." - Dennis Lennon.

And in this season we are memorizing the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12), the first public teaching of Christ and letting the truth-words percolate into our cracks,tiny splintering places we all have.This week we look at fourteen words:

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons and daughters of God (v 9).

Fourteen words.

Easy to memorize.

Difficult to live out.

Fourteen words to change a life, to heal a nation, a marriage, a friendship.

Peace makers, not peace fakers.

People who actively work at bringing peace into their relationships, into their spheres of influence. It is not for the faint at heart.

Women share deep,

the cracks where words have percolated truth--

Peace for a family struggling with unforgiveness.

Peace while walking through sickness.

Peace during a granddaughter's divorce.

Peace in transition.

Peace as a mediator of conflict.

Peace in a struggle with hopelessness.

Grandmothers, mothers, sisters, friends,

we place hands on shoulders and pray we can make peace where there is chaos and disorder, that we can bear the image of God and be like our Father, that when we walk into a room, into a situation, into a life, people will know,

"Here comes a peace maker."

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons and daughters of God (v 9).

Where do you need to make peace?