{"id":17,"date":"2013-03-07T05:45:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-07T05:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peacemakersproject.com\/?p=17"},"modified":"2014-04-01T22:07:16","modified_gmt":"2014-04-01T22:07:16","slug":"being-the-glue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peacemakersproject.com\/?p=17","title":{"rendered":"Being the Glue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mother-Child-Klimt-L\"<\/a>I went to my Positive Discipline class again last night, and left poor David with all four kids at EVO. He was such a good sport about it, totally lied through his teeth and said they’d be fine. So I hurried off to my class, knowing that I had at least fed them all dinner and left the kitchen clean.<\/p>\n

When I got home that evening, feeling renewed and encouraged by all I had learned in class, I walked in to a nice, quiet house. David had just gotten the kids to bed. But, well, the house wasn’t as clean as I had left it. I didn’t expect it to be clean at all. I know all too well the tornado that is involved with getting four children to bed on your own. I kind of chuckled, actually, as I rolled up my sleeves and washed the pile of dishes in a sink that had been spotless 3 hours ago. Like a super sleuth, I could tell exactly what had happened while I was away, just by the evidence all around me. They had obviously come home and eaten a second round of dinner, followed by what looked like massive amounts of ice cream. When the dishes were all done (again), I moved on to the kitchen table, tidied up all of the books that had been read before bedtime, and then moved on to the bedroom. I folded the laundry that had piled up on the bed, and fed Jack one last time before bed. The house was so quiet that I didn’t even mind the busy work. It was strangely relaxing.<\/p>\n

As David stepped out of the shower, he said something that struck me.<\/p>\n

“You know… you are really the glue.”<\/p>\n

“The glue?” I said.<\/p>\n

“Yes. It is just not the same when you are gone. The kids are crazy. The house is a wreck. There is a calm when you are here, and it is never the same without you.”<\/p>\n

Although I knew he was being pretty generous in his assessment, the comment really warmed my heart. Because as a mom, isn’t that really what we are all striving for? Don’t we all just really want to be that calming influence, that warm blanket on a cold day that your whole family finds warmth and protection in? I know I do. I want them to know that as long as I am here, everything will be ok. Or at least, as ok as it can be in any given circumstance.<\/p>\n

So tonight, as I prayed, I asked my Heavenly Father to strengthen me in being the glue. Because at this point in my life, that is just the kind of peacemaker I want to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I went to my Positive Discipline class again last night, and left poor David with all four kids at EVO. He was such a good sport about it, totally lied through his teeth and said they’d be fine. So I hurried off to my class, knowing that I had at least fed them all dinner … Continue reading Being the Glue<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5,8,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-parenting","category-peaceful-living","category-positive-discipline"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peacemakersproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peacemakersproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peacemakersproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peacemakersproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peacemakersproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.peacemakersproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111,"href":"https:\/\/www.peacemakersproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions\/111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peacemakersproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peacemakersproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peacemakersproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}