The Peace Place

A peace place.  A place for my children (or myself) to go when we are not being peaceful.  A time-out of sorts, but focused on God and His desires for us.  A quiet and comfortable place for us to reflect on why we haven’t been peaceful and to ask forgiveness.  A place to rid ourselves of frustration, focus on the Word and work through forgiveness towards the person or people who have offended us.

In this place, you’ll find a Bible, a peace notebook, paper, pens and a servant jar.  The peace notebook includes everything included on Holy Experience’s post about making a peace place (above).  As the kids read through the pages in the notebook, my prayer is that their hearts begin to soften.  That they grow closer to the Lord and learn to walk in His ways more readily.  That they learn how to better handle the frustrations of life (especially life with brothers and sisters.)

The servant jar.  When one of my children gets angry and offends someone else in the house with ugly words or ugly actions, not only do they get to spend a little time in the Peace Place, but they get to choose a slip of paper from the servant jar.  On the little slips are jobs that person can do to serve the person they’ve offended.  What better way to ask forgiveness of someone than to serve them.

We’ve only just begun our Peace Place, but I’m praying that God will reveal Himself to us when we visit.  I’m praying that our walk will grow closer to His as we learn better to ask forgiveness and to forgive others.  I’m praying that, eventually, we won’t need the Peace Place anymore because our hearts will have turned towards Him in such a way that our actions and reactions are generally peaceful.  Ah, peace.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”  Matthew 5:9

(The original idea for our peace place and servant jar came from a mixture of posts on the same topic from A Holy Experience and Preschoolers and Peace.  Love those ladies!)

5 Comments

  1. How did the Peace Place work out for you and are you still using it?

  2. Good question! It worked well for a time – and you’re reminding me that it might be time to get the Peace Place going again. As will so many things, once we work out certain “issues”, the need for the discipline, tactic (or whatever you want to call it) fades away. So, no, we aren’t currently using it. However, when we were, I saw a marked improvement in seeking the Lord during “brewing times” and willingness to write one another apology notes and such.

  3. Elizabeth says:

    Hello, what are some ways that the child, children or adult can serve others? Can you please give examples of qhat you put on the papers?

  4. Elizabeth, that’s a great question! I usually put very simple things on the papers like: make a bed, take over one chore, fix a special treat, give up your media time so someone can have extra, etc. The ideas are endless depending on the ages of your children and particular things that matter in your home. You could even consider having one jar for ways to serve siblings and another jar for ways to serve parents. The parent jar could include things for kids to do like: clean the trash out of the car, take over the prep for one meal, or weed a portion of the flower garden. Early on, children will likely see these little slips of paper as punishments, but in the end, the goal is to help them see that serving others actually brings both the offender and offendee’s hearts back to a happy, peaceful place.

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