My Battle for Stillness
“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”
— Isaiah 30:15
There are many forms of spiritual warfare in a home, and not all of them look dramatic.
Sometimes the battle is simply for stillness.
For fifteen years of parenting, I have come to believe more strongly than ever that homes need a daily rhythm of stillness. Especially homes where children are present all day. Especially homes where learning happens under the same roof as life.
Nap time.
Quiet time.
Chocolate time.
Read-aloud time.
Book time.
Whatever you want to call it.
In our house, it is now called Horizontal Time.
But I did not always understand how essential it was.
For many years, nap time was strong in our home. Even as our family grew and our fifth child arrived, the rhythm held. Our youngest was almost two before the daily quiet pause began to weaken.
I never loved the comments I received when I declined invitations because of nap time.
There was often a subtle eye roll. Sometimes the response was spoken out loud, sometimes just implied. “You can’t come because of nap time?” To some people, it seemed unnecessary, even rigid.
What they did not realize was that I was not isolating myself. I was preserving my sanity.
As someone highly sensitive to noise and constant stimulation, I knew deep down that our home needed that rhythm of stillness. What I did not realize at the time was that it was not just protecting my sanity.
It was protecting my children’s creativity, their emotional stability, and the peace of our home.
But children grow. Personalities emerge. Strong wills strengthen.
Our second season living in Florida was when stillness truly began to unravel.
Two of my children, both strong-willed and full of endless physical energy, began to boycott the stillness entirely. They simply would not stop moving. Some afternoons felt like a game of whack-a-mole. The moment one child settled, another popped up. The moment that one quieted down, someone else needed something. Some days, I fought tooth and nail to hold the line.
Other days, I gave up.
Eventually, I started leaving the house during what used to be quiet time because it was easier than fighting children who simply refused to be still.
We would go to the beach. Or we would run errands. The beach was obviously their favorite option. Errands were less exciting, which occasionally gave me some bargaining power. “Quiet time or errands?” I would ask. Some days that worked. But more often than not, I was simply exhausted. My introverted heart was desperate for quiet, and it felt like it was always just out of reach.
Then, in one small moment of providence, I rediscovered an old set of DVDs of Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit stories. Something about those gentle, old-fashioned animations caused my two most energetic children to drift into sleep. It felt like a miracle.
Peace, finally.
Later, we moved to Hawaii. Our youngest would occasionally nap, but only after long mornings playing at the beach. My strong-willed children had serious stamina. They could run, climb, and play for hours without slowing down. One day, that stamina will likely serve them well. But during those years, it often felt like I was trying to stop a freight train.
When we finally found a house in Hawaii to live in, our master bedroom had a window air conditioner. The cool air and the loud, steady hum sometimes helped the youngest fall asleep. On those rare days when everything aligned, stillness lasted a little longer.
Then something beautiful happened: We discovered our street. It was full of children.
At one point, there were nearly twenty kids between seven families. Our house became a revolving door of neighborhood life.
And truthfully, I loved it. I was entirely happy to be the house where kids felt safe simply walking through the front door.
“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” — Hebrews 13:2
But with all that life came something else.
Stillness disappeared.
Our quiet window happened to fall exactly when the public and private school kids returned home for the afternoon. They wanted to play with my children. And I wanted them to play. So I let the movement continue. For a while, it mostly worked.
Until sports began. And homeschool expectations grew. And suddenly, the movement never stopped. The arguments over schoolwork became regular. Outbursts increased. I was constantly intervening in small conflicts. The peace in our home began to unravel.
I assumed the problem was me.
“Come on, Olivia,” I told myself.
“Other moms handle this.”
“Other moms do more than this.”
“You have five kids, what’s a few more?”
“You just need to be more resilient.”
“You can adjust your needs to meet theirs.”
The lies sounded reasonable at first.
So I kept pushing. I kept striving. I kept trying to power through the chaos. Until eventually I broke.
I became someone who was no longer fun to be around. Homeschooling, which I once loved, felt heavy. I wanted to quit everything. My husband saw what I could not see clearly in the moment. And he did something I will always be grateful for. He sent me to a hotel. Three days. Three nights. Just quiet.
During that time, something slowly became clear to me:
I was not honoring the way God made me.
And I was not honoring the rhythms of work and rest that He designed for all people for all time. Our home had lost its rhythm of stillness. And without stillness, peace slowly disappears.
“It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for He gives to His beloved sleep.”— Psalm 127:2
So when I came home, we made a change. Stillness returned. But this time we gave it a new name: Horizontal Time.
The rules were simple. Everyone participates. Thirty minutes. On the couch. Books only. No toys. No movement. Just stillness and reading. Even me.
In the past, I often used stillness to catch up on chores or emails. This time I joined them. I'm nose to a book right alongside my children.
We have kept this rhythm for over four months now. And something remarkable has happened. Our home is peaceful again. My children are more creative. They still argue sometimes. They still talk back occasionally. They are children, after all. But the arguments no longer escalate into emotional volcanoes. One of my children now finishes family craft projects instead of dissolving in tears when a small mistake happens. Siblings resolve disagreements on their own more often. They do not call for me nearly as much. It is as if their emotional capacity has expanded.
And all of this began with something incredibly small.
Thirty minutes.
Books for all.
Stillness.
The most surprising part is this: At dinner, we often share our favorite parts of the day.
And the favorite answer from the two children who once fought stillness the hardest is now the same: “Horizontal Time.”
The very children who could not stop moving.
The children with the strongest stamina.
The ones who once resisted quiet with everything in them.
Now they love it.
Scripture reminds us again and again that stillness is not weakness. Stillness is where we hear God.
“Be still, and know that I am God.”— Psalm 46:10
When Elijah stood on the mountain, the Lord passed by.
There was wind. There was an earthquake. There was fire.
But God was not in those things.
God came in the whisper.
(1 Kings 19:11–12)
You cannot hear a whisper if you never stop moving. And sometimes the spiritual battle in our homes is not about doing more. It is about learning to be still. Motherhood constantly tempts us to believe that fruit comes from effort, speed, and endless activity. But Jesus teaches something entirely different.
“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” — John 15:4
The fruit we long to see in our children—peace, patience, self-control, kindness—cannot be forced through constant motion. It grows slowly in homes where the pace allows hearts to settle and souls to breathe.
Sometimes the most faithful act of motherhood is not organizing more, teaching more, or managing more.
Sometimes it is simply stopping long enough for everyone in the house, including the mother, to be still before the Lord.
