Bringing the Day to a Close: 10 Days to a Peaceful Home

Does your home feel chaotic and stressful?  Are you looking for a way to make your home a peaceful haven for your entire family?  I’ve written an ebook/workbook that will walk you step-by-step through the process of bring peace and beauty to your home.  LEARN MORE HERE!

This week we’ve learned how to feel blessed and how to create a haven.

Today we bring our day to a close…peacefully.

This is one thing I have only recently begun to implement in full.  I’ve done bits and pieces throughout the years to slow our evenings down, but nothing fully intentional.  What changed all that?

Reading the Old Testament.

While working through the Balancing the Sword Bible study (this book is hard to come by, but you can sometimes find it on Amazon), I came across the why behind the Jewish day ending at sundown (Genesis 1:3).  For the Jewish people, there is a marking of the end of a day that is very distinct.  Sabbath begins in the evening, Feasts begin in the evening, and all begin with a marked slowing of pace; a separation between the preparations of the day and the beginning of the celebrations.

Our family decided that this separation of morning and evening should become a part of our family life as we worked toward creating a God-glorifying peaceful atmosphere in our home.

I will tell you now, I have no solid Scripture to base this on and I would never insinuate that you must separate your day in order to have a functioning home, but I can testify to the beauty and peace it has created in our home.

Here are some ideas for bringing your day to a close:

*Have a set time to put away schoolwork. In the workforce, there is a start and a finish to the work day.  When we blur the day into the night, we are often asking more of our children (and of their Mommy) than any person is capable of giving.  Of course, there are exceptions, but as a general rule, choose a time to end the day and then end it…no matter what.

*Do a quick Tidy Up. Around 5pm every day, we stop what we are doing and tidy the entire house as fast as we can.  It is so nice to relax in a tidy home in the evening!

*Greet Daddy at the door with the distinct purpose of separating his daily grind from his evening at home. I know not all Daddies are home in the evenings, but this applies no matter what time Daddy comes home!  I have trained our children to excitedly run for the door when Daddy gets home.  How did I train them to do this?  By being excited myself! It thrills Daddy’s soul to have his entire household happy he is home.

*Enjoy your evening meal. Read Stop the Meal Time Madness for ideas!

*Spend the evening in slower pursuits. This is the time for dimmer lighting, quieter voices, calmer play.  After dinner, we clean up and almost immediately get our baths taken and jammies on.  Sometimes we play a game or watch a movie or read books.  The little ones will play cars or pretend they are homesteading, but we require that the pace stays as calm as possible.  There are the occasional wrestling matches with Daddy, but we try to keep those toward the beginning of the evening and nowhere near bedtime. 😉

*Family Worship Time. I talked about this in yesterday’s post.  We do this in the evening and then say bedtime prayers.  We do not always send the children to bed right after prayers, but I’ll talk more about that in tomorrow’s post.

Evenings around here are such a blessed time since we’ve begun to purposefully slow our pace.  I would love that same blessing for your family too!

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