I used to think parenting was hard because of the dishes, the discipline, and the diapers. But then we moved into a neighborhood that taught me something deeper: parenting is spiritual warfare, especially when chaos lives next door. 

Our neighbor didn’t like kids. Or laughter. Or us leaving our house, playing outside, or doing yardwork. Or the sound of our front door opening. Within weeks of moving in, we were under her scrutiny. She called the city on us for imagined violations, yelled at my children for playing in our own driveway, and once accused my son of trying to kill a bird with his small sandbox shovel—because his shovel was red and surely meant he was violent if he, at age two, had a red shovel. 

At first, I tried to keep the peace. I waved. I brought cookies. I even prayed that I’d somehow win her over with kindness. 

But she wasn’t interested in peace. She wanted control. And her behavior escalated, with every passing month. She watched us from her windows. Stalked us at the fence line. Sent her four dogs out to lunge at the chain link fence between us. One of them bit me. I was grateful my one or two year old boys weren’t standing at the fence. I went from Mama to Mama Bear almost overnight. 

One night after a particularly tense encounter, I found myself crying in the bathroom. “God, I’m trying to raise kind, faithful children—but they’re living next to a bully. How am I supposed to teach them peace when we’re living in a war zone?” 

For our two youngest children, they were under age six when personality is forming. The last thing I wanted was for one of our children to develop a personality or mood disorder because of the extreme, daily stress we lived through because of our neighbor. 

I opened my Bible and landed in Romans 12: 

“If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” 
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” 

That phrase—so far as it depends on you—stood out like a neon sign. 

I realized that peace is sometimes about what you model inside the storm, not about eliminating the storm itself. 

So I started talking to my kids about what Jesus meant when He said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” We talked about boundaries and wisdom. We rehearsed how they should run to me if they saw her outside, or if she yelled at any of us. We prayed for her. We prayed for us. I gave our kids language for fear, courage, and discernment. There is wisdom in walking away and not getting caught up in trying to understand or be understood. The reality is that you can’t and shouldn’t understand people who lie about you, are verbally abusive, and purposefully use their dogs on a rotating schedule every fifteen minutes through the night to keep your family awake. 

My children were young, but they understood more than I expected. And I began to see that, Lord willing, raising children in chaos didn’t have to be a spiritual setback. It was an opportunity. An invitation to teach them how to walk with Christ in real life. 

One day, after our neighbor had shouted at them again from over a hundred feet away, my son came inside, eyes wide. The kids were playing on our back patio where she couldn’t see from her back yard; meaning she jumped her fence and walked our back fence line to see my children where I thought they were playing in safety. I braced myself. But he said, “Mom, I didn’t listen to her or reply. I walked away just like we practiced. Now let’s pray for her because she needs help.” 

He grinned. I nearly collapsed. 

Parenting in chaos is exhausting. But it’s also sacred. Because it forces us to root our homes in something deeper than safety—it forces us to root them in Christ. 

Not every environment is fixable. Not every neighbor will be won over. But in those moments of tension, our children are learning how to be light in a dark world. 

And we, as mothers, are being equipped too—not to raise perfect kids in perfect conditions, but to raise peacemakers who know the power of God’s presence in the mess.