Where Peace Was Missing, I Chose to Create It

My name is Mary.

I was born into a family where I did not know what peace meant. In our home, silence was rare, and laughter even rarer. My parents fought often shouting, arguing, sometimes separating, then coming back together as if nothing had happened. But the peace never lasted.

There is a saying that “peace begins at home,” but to me, home was the last place I experienced peace. Instead of comfort, there was chaos. Instead of safety, there was fear. What does it mean for peace to begin at home when your home feels like a battlefield?

Whenever the fights became too much, my mother would carry me and my brother and take us to her rural home. I was still very young, barely understanding what was happening, only knowing that we were leaving again. When we arrived there, she would struggle to find a school for us to attend. Just when we began settling in, making friends, adjusting to new teachers, we would be uprooted again. My education was constantly interrupted. I changed schools so many times that I lost count.

After some time, my father or his relatives would come for us, promising that things had changed, that the fighting was over. We would return home with hope in our hearts. But the cycle would begin again shouting, insults, and sometimes worse. There were moments when they fought with pangas and threw stones at each other. As a child, I watched fear become normal. Is that what a family is supposed to look like? Is that what love is meant to be?

Sometimes I could even ask myself if I was born in the wrong family. Why were my parents fighting every time? Why couldn’t they just stop? Why did it feel like peace was for other homes and not mine?

At school, it was even harder. Whenever there was noise in our neighborhood, my classmates would look at me and ask, “Mary, we heard shouting yesterday. Was it your mom and dad again?” Even when the noise came from somewhere else, people assumed it was my family. Fighting had become our identity.

I felt embarrassed. Frustrated. Powerless. Why was my family known for noise instead of love? Why did I have to carry shame for something I did not cause?

I remember going to bed covering my ears, whispering prayers. I would ask God, “Please bring peace to my family.” I was just a child, but my heart carried burdens too heavy for my age. I longed for a home where voices were gentle, where evenings were calm, where I didn’t have to worry about running away again. Was that too much to ask? Was it wrong for a little girl to dream of quiet nights?

Growing up in that environment shaped me in ways I did not understand at the time. I feared marriage. I hated the idea of it. To me, marriage meant shouting, pain, and instability. I promised myself that I would never allow my life to look like my parents’. If this is what marriage looked like, why would anyone desire it?

But when I grew up, something inside me began to change.

I realized that I had two choices: I could allow my past to define me, or I could let it teach me. I began to understand that my parents’ brokenness was not my destiny. Their chaos did not have to become my future.

I started healing. Slowly.

I learned that peace is not something you wait for; sometimes it is something you create. I began choosing calm conversations over anger. I chose forgiveness over bitterness. I chose understanding over judgment. And most importantly, I chose to believe that marriage is not meant to be a battlefield it can be a partnership built on respect and communication. Can pain produce purpose? Can a child who grew up in chaos become an adult who builds calm?

Today, I still remember that little girl who prayed for peace every night. She is the reason I value harmony so deeply. She is the reason I refuse to normalize violence. She is the reason I speak gently, even when I am hurt.

I grew up in an unpeaceful family, yes. But I decided that my story would not end there.

Because sometimes, the child who grows up without peace becomes the adult who fights to create it.

And I have come to understand that we are the ones who create peace. We begin by making peace with ourselves healing our wounds, forgiving what hurt us, choosing calm over chaos so that we can live in peace with others.