Peace & Quiet

I was reading a Russian folktale to my kinders today and it was titled "Peace & Quiet". It was about a man and a woman who could get no sleep due to a tree branch scrapping the window and a squeaky floor...so the sought advice from the town elder and he told them to bring a whole bunch of animals into their home. All the animals made noise and fought with each other and the couple could get no sleep and yearned for some peace and quiet so they could rest. In the end the elder finally chased out all the animals and told the man and woman to listen carefully...they heard only peace and quiet even though there was still a branch scrapping the window and a squeaky floor...in comparison it was quiet. This got me thinking about what do I consider peace and quiet? I often find myself yearning for quietness...and in some ways I pair this up with peace. They have nothing to do with each other in reality. My family went from 4 to 9 (plus I babysit two other 4 yr olds, so 11 most of the time) in the matter of 2 years! What was once quiet is no longer quiet in the same way. It made me see that I don't need things to be "quiet" in order to have peace. Gos has filled my home with people whom I love...it leaves me wondering why I ever wanted them to be quiet?? I wonder how strange it would feel if they were suddenly gone...like in the folktale, how the elder chased all the animals out...did the couple feel strange without them? I could imagine what my house would be like with no laughter, no "roaring dinosaurs", so princess songs, no "vrooming" cars, no army men, no pitter patter of feet on the floor above me, nobody calling out to me from the other end of the house...this is not something I am interested in... I'll pass on the "thought" of peace and quiet and take my noisy home any day! Thank God for showing me and teaching me this lesson before my kids were grown and gone..and then my heart would break for what could have been had I just let them be "noisy animals"...