Sabbath Thoughts

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We've been trying to be more intentional about taking days of rest (Sabbaths) on Saturdays because of the rhythms of work & rest we see biblically. So today we took our first Sabbath day of 2018.



Taking a day of rest with a one year-old is challenging which is perhaps the exact reason we should be taking a day of rest. Rest days are easy without kids. But with kids, rest must be intentional, planned, and creative.



Today that looked like most of our food intake coming straight from the ground to remind us of our reliance upon the ground God has given us.



It looked like letting the Christmas decorations stay up for one more day.



It looked like reading 12 chapters of Genesis during my daughter's nap and grasping the gravity of Joseph's story a little more.


It looked like sending my husband off for a bike ride and it was a promise to look at our phones less.


I took the Enneagram test and I'm a 4.


I'm not proud of everything about our day:


Our daughter thrives on getting out of the house, but Jon and I both needed a day at home so we kept her cooped up and she wasn't happy about it.


We looked at our phones more than we should have.


I reeeeeally wanted to do some laundry.


I let my daughter whine and laid on the floor surrounded by thoughts and toys while she crawled over my body.




We rested; we did it! (my American heart checks it off its list) And we waited. And made a mental list of how to improve next time. Today proved trying and frustrating, yet sweet moments of wonder emerged from both quiet naps and banging toys. As the day pressed on, so did we: stubborn mules on the rough path of rest, dragging our toddler with us. I grew fidgety and guilty doing nothing, but sometimes my American heart needs that restlessness, that wrestling with the guilt that my worth is in my doing. My western heart needs to see that Sabbath rarely provides the emotional high, but rather the still and the small of the Spirit who hovers over dirty floors and wakes with us when our daughter cries in the wee hours.


Sabbath, you are hard and you are unnatural, but we will meet you next week all the same.

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