Figuring it out…

I am kind of a all or nothing person and this often gets translated into my life and over all it has served me well, but there are areas in life where it gives me tunnel vision on certain issues in my life. I have to remember to put my perspective glasses on which allows me to see all around me as opposed to just straight in front of me. Over the course of the last year God has laid it on Mark and I’s heart that we are suppose to celebrate Shabbat (Sabbath) on Saturday. To be perfectly honest with you while we loved going to church on Sunday, we did not consider it Sabbath, because for our family getting five people dressed and out the door in the early  morning hours does not always go so well. We did see the value and importance of going to church on Sunday, but it wasn’t Sabbath, it wasn’t rest like I believe God wants it to be. So we have begun looking at what Saturday and Sunday looks like in our lives. I don’t completely have a flow pattern of what it looks like, but I do think I have a better handle on how it works in our family.

For some reason I felt like if I had Sabbath on Saturday, I was limited to only Sabbath in our home on Saturday and I then needed Sunday to get laundry caught up, the lawn mowed (you know the stuff you need your spouses help with or just extra stuff that some how was left undone during the week). The last couple of weeks Mark and I have celebrated Sabbath on Saturday. As much as possible we have all our meals prepped and ready to go so we have as little of work to do as possible. We want most of our time spent reading God’s word, sleeping, reading a great book, playing with our kiddo’s, going for hikes or bike rides, spending the day with friends, etc. Things that make our hearts soar and draw us closer to the Lord. We have found that attempting to maintain this day of rest and fun is work, but the day “off” has been amazing. I say “off” because as many of you know when you have kid’s or pet’s you know that work is still going to happen. While this is true we still attempt to have as close to a low maintenance day as possible.

We live in a society where it can be super tough to put our physical bodies and our minds in slow down mode. We live in a world where we have crammed the weekdays so full that we use the weekend to play catch up. Mark and I are just as guilty of this as anyone and once I realized this I began praying that the Lord would show me what we could cut out, if anything. I started praying that the Lord would show us how to maintain our house, yard, get school accomplished, and anything else that needed to get done during the week to free up the weekend. What celebrating Sabbath has done for us is forced us to prioritize our time during the week. It does require that Mark, the kid’s, and I need to not be as busy. We may need to cut something out of our day, week, month, or year. I realized that like anything in my life that I was going to make important what I viewed as important.

We started having Sabbath in our home, then I began missing our church body, I began missing the teaching and the worship time with them. This is where the conversation came in with how to make our week less busy, because we both desired to have Sabbath at home, but we also desired to still spend time on Sunday mornings with our church body. Both are important to us and both are going to require sacrificing time we could use to catch up on maintaining the house or the yard.

I have to tell you that when God showed us we could do both I was delighted and excited. It felt as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. But, I was also encouraged, because as I began sharing with many of my family and friends my struggle with praying through what God wanted our family to do.  I heard words of encouragement, love, and acceptance as I began processing out loud what was going on in my heart. The words of affirmation were so important to me, because I was then able to weed through the discouraging voice of Satan for the truth of what God was wanting me to hear. I was able to find God’s love and acceptance right where I was because of the encouragement and loved poured out to me through you my family and friends!

So, I can Shabbat on Saturday and go to church on Sunday, this might seem like a well…duh, but for some reason it was not a simple concept to me. I think I often make things more complicated than they have to be. I am so thankful that when I cried out to the Lord for help, he heard me, and sent the Holy Spirit to minister to me and to give me answers to my questions. We for sure do not have it all ironed out to make our weekends flow well, but God has brought us this far, he’ll show us the rest. Phew!