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Its the Sabbath- when do we rest?

Sabbath Rest
Isn’t that a beautiful word picture?
We had this growing up- Sundays were the only day my Dad didn’t work (worked as part-time farmer and 2^nd shift in a local factory). We had breakfast together as a family, went to Sunday School and morning worship, Sunday dinner together then a open afternoon until Sunday evening services. (Supper was often dinner leftovers or snacks as my mom always made a “heavy” meal at lunch time.)
I remember restful days.
I moved out, got married and Sundays remained restful for the most part. I don’t know that I ever made a big deal out of Sunday dinner in those early years.  I do know that I continued to enjoy being invited to my parents for Sunday dinner!
Whatever we did, I didn’t do anything to make Sunday dinner special. We we ate at the table together and such but it wasn’t a big deal.
Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing
Or is it?
Well as years went by and we added children and various church ministries (like teaching Sunday School classes etc) and then added a church job to the mix- Sundays became . . . . . .
trying to come up with a good word
failing to come up with a good word
Lets just say they were not restful.
We were flying around to get ready on Sunday mornings (no one and I mean no one in this house is motivated to get up before 8 am on Sunday mornings- it doesn’t matter what time we get up the rest of the week- there is something about Sundays that glues you under your covers . . . . .).
So anyway- Sunday morning were hectic, trying to get everyone dressed, shoveling cold cereal in our mouths or GASP eating cereal bars in the car on the way to church. Ugh. Not a pleasant start to the Sabbath.
Bet you can’t imagine the frame of mind we were in by the time we scurried into the church on average 5 minutes late.
Or can you?
Perhaps due to the hecticness of our morning, we’d come home from church ready to crash. A hurry up simple lunch- sometimes sandwiches, most often leftovers was eaten and everyone was off to a quiet corner- to read or sleep or whatever- as-long-as-it-was-quiet!
A couple or 3 quiet hours and then the mad dash to get ready for evening church activities. We’d round out the day with some visiting with my family (where we eat a snack supper or Mom’s dinner leftovers), come home and go to bed.
Not exactly one’s picture of an ideal Sabbath.
Mr. Steady and I had a talk- we talked about what we liked and what we didn’t like about our Sundays.
We decided on a few first steps to steer us in the right direction.
e We agreed wake up and GET UP when the alarm goes off and not hit the snooze.
e We agreed to set an alarm for the children- getting them up 20 minutes after us- therefore giving us ample time to get ready without the mad dash of chasing and dressing kids while you yourself are still half dressed. This eliminates the oops of going to church with only one earring on or one black shoe and one navy shoe (Or heaven forbid you didn’t button your blouse correctly because someone was yelling at you, tugging on you, or some other distraction!)
e We agreed to eat a “real normal” breakfast- a family favorite that we would save special for Sundays Only. Cocoa wheats and toast. Yes, we are simple people. We jazz up the cocoa wheats with dried fruit (cherries are my absolute fave) and mini-marshmallows for the younger crowd.
I also implemented the new Saturday nite routine of setting the table for breakfast (yes, I was already doing this Mon-Fri but the weekends were lost!) and setting out complete outfits (including accessories/jewelry for me) for each member of the family. This stopped the my-favorite-shirt-I-wanted-to-wear-is-in-the-wash and the mom-this-skirt/shirt/shoe-doesn’t-fit or the mom-I-ruined-my-last-pair-of-tights and the honey-I-can’t-find-my-other-brown-sock issues.
Mr. Steady decided to start playing some of our favorite worship music also- hoping to bring forth our hearts-full-of-worship and calm down the momma.
It worked.
And continues to work.
They do say “music calms the savage beast.”
So this was our beginning- prepping the night before, setting a breakfast routine and getting up on time. We still needed to work on the dinner thing but this was a great start for us.
And now that we’ve been into our routine for about 2 years, I’ve decided we need to forge on, take more steps, and do something about Sunday Dinner.
Hence this post.

Untitled Comment

7:25 PM, 2008-Sep-29 .. Posted by elliepea

I can relate to the dilemma your family was in.
Any time you determine to worship God the devil will fight you. He craves the worship that we give to Jesus.
I hope you are able to keep the Sabbath traditions you have and be able to build on them as well.
Maybe it would be fun for you to do a word study on the Sabbath or worship in the Bible.
Or visit www.sabbathtruth.com
Margie