Sabbath

Today is my day off. Kids were at school and Eric was working, so I had most of the day to myself, until 1 pm when my first child arrived home. I went to two bookstores (and only bought one book!), Starbucks, and Trader Joe's for some fun shopping. I came home, and while waiting for Devon to arrive from school, I took a nap.

I never take a nap, because if I do, it usually turns into a 3-4 hour sleep. But today I only had an hour, and it worked! I was only slightly groggy afterward I awoke. It seemed like a real Sabbath.

I even managed to stay away from my emails, work and personal, until about 3 pm or so. I'm working towards not checking emails at all on my Sabbath, but this is certainly a promising start.

Why is rest so hard for us as a culture? For me, there are 2 core issues:

1.  Worth: I tend to mistakenly believe that if I am not productive, at least "productive" as our culture defines it, then I'm not worthy. Worthy of what? Worthy of value as a person, of love by others. Sounds so silly, but many of us feel like that deep down.

2. Arrogance: I also tend to think that things might crumble to the ground if I am not working at my job, running my household or stressing over financial matters. After a day of rest today, it is my observation that a) my place of employment seems to still be standing, b) my house has not been condemned by the authorities; and c) I am still solvent.

When was the last day you experienced an actual Sabbath? By that I mean, not working at all, not making yourself do things that you didn't want to do, and instead choosing activities you wanted to do, that would rejuvenate you for the week ahead (or even choosing no activities at all). Well, I'm still not there, but I'm closer. Obviously for parents, a full 24 hour Sabbath really isn't in the cards until the kids are out of the house. And I need to stay away from technology on my Sabbath as well, since the lure of email popping into my Inbox while playing on the computer is simply too strong for my weak self. Small steps.

What small step can you take this week to move closer to taking a real Sabbath, as God commanded us to do?

P.S. One last note: typing my blog is not work to me, at least when I am not forcing the issue and trying to write when I have nothing to say.