Sunday, January 30, 2011

Remember the Sabbath Day and Keep it Holy

Earlier this year, Don and I took on the responsibility of teaching Confirmation to a wonderful class of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at our church, Faith Lutheran, in Bellingham. We're both passionate about Confirmation and loving this opportunity to share with the youth of our church about our Lutheran faith and theology. For the last several weeks, we have been talking about the 10 commandments. My favorite class so far has been the class on Remembering the Sabbath Day and keeping it Holy. Mostly because it touched an exciting place of inspiration for Don and I.

Of all the commandments, this is the one commandment that is truly and purely for our benefit. God saw fit to build in for us, a day of rest and rememberance. So for the past few weeks, Don and I have actively been trying to build into our lives observance of the Sabbath. It's not initially an easy thing to do. We both lead fairly busy lives and with Don being self employed and me working from home, our work constantly threatens to invade our personal lives. So often our Sundays are filled with chores, errands, and anxiety and stress about the work week ahead. We've been slowly trying to transition away from this, focusing on getting our weekend obligations out of the way on Saturday, and truly treating Sunday as a day of rest and communion with God and each other.

Today was the first real successful Sabbath we've had I think. We started with a great Confirmation class, followed by church, our annual congregational meeting and brunch, on to an afternoon nap, then an outing to the pier with the dogs in the gorgeous cool crisp sunshiny air, a light trip to the mall for some exchanges including a new game for Don at Gamestop, then Happy Hour at Dos Padres, and now back home for evening entertainment of PS3, movie watching, homemade Chinese Food, and some fresh baked cookies later. The best part is that it was all on our own schedule, with no where to rush off to, with love and gratefulness in our hearts, with deep thanksgiving of all that God has blessed us with, and with no massive piles of laundry, dirty dishes, bookkeeping or a miriad of other obligations hanging over us.

It all reminds me of a saying Don used to quote from his Grandfather: "If you have to work, work five days. If you can't do it in five, work six days. But if you can't do it in six days, you're not going to be able to do it in seven, so you might as well take a break." There really is something to this Sabbath, Day of Rest thing and Don and I are so excited about building this into our lives. How many marriages, families, and individuals would be better off by practicing this simple day of rest and worship once a week. If I have any new years resolutions in 2011, it will be to observe the 3rd commandment: Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it Holy.

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