The past 6 weeks have proven to be some of the busiest and most challenging weeks I have ever faced. With an heavy class load and 4 very active children I have barely found time to breath, and I have been getting by on very little sleep and large amounts of caffeine. However, I found that I was slowly drowning on the to do lists and places to be. I found myself in tears more often than I have in the past few years. I wasn't quite sure what to do, how to fix it or make it better. For the first time in a very long time, I felt out of control, unable to keep up and actually started forgetting things that needed to be done.
I feel very strongly that going back to school is Gods plan for my future. I feel in my heart and soul that this is the right path not only for me but for my family at this time. However, I had lost sight of the fact that I needed to put my worries, stress and fears in Gods hands and let Him guide me down this path. I had let go of the sight that God will provide!!
Last weekend our Pastor gave a sermon titled Beautiful Day (the link is a recorded video of the sermon). The sermon was about Sabbath, taking a day of rest. During that entire sermon I felt as if he was talking directly to me, it was such a smack up side the head. I have been so go, go, go, do, do, do that I haven't taken any time to rest. I had THOUGHT about it, but then felt I couldn't because I would fall further behind. Our pastor challenged us to implement a Sabbath at least thru Thanksgiving. Even during the sermon I kept thinking to myself, how will I do this? How will I find the time and not fall further behind? He shared the scripture in Mark 6:31 which says: "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.". I realized, how could I NOT do this. It is what God wants for us, what he has instructed us to do in the bible. Even God did this as we were shown in Exodus 20:11, "For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy". If God felt it important enough to take a day of rest, why would we ignore that in our lives?
So I accepted this challenge to implement a day of Sabbath. We attend church on Saturday night. That next day, we went to my parents house for the afternoon to celebrate my moms birthday. Nothing fancy, no prepared meal just sandwiches so that we could all rest and visit. There was no fuss over cooking a big meal or the clean up. The kids took their pumpkins with them and spent time carving pumpkins with their cousins. For those few hours, everyone was relaxing, resting and feeding our minds and hearts with fellowship. I discovered that by taking that day away from the hustle and bustle of our schedule things were OK! I put my trust in God that He would provide. This weekend, we did the same thing. Sundays seem to be the best day for our family to set aside but your Sabbath can be any day of the week. Yesterday we went and had family pictures done (our appointment had been scheduled months ago). We had a fun time with the pictures and then came home and spent a relaxing/lazy day at home. It was perfect. No running around, no to do list just time with each other and REST.
I encourage you, if you have time, listen to the sermon that I linked to. Then find a day each week to be your Sabbath if you don't already. We all need time to rest our mind, body and spirit!
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