a sabbath saturday

Sundays are not very restful at our house.  They may have their restful moments, but on the whole, it is difficult for us to cultivate rest on a Sunday.  I imagine this is true of most church staff families, or even families who do volunteer ministry on Sundays.  Then on top of church life, Sunday is the day we try to make sure everything is ready for the beginning of the school and work week.  Not so restful. 

But Saturday...Saturday can be genuinely restful.  And this Saturday was a Sabbath Saturday for the kiddoes and me.  Our Man was away helping his family most of the day so it was just the 3 of us.  This can be a daunting prospect - me, alone with the kids, ALL day, with no plans, on a dreary day (so no sending them outside!).  I thought about dragging us out to a museum, exposing us to some culture, getting us out of the house.  But as the morning wore on, I realized I liked being home with them.  It was nice to have no agenda, no rush, no plan.  And even more surprising - no TV! 

So what does a Sabbath day look like?  For us it looked like this:

We played...and played...and played.  Dinosaurs mostly.  It's the new obsession - of both of them.  My Girly Girl is becoming less girly these days!

And we painted.  We used liquid watercolor paints and Valentine-y colors, and we each covered a sheet.  Can you guess whose is whose?  On Sunday, The Girl and I cut these into hearts to hang in our window.

And The Girl painted some coffee filters to make rainbow circles for her door.

And we made monsters and snakes and eggs and faces out of our homemade playdough.

 And we took a nap in the pillow fort. Too bad it was only a pretend nap.

And we had grilled cheese sandwiches, and we ran circles through the house, and we read books.  And eventually we took The Girl to her Girl Scout meeting and drove around for nap-time.  And after that, the sun came out!  Miraculous!  So we got to run around outside after all.  And we ended the day with at the Grandparents' house for a yummy dinner that I didn't have to prepare (and TV - finally!). 

I promise I won't turn this blog into a litany of the details of our lives, but for this day, I want to remember.  Remember what Sabbath looks like for us.  What it looks like when we (I) let go of the need to make a plan.  When our time together is more important than structuring experiences. When our only goal is to enjoy each other.  Enjoy our imaginations.  Enjoy creating.  Enjoy fun. 

Though we didn't fully rest from work, we did rest our spirits.

At the end of the day, the house was a disaster.  But did we clean it up?  No, we did not, because that would break the spirit of the Sabbath!