SABBATH with young kids… how?

A while back I did an entire post about Sabbath (I think it might have been my first ever blog post!). But it’s been a while, so I wanted to write on this topic again. Now, my husband and I have two young kids so this looks much different for us in this new season than it did a couple of years ago. If you are in the season of motherhood and want to have a Sabbath but don’t see it as feasible, keep reading. 🙂

WHAT IS SABBATH?! For those that don’t know, Sabbath is a day to rest from work to honor God. In Genesis 2:3, it says, “So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation.” God gave us an example of what we should do. In our day and age, people bust their butts 24/7 running, going, and doing. They don’t stop! People’s worth truly comes from what they do not who they are. And in the book I’m currently reading (Seeing is Believing), I’ve been reminded that we are human beings not human doings. Our worth comes from who God says we are not what we accomplish. But the world gives us a million reasons to continue doing doing doing. But guess what? Most people are also depressed, anxious, and overwhelmed. A study shows that 1 in 13 people deal with anxiety. The world never stops! They think that if they keep going and doing that they’ll become more loved, have more money, have a better career, etc. When in reality, are we living at all if we’re living in such anxiety?! I would say we’re not… So, God calls us to work 6 days and then take a day to rest. Imagine every week taking one day to not work, recharging for the coming week? Starting your week with a full cup ready to take on what comes ahead rather than starting the week stressed out already. Sounds amazing!!

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Now that you know what it is, let’s chat about what this means. Don’t let it be something legalistic; that’s not God’s heart. This is a gift to us not meant to be a burden. Choose one day. A lot of people do Sunday’s, but since my husband works on Sunday’s (he’s a pastor), that’s not a rest day for us, so we choose Friday’s since we don’t work on Friday’s. On this day, you do things you love and enjoy. You refrain from doing your job or working. Now, we still do dishes and those simple everyday tasks, but we’re not doing laundry, cleaning the bathrooms, washing our sheets, decluttering the home, etc. Prioritize rest, recharging, and spending time with Jesus. Many people think this means one whole day of reading your Bible but that’s not the case. Think- what recharges me? What haven’t I done in a while that sounds fun? How can I draw closer to my kids & husband today? How can I learn more about Jesus on this day? That’s what it’s all about.

WHAT DO YOU DO? You might be asking, well, what do you do all day? Again, this does look different when you have a baby and a toddler, but here are some things we do, but each Friday looks a bit different. We…

explore our new town
eat yummy food (coffee cake for breakfast usually & eating our for dinner)
read
do things we enjoy
take long drives as a family
sleep in (as much as kids allow)
take the day slow- no true plans
play games
watch movies
eat dessert
dream with your spouse

HOW? Now, this takes extra work the day before to prep for our Sabbath because even if you don’t do work, your home and tasks still need you. We take Thursdays, especially the evenings, to truly get ourselves and our house ready for a day to not do work. I get *all* laundry washed, dried, and put away so we have no clothes in the dirty baskets. I make sure our spaces are clean. We finish anything that was on our weekly to-do list that hasn’t been completed yet. We put all dishes away and wipe down surfaces so we make sure our kitchen is a clean slate when we wake up. We have our weekly family meeting. In our weekly team meeting, my husband and I spend about 20 minutes once the kids are down for the night to chat about the coming week. We go over the what the week looks like, plan meals, write our to-do lists, etc. Then, we can take our Sabbath and the rest of our weekend to not think about what the next week brings since we already have. We can fully rest on Friday. It takes that extra work, but it’s so worth it.

Now remember, this isn’t about perfection. We’ve had to do some work on our Sabbath before; we just try not to. We’re not perfect and sometimes things come up that are out of our control. Sometimes something big has to happen on Friday and we switch the day to Saturday. Remember, this is a gift of rest not this huge weight on you. Enjoy the gift of rest!! Everyone needs it.
Here are some pics from our Sabbath yesterday.