Our Journey to Honoring the Sabbath
Each week our family hosts a bible study called Farm and Fellowship. One of our friends who joined us began honoring the Sabbath as a Christian with her family and I began to pick her brain on how we could work this into our lives as well.
One thing she said really stuck with me, “Take it slow, add one thing onto your weekly Sabbath routine and give yourself grace.”
When you look at what families do for Sabbath as a whole, it can be overwhelming to jump into full force - give yourself grace.
We began with the family meal once per week when we broke bread together.
At first we would change our sabbath day between Friday or Saturday night each week depending on what plans I had on the calendar. (Remember, give yourself grace…)
After a couple of months with the random schedule - we became more intentional and set our date to Friday night. Now events are scheduled around our Sabbath.
Our family has created our own rhythm and I’d love to share it with you as a reference.
From sun down on Friday night to sun down on Saturday night we stop working.
Friday nights we break bread together to begin our Sabbath and my mom and I alternate between who is cooking for the week.
Before we eat, we bless the food and pray over our family. At this point the oldest man in the family prays over the men of the family and the oldest woman in the family prays over the women. We eat and catch up on whatever is going on in each other’s lives.
We typically eat on paper plates to make cleaning up simple - especially since cleaning up is considered work for a stay at home mom!
After dinner we write down one thing that we are thankful for from the week and put it in a jar. About 4 times per year we will pull the jar out and empty it and read what we wrote out loud. This has been a fun tradition and helps generate healthy conversations in our family.
Then, we head into the living room and watch 2 episodes of Superbook together. This is the only time all week that we typically sit down and watch anything together so it’s a treat for all of us!
We have watched 4 seasons of Superbook and continue to rotate through them. It’s incredible how many bible stories I now know and fully understand just from utilizing this series as a tool. I highly recommend getting it into your homes. It is such a gift.
Once Superbook is over we do our nighttime routines and head to bed.
The next morning we wake up and eat a breakfast board. If you’ve missed the backstory there - Stay tuned for the blog coming in two weeks, it’s all about Sabbath breakfast boards and how they became part of our Sabbath tradition.
Next, we take care of our animals! God made it very clear that it is okay (and necessary) to care for animals on the Sabbath because it’s necessary work that supports lives. The same goes for a doctor needing to use their skill sets to save someone… Sabbath approved activity 😉
After that, we have a full day of rest that we can choose to fill however we’d like with anything that is not considered work!
This is a great opportunity to go on family adventures, take the kids out or do an activity with them one on one.
Be intentional with family and bonding.
Reading our bibles and diving into devotionals.
Whatever we do on the Sabbath day, the goal is to point it all back to God and keep that day Holy.
I make sure the house is in order so that I’m not finding myself washing dishes, doing laundry or preparing big meals that day.
We’ve found that since starting to honor the Sabbath, our family has grown closer together and our children are becoming more interested in bible stories and the teachings of God. As a parent, that’s the ultimate win in our book!
We take the things we learn from Sabbath and apply them to our weeks. The dynamic in our household has shifted completely and we are sold. Go figure, God knew what He was doing when He commanded us to take a day of rest 😉
Check out the next blog of the Sabbath series, when it is released next Monday, to learn about how we prepare for a Sabbath day of rest.