“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
Remembering the sabbath is not something we should do only on Sunday morning—we should be remembering it all week long.
What does this look like?
When my children were young, it looked like me sitting down with them every weekday at 10 a.m. to sing a hymn and read a story, because that was similar to what we’d be doing at that time on Sunday. I held my infant on my lap and let my older ones color while I read aloud. This was the origin of our Morning Time routine, though I didn’t call it that till years later, after reading Cindy Rollins’ blog.
It looked like me planning our daily mealtimes and naptimes around the Sunday service so that Sunday would be a natural part of our week, and not a shock to our systems. We almost never had dessert or sweets during the week, so I made sure to have something special for a Sunday treat after church, a practice we continue to this day—today it was a tin of baklava that #1Son brought home from Iraq.
It also looked like me making sure I had all the laundry done by Saturday and knew where all the kids’ Sunday clothes and shoes were so things wouldn’t be rushed any more than they had to be on Sunday morning. Let’s face it, when you’re a stay-at-home mom, Sunday morning is the most hectic time of the week, because it’s the only day you have to have everyone fed and dressed and out the door by 9:30 in the morning.
Sunday should be a day of delight, even to our babies. My dear sisters, let’s remember the sabbath day as we plan the rest of the week, letting her rule over our times and activities. Yes, it will always be a hectic day, but let’s not make it unnecessarily hard on our children.
