A Revolution of Rest.

Several months ago, Wes and I decided to make a key change in our lifestyle: Rest. We picked Saturday and decided to "do nothing" on that one day a week.

We do lots of couch lounging and book reading on these days.

We didn't come up with the idea ourselves. We stole it from friends who stole it from the Bible. It's called Shabbat or Sabbath. 

Its not what you think

This isn't another thing for you to feel guilty about because you think you suck at taking enough time off. First understand how God did it in Genesis. He created a bunch of cool stuff, gave it a look and said: It's good. Done. He could have made flying dolphins or singing Oreos, but He didn't. Why? because it was good enough. On sabbath, we can look back at all we did or didn't get done and say, "my work is good enough." We are accepted. It's a gift not a job or test.

 Our first Saturday was life changing. We stayed in our apartment almost all day, bought pizza, went on a short walk and totally reconnected. Work on Monday wasn't so bad after that, we were rejuvenated. The next Saturday unfortunately was put off because of a birthday party. The next, canceled because of the mountain of laundry left over from two weeks prior. We realized that we were absolutely unable to squeeze in a full day of rest regularly into our 7 day schedule. I asked Wes on a car ride home one afternoon how important it should be to us to rest. 

We decided it was crucial. So crucial that we would change the way we operate entirely. 

We decided not to say yes to anything that fell on our day of rest that was not restful. For me, a day working at the farm is restful, but a drive across town to a cousins birthday party might not be. Sorry cuz. I had a flexible work schedule and Wes didn't so I went from full time to part time and started cleaning the house to avoid build up that would affect our Saturday. Rest for us was a step towards freedom. Saying no to social, work related, family or whatever events was freeing. Realizing that we could create a new work week was revolutionary. Experiencing rest might be one of the most important things I have to share on this blog. Wes and I are about making changes to experience more freedom. We're seeking it out like its burried treasure. Discovering the freedom to stay in snuggly pajama's till 3pm without guilt is like finding a $100 bill in your coat pocket! Yeah Freedom!

Things that you can rest from:

• emails
• homework
• cooking
• laundry
• "trying to be good enough." Mental work is usually the hardest to rest from
• dishes
• cell phones
• people
• driving
• entertaining

Do you feel freedom to rest? Why or why not? What do your rest days look like?