On practicing Sabbath

"Rhythms of Rest" really is that good

The morning of our first Sabbath, my husband and I wake like children on Christmas morning. What will we do today? How will the day unfold? Will the kids be excited? Will our lives feel different next week? 

After reading, journaling, and crying through Rhythms of Rest by Shelly Miller (recommended by Ashlee Gadd), I knew our life (and my mind and heart) needed a pause button. Like my toddlers refuse to admit when they’re tired and hungry and need help, I too want to refuse my own limits. Since my mantra has been to work first and play later, I wonder what it might be like to play before work is complete. My husband is supportive of a family Sabbath before I finish explaining why it might be good for us. 

To prepare for our first Sabbath, we decide on house rules. We will not run errands or complete chores (such as laundry). We will eat on paper plates. Before we embark on an activity, we will ask Does this sound fun? Is this good for us?

--

Lavender drifts from my lit candle, and my coconut coffee has cooled to my favorite temperature -- warm but palatable in big gulps. The sun is not yet awake, and gentle wave sounds travel down the stairs from the toddlers’ sound machines. My new spa bathrobe wraps me in its soft hug, and my pen lingers over my journal. I ponder morning Bible reading in Jeremiah 29 -- how God urges the Israelites to bloom in exile, in Babylon. I linger.

Before I can stop them, concerns crash like waves on my brain. Did I fold the last load of laundry? Is it ok to wash dishes today? Should every part of our day look different from the rest of the week? My bare feet cross cold hardwood floors into my master bathroom.

“Nick!” I shout, my voice louder than the shower water.

“What is it?” he asks.

“I think I’m doing this wrong,” my words tumble, and I’m caught in a current. “I didn’t do enough to prepare for today. I’m already messing everything up. I wanted today to be perfect.”

Shower water stops. Nick wraps a towel around himself, and steam escapes when he opens the shower door.

“Love,” he says with softness and looks into my brown eyes. 

With a deep inhale, I pause. My nostrils fill with eucalyptus shower spray. “I think I’m already missing the point.” He smiles at me and nods, urging me to continue. “You don’t ‘do’ Sabbath perfectly.” 

--

Late morning sun streams through the kitchen window and warms my back. A rhomboid of light lays on black granite countertops on our kitchen island. My toddlers face me in their kitchen helpers. Ethan jumps up and down, and Anne tries to climb onto the counter.

“Can we have chocolate ice cream popsicles now?” Ethan asks, eyes wide.

“Does it sound fun?” my husband asks.

“Yes!” Ethan and Anne shout and clap their hands. 

My husband opens the freezer door and unwraps popsicles. Soon Anne wears chocolate lipstick and chocolate lace gloves. Ethan grows a chocolate goatee. 

“Sabbath is an opportunity to acknowledge we have limits, and God doesn’t have any,” I say. “It’s our chance to play and rest and look for God all day long. What an incredible gift He gives!”

--

Ethan’s and Nick’s laughter bounces down the stairs, slightly louder than the hot wheels track motor. I imagine an intricate track involving Ethan’s bed, pillows, and books. Cars likely decorate his entire room and the loft. 

“Anne, would you like to paint with Mama?” I ask. Anne runs to the art closet before answering.

“I help carry paints,” she declares.

We carry paint brushes, primary color paints, wild and bright dot paints, and construction paper. Our current favorite album by Shane and Shane joins the boys’ laughter. 

Anne and I create side-by-side, sharing paints and dot markers. Thinking back to Jeremiah 29 and God’s invitation to bloom, I paint a flower.

“Is beautiful, Mama,” Anne states, pointing to my half-finished painting. She concentrates again and swirls her paintbrush in yellow, red, blue, and orange. Anne globs murky brown in a puddle in the middle of her paper and switches to teal and purple dot markers for a border. She also decorates her wrist and hands with plump, colorful dots.

“I love it!” she exclaims.

Our brown eyes find one another, and she reveals her teeth. We both laugh. When is the last time I actually painted as a participant and not as a referee? 8 months ago?  I take a deep breath in and out.

--

The kitchen counter wears flour like a beach wears sand. Nick stands behind the kitchen helper supporting both Ethan and Anne, eager to learn about making homemade pasta. 

“The first step is rolling each of the four disks of dough into rectangles,” Nick instructs. He hands a wooden rolling pin to Ethan who puts all his weight onto the pin, smooshing the dough. Anne climbs out of the kitchen helper to find dolls in the adjoining playroom. Nick finishes rolling the dough. 

“The first time Mama and Dada made pasta was a couple months after we got married,” I tell Ethan and begin reminiscing. 

“Remember that blizzard?” I ask Nick, and my lips curl upwards at the memory of being a newlywed in Washington, DC. The entire city was quieted with two feet of snow, and we walked down 16th St NW past the White House to the National Mall. Cars were nowhere to be found and adults all over the city had gathered to play on enormous snow piles by the Lincoln monument, Washington monument, and Capitol building. We tried to dig our car out with scuba flippers because we didn’t own a shovel. Since the entire city was shut down from the blizzard, we decided to use the pasta maker attachments we received only months before for our wedding for the very first time. 

“The next step is feeding the rectangle dough through the machine several times,” Nick continues teaching Ethan, and I return to our current reality, 7+ years after that blizzard. The standing mixer’s motor whirs, and a special pasta drying rack is unfolded and waits to hold linguine. With a furrowed brow and set jaw, Ethan feeds each dough rectangle through the machine.

“Like that?” Ethan asks.

“Perfect, buddy!” we cheer.

“Now we change the mixer attachment to the noodle cutter,” Nick explains, “so that the dough rectangles can become linguine noodles.” Anne wanders back into the kitchen with her doll tucked under her arm. 

Over the next hour we transform egg yolks, olive oil, and flour into linguine. We fill the noodle drying rack, each strand a reminder of our hands’ work, the joy of transforming ingredients, the pleasure of sharing culinary passion with our family.

--

Dusk comes calling through evergreens in our backyard; our first Sabbath day is almost over. Late spring breeze pulls at the end of Dogwood trees’ white petals. Grass is beginning to turn green with rain and warmer temperatures. Pink and orange color sky above swaying trees. 

“This is delicious!” Ethan declares and stands on the seat of his Little Tikes picnic table. He raises his fork -- full of linguine noodles coated in carbonara and the end of a snap pea -- like a spear.

“So delicious!” Anne adds and immediately mimics her brother’s stance.

My husband and I look at each other across the fire pit, and settle into adirondack chairs. Our paper plates, full of handmade linguine, rest on our laps. I look to my right and see a butterfly land on the grass next to our picnic. Delicate black lace decorates her yellow wings with flashes of orange at the base, as if she had absorbed the day’s colors. I exhale and silently thank God for being near us today.

---

Do my children notice anything different about today? I hope so. I hope they feel play and laughter and fun. I hope we look forward to the Sabbath for weeks, months, years to come. I hope I can continue to learn what it’s like to let go of perfection and embrace presence (His, ours, mine) instead. It’s a better way.

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