Today is Sunday, guess which one I'm thinking of now. Yep, keeping the Sabbath day Holy. Sunday is a day that things are supposed to be clean and in place so you can rest and think about things less temporal. Preparing for the Sabbath on Saturday is necessary. I tend to have some trouble with staying on top of my chores any day, but Saturday is always so full of good & fun things that chores seem to find their place last on my Saturday list, which means they end up being left for Sunday. On Sunday I often have company, so after inadvertently leaving my mess until last on Saturday and never getting to it, I have to clean my home on the Sabbath. This problem enters my mind every Sunday. What blessings am I missing out on because I do things this way? What blessings is my family missing out on? I mean, cleaning isn't the only way I remove the meaning from the day. We've often got cartoons running all morning and the hubby is on video games and on really hot days we go swimming. There's nothing wrong with swimming or doing chores or cartoons and video games, but on this special day our thoughts ought to be turned to things of an eternal nature. I will let you share a brain wave with me for a moment as I tangent on a related subject. There are special blessings tied to paying Tithing. It's not always easy to give up one tenth of all your income, but it's a part of the law of sacrifice. On the same lines, it is definitely not easy to prepare so dutifully on Saturday that Sunday can be fully devoted to the Lord. Again, it takes special sacrifice- not doing what one usually would do. And again, the blessings promised for your obedience are always more than you imagined. As I think about it, Sunday seems so much more to me now than it seemed to be yesterday. It is a day we dress in our best and dedicate ourselves to loving and learning from the Savior, a day of reverence. The Sabbath, when done properly, it can be a great instrument in building my family and building my home as a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. I see now that on Saturday I prepare my home to be visited by the Savior. Oh! That puts a nice twinkle on the story of Mary and Martha! When Christ came to her home, Martha was busy doing good things like cleaning and preparing food for him, and she missed out on better things. As Martha worked, Mary sat and learned at the Savior's feet, choosing the better part. I never thought of that as a parable of Sunday before. I love it! That changes everything. I feel a great desire now to prepare my home every week for that special day so I can learn at the Savior's feet with my family.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
I always mean to..
There's a list of things I sometimes accomplish, and a list of things I rarely accomplish, but the intent is always there. On this list are things like actually getting and keeping the house in order, fasting once a month (for religious reasons), exercising, going to the temple once a week, holding "Family Home Evening" (a family gathering on Mondays in which we talk about things we want our family to learn), and keeping the sabbath day holy.
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Love it! Love the idea of preparing the day before. I had this lovely little epiphany in college when I realized that I actually got better grades when I chose not to do school work on Sunday. I was forced to prepare myself on Saturday instead of waiting until late Sunday evening to cram everything in. It is one of those blessings that seems like a natural consequence--a "duh" moment where I wondered why I didn't see how keeping the Sabbath day holy could have blessed me like that before.
ReplyDeleteOne comment on the clean house. I'm pretty fussy about "a place for everything and everything in it's place." I can't fully relax unless there is order around me. But with 3 little boys who are getting bigger all the time, order is becoming more and more elusive. So instead of trying to have everything in the house clean for sunday, I've switched to not stressing out if it's not perfect. That way I'm not irritated all day Sunday. I've chosen to let it go for that one day.
We've started a Saturday tradition where Zach takes all the kids over to the gym and the gym childcare watches the kids while he exercises and/or sits in the hot tub. Having all the kids out of the house gives me a chance to clean like mad with no interruptions and I can listen to my book while I clean. It allows me the time to get to the chores that I have a hard time doing during the week, like cleaning the bathrooms and it works out perfectly because the house is it's cleanest for Sunday. I'm sure this plan could be adapted if Nate wanted to take the kids to a park or library or something.
ReplyDeleteAlso, for FHE the gospel art kit is fantastic for little kids. It is composed of paper sized pictures with a story and scriptures on the back. Just pull one out each week. You can choose between the summery version or the full version (both versions are on the back).
I just found out that the church website has videos that tell the scripture stories. I am so using that for Family Home Evening! Thank you for sharing your experiences and advice.
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