It’s the end of Epiphany, which means it’s also time for all the Mardi Gras celebrations! Today you can catch us out on the parade route catching beads, spending time with friends, and eating King Cake. In our city, it’s the last big “hoorah” before Lent begins. As we celebrate and bring this season to a close, our family is also putting into practice a new spiritual discipline – Sabbath.
We have spent the last several weeks reflecting on our spiritual disciplines and rhythms, and we realized that our family was missing this important spiritual discipline. Now of course, we go to church on Sundays, but up until this point, we have not had a specific time where we stop and rest. We want to set an intentional time where we set aside our work and spend intentional time as a family enjoying one another and dwelling on God’s goodness.
How We’re Sabbathing
Each week, we will have a certain block of time that is set aside as our “Sabbath.” For us, that time will begin every Friday evening when Micah gets home from work and end at nap time on Saturday. Our Sabbath rules are that our phones will be put away and our work set aside during that time.
We will begin our time with pizza and a movie night. After the kids go to bed, Micah and I will have an at-home date night and spend some intentional time together. This is so important for us, especially in this busy season of life. On Saturday mornings, we will eat breakfast together and then do a fun family activity. The goal is to enjoy the gift of one another.
In enjoying each other and truly focusing on spending intentional time together, we are giving thanks for the gifts God has given us in one another. In setting aside our work, we are declaring our trust in God and His control over every aspect of our lives. In having a specific time every week we observe Sabbath, we are participating in creating order alongside our God of order.
This is our first week with this new discipline, and we are so excited to eat a heart-shaped pizza, spend intentional time together, and go parading together!
Epiphany Reflections
If you have been reading along, you know that we are using the book, Sacred Seasons, by Danielle Hitchen to help us learn about the church calendar. She reminds readers multiple times that the church calendar is repeated each year, so we have a new opportunity every year to grow and learn by observing the church calendar.
I am thankful that Epiphany will come around again, as we did not get to celebrate all of the feast days that we wanted to and didn’t get to focus on all the spiritual disciplines that we wanted to. But we were spurred on to reflect on our spiritual disciplines and will continue to do so in the coming days and weeks. Here are few things I’m reflecting on as this season comes to a close:
- Progress over Perfection – No, I didn’t put into practice every spiritual discipline I wanted to. I didn’t read Simeon a book about God’s story every day at lunch like I had planned. We didn’t get to every Sunday liturgy. But our focus was turned to our God of order and the order that He desires for our life.
- Rest Matters – As I was listening to Exodus the other night, Moses’ father-in-law encouraged Moses to seek people who could help him with all of his responsibilities because it was too much for one person to carry alone. I was reminded that we need not do more, and more, and more. It is okay to say no. It is okay to have boundaries with our time. It is good to establish rhythms of rest. The Lord created us as finite beings in need of Him.
- Our Kids Learn by Example – I was reminded through this season that even though my children don’t yet understand everything we have been doing, they will one day catch on to us observing the church calendar and setting in place spiritual disciplines. May we be mamas who are in this for the long haul – mamas who see the end goal and press on toward it.