This last weekend was a busy one.
We had a friend over Friday night for dinner–and then I went out to clean the garage so Daniel and he could have guy time. When I was done, I was exhausted and covered with grime, but glad that the garage was not only walkable but could actually contain a car if we so desired.
Saturday, we were having an older couple over for dinner–actually, the wife was the Realtor who sold Daniel our house. So, of course, I was determined that the house must look as if someone has actually done something with it since she last saw it. I scraped the old medical stickers from the front door, cleaned both the screen door and the real door, took down the cobwebs from the front porch, swept the front porch… I tidied the dining room and living room, did a superficial dusting and a more complete sweeping and dust mopping… I scrubbed the bathroom–shower surround, tub, sink, commode, and floor. I finally got ALL the dishes washed and dried and put away. And then I made a roast chicken and roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes and a salad.
When they left, we rushed off to help a friend move. There were plenty of people there to help, so it wasn’t like it took forever–but it was more heavy lifting and stair climbing.
Sunday morning, I was coughing up loogies that looked like scrambled eggs from free-range chickens, only with streaks of blood throughout. The cold I’d been nursing since Friday was out in full force–and I did not at all feel rested.
At the last minute, we decided to skip church. Daniel really felt that I needed a day of rest–and that church would not be that day of rest*.
I took off my church shoes and climbed back into bed–where I slept until almost noon. I read a bit from Unbroken (which I’m reading for our new book club–it’s Ah-mazing!)
Daniel and I pulled some spaghetti sauce from the freezer and had lunch–then I piddled on the computer, virtually trying new exterior paint colors on our house (one of those projects that we’ve thought about but not too seriously yet.)
Daniel pulled me from the computer midway through the afternoon and brought me to the living room, where we sang a half an hour worth of hymns, spent some time in prayer, and then read and discussed several more pages from Martin Luther’s Bondage of the Will.
Then it was back to the computer, this time Daniel’s laptop, to play with colors more while half-watching The Adjustment Bureau (which turned out to be rather a chick-flick for all of it’s “action” aspects.)
It was wonderful.
A day of rest.
Well said.
Wow, that was a lot activity – with being sick as well, you surely needed a rest, and it sounds lovely. I very much agree with your last paragraph – sometimes Sundays aren’t restful in that sense, and I’ve often tried to reconcile that in my own mind. Meditating on Isaiah 58:13-14 helped me to understand that maybe the point of ceasing work for the OT Sabbath wasn’t so much the physical rest as the emphasis on having a day set aside for the Lord (understanding that the NT Lord’s Day is not the same as the OT Sabbath nor under its rules) – it helped, anyway, with the unrestfulness of getting ready for and spending much of the day in church. Nevertheless, Sunday or not, a body needs a day to just rest sometimes, especially when ill.
Looks like I am able to comment again! For some reason my desktop computer’s anti-virus software kept blocking your site, though I was able to comment on it via my laptop. Everything went through fine this time, though.