A Day of Rest

I’ve been a lazy and uncommitted Christian when it comes to honoring the Sabbath Day. Although I’ve always been a strong believer in prioritizing time for rest and having one “slow day” every week I can’t say I have been honoring the Sabbath Day. My normal way of approaching the Sabbath would be to go to church in the morning and then fill up the rest of the day with a mix of chores and activities with family.

This fall I’ve been doing an 8-week study called Proven by Jennie Allen together with my friends at church. We get homework every week and one week the homework included establishing a Sabbath Day practice. The guidelines were:

“SUGGESTIONS AS YOU PREPARE FOR A DAY OF REST:

·        Lay out some books to read and peruse, along with a journal to jot notes in.

·        Do not use technology.

·        Prepare the food you and/or your family will need ahead of time.

·        Tidy your house to be free of distractions.

·        Prepare the people in your life to join you or to respect this time.

·        Prepare a playlist of music for your home or Sabbath space.

Now, rest and enjoy.”

Jennie Allen, in her wonderful book “Proven”.

The main reason us humans feel like we can’t take a day of rest every week is because we are too busy. We simply don’t have time to rest. The question we all need to ask ourselves is this: Can we afford to not rest? Burn outs are becoming more common among women every year and the same is true for different types of mental health problems. One of my favorite pastors Craig Groeschel once said: “If you are too busy to have sex 2-3 times per week with your spouse you are simply too busy.” I love that quote! We’re acting like we don’t have time to prioritize our marriages, time with family and time for rest but the reality is that these are non-negotiables in a life of flourishing. Having three different hobbies is optional, writing a blog or having an Instagram account is optional, quality time with our loved ones is not optional.

If we are too busy to have sex, spend time with our families and rest then maybe we need to revisit our core values in life. Do we value money and status at work more than family? Do we value time spent on social media more than having sex? Do we value achievements so much that we spend seven days a week achieving stuff rather than allowing ourselves to rest? Everything we do stems from the core values that we have accepted in life and are currently building our lives upon. Rest is important to God, so it is important to me. I’m grateful that God decided to make rest one of the Ten Commandments. God knew how easy it is for us humans to become workaholics and achievement-addicts. It becomes easier to allow myself A Day of Rest when I understand that God commands me to rest.

It requires some planning to establish a Sabbath Day practice. I must plan ahead of time when I can do all the errands that I used to do on Sundays. No more grocery shopping on Sundays. No more housework or cooking on Sundays. There’s no point in beating ourselves up if something doesn’t go according to plan and we end up needing to take a trip to the grocery store on a Sunday after all, but striving for a full day of rest is a good thing.

It’s been a month since we started celebrating a Sabbath Day in our house and we love it! The day usually looks something like this: we wake up and attend church at the 11:15AM service. We come home and make some brunch after church. We go for a hike or a walk along the beach in the afternoon. Another alternative is that we head downtown to hang out with family who lives there. We come home in the evening and warm up dinner that I cooked on either Friday or Saturday. We light candles around the house, put on some relaxing music and just hang out together. Sometimes I read and journal in the late evening before going to bed.

Rest

"Our ability to enjoy life and find time for our souls to rest is directly related to our trust in God. We often strive because we think we are necessary to God's plans. However, God does not need us, but chooses to be in relationship with us and use us for His purpose. And He built us finite, limited, and unable to work well without rest.

Create a vision of rest for yourself and your family. Write out a plan for regular patterns of rest and trust." 

Jennie Allen, in her book "Proven"

Slow Weekends

My husband is Jamaican and I'm Finnish-Swedish, we both come from cultures that are pretty good at enjoying life and finding a balance between work and rest. Today we live in North America where life balance is almost extinct. I get the feeling that it's normal to be exhausted, busy and over-worked in this part of the world. We are expected to tire ourselves out from working long days and commuting on weekdays. On weekends we are expected to train for a marathon/triathlon, take our kids to multiple activities/sports and attend some cultural event in the city. No wonder humans are exhausted in 2017. Time for rest is seldom scheduled.

In our house rest and time with family is something that we value highly and therefore we prioritize it. Last weekend we were busier than usual so this past weekend we were extra focused on making time for rest. Different people find different things to be relaxing, for me resting is to spend time with family and friends. I also enjoy spending time in nature or reading a book or magazine.

On Friday evening my husband and I had our weekly Date Night. I was tired and tempted to cancel the whole event but I'm glad I made the effort to get all dressed up because we ended up having a really fun evening out.

On Saturday we decided to leave the busy city-life behind for a day and take a drive to Wasaga Beach.

This view awaited us at Wasaga Beach. Hello September, I like the way you look this year!

When we went to Wasaga Beach on Labor Day weekend a couple of weeks ago I thought that was the last beach trip for the season. Nope. Summer of 2017 was more rainy than usual in Toronto, but September has been warmer than usual instead. God is funny, and awesome! :)

It was +29 degrees Celsius at Wasaga Beach on Saturday so I decided to cool down with an Island soda.

On Sunday morning we went to church and afterwards we had some brunch. In the afternoon I relaxed by taking a long walk in the neighborhood and along some nature trails. I love living in the suburbs where nature is never far away.

Canada, Oh Canada. Every time I see the Canadian flag in the neighborhood I'm reminded of how blessed I am to get to live in this beautiful country. I'm so grateful for the life I get to live.

Know Your Season

We all wish we could live lives that are constantly happy and easy. Lives where we can continue to accomplish new things without seasons of struggle or rest in between. But life wasn't built that way, we all go through different seasons in life. Seasons of growth, rest, fruitfulness and preparation. We can't fast forward through a season of growth because God knows exactly what we need in preparation for the next stage in our lives. God will never send us into the next season of life unprepared.

You might be going through a season in your life right now that feels uncomfortable, mundane or slow, but you can be sure that God is at work in your life. What may seem like a mundane season in your life might be exactly what you need to be prepared for what will come next. It's also helpful to remember that every season is temporary, which reminds us to stop and enjoy the sweet times in life and to not give up during difficult times.

My Favorite Places

I love our home, it's my oasis in the middle of a big city, the place where I can find rest and stillness. A weekend getaway to a Spa is wonderful but my home is the most relaxing place I know. No matter how messy our home gets I like to keep my favorite places tidy so that I can escape at the end of the day and find some stillness and rest in one of these places. I have three favorite places in our home where I like to hang out when I'm relaxing. Nr.1: The corner. I like to sit in this corner of our house reading blogs or watching videos on Right Now Media.

Nr.2: The Family Room. This room is at the center of our house and I love hanging out here with family and friends.

The family room is also the perfect place to relax with a book or magazine and a huge cup of coffee or tea.

Nr.3: The Master Bedroom. My oasis. This room is off limits for everybody else except my husband and I. I decorated it in black, white and ivory to keep the room serene and calming. Most of the days of the month the bed is not this nicely made, but it's the place where I can always find stillness, rest and relaxation. My home sweet home!

When I'm outdoors the beach is the place where I go to find stillness and rest, during all four seasons of the year. I live in a big and busy city so I consider my calm places to be of great importance for my well-being. What we do with our lives is important but time for stillness and reflection in between all the achieving is equally important. Sunday is the rest day of the week and the time after 7PM each day is "resting time" in our house. We try to keep our schedule free from any booked activities during that time of the evening on weekdays.

It's Friday!

All dressed up for Date Night with the man in my life on Monday.

Good coffee + a good book = Self-care

The week started on a good note with a fun Date Night with my hubby on Monday evening, then the rest of the week was mostly difficult, painful and included a lot of sadness. This is life, sometimes it’s wonderful and sometimes it hurts. My main goal for this weekend will be self-care. After a hard week I won’t make any big plans for Saturday and Sunday, I just want to rest and be kind to myself. I plan to spend some time at a coffee shop somewhere in the city this weekend, enjoying a latte and taking the time to read “Find Your Brave” by Holly Wagner. I’ve only read half a chapter in the book so far and I already love it! I wish you all a fun and relaxing weekend!

A Day of Rest

I like to start my rest day with blueberry pancakes and coffee.

After breakfast I have some more coffee and read my daily devotion in "A Fresh Infusion of Joy" by Sheila Walsh. I skip reading the newspaper on my rest day because I don't want the day to be ruined by stories about murders and other tragedies. It's enough to read about the bad news in the world six days of the week.

Two things I enjoy doing on my rest day is reading a book and watching a couple of episodes of one of my favorite TV shows.

This time of the year I enjoy being at home on my rest day so that I can enjoy all the Christmas decorations. I enjoy the music from my snow globe that I bought last year.

After it gets dark outside I like to get a Peppermint Hot Chocolate from Tim Horton's and walk around the neighborhood enjoying everyone's Christmas lights.

During a busy time of year like Christmas it can be tempting to skip taking time to rest in between all the work and chores. This year my life was busy even before the Christmas season arrived so I would never have time for rest unless I decided to plan it into my weekly schedule. Sometimes when we are entering a busy but exciting season in our lives it can be tempting to skip taking time to rest all together. I remember when my husband and I were planning our wedding five years ago, it was a very busy but exciting time in our lives. One of the best tips I got was to take one weekend per month off from all wedding planning and just enjoy each other. During the months leading up to the wedding there were a lot of things to do and if we hadn’t taken the time to “just be” it would have been a very stressful season.

The joy goes out the door when we get too stressed and too tired in life. Our human bodies and minds were not built to work at top speed for long periods of time. Life is filled with important responsibilities but I think that with a little planning we can make time for both responsibilities, rest and joyful moments in life.

I love Christmas and I don’t want to kill the joy by hurrying through the whole season. I find that starting the preparations for Christmas early (at the end of November) helps me keep a slower pace and enjoy the season. I also like to do things a little bit differently every year, if it’s a year when I have a lot of time on my hands I can enjoy some extras like baking a gingerbread house. If it’s a year when our family is busier I will choose to buy my gingerbread, lussebullar and Jamaican Christmas cake at the store instead. This year I’m not baking a single thing for Christmas, I love that I can buy everything I need in the store in Toronto, everything from gingerbread to eggnog. Next year our lives will highly likely be less busy and then I will enjoy baking a gingerbread house together with my kids.

A Slow Sunday

On Sunday afternoon I treated myself to a chocolate cupcake and a homemade latte. I love cupcakes, they always make a regular day feel special.

It was surprisingly warm and sunny on Sunday morning so my husband and I decided to go for a walk in the park.

We had our breakfast on a park bench in the sun, I had coffee and a Maple Pecan Danish.

It became a very relaxing and enjoyable Sunday. We went to church but other than that we didn't have anything planned. Sunday is going to be our rest day of the week from now on. We usually make Saturdays our rest day but this school year we have commitments on Saturdays so we're bringing back Sunday as our Sabbath day.

I love the fall because it's the time of year when many new programs and volunteer opportunities open up, I like to try something new every year. My only problem is that I tend to commit to too many things. Lately my husband and I have come to the conclusion that our weekly schedule has become too full, something has to go. During the last couple of weeks I have tried to figure out what we could skip but I've felt like we have to do everything that we have committed to at this point. I finally decided to write down everything we have committed to on a paper to get an overview of our situation. Once everything was written down it became easier to notice what we can skip and which activities we can put on hold until next year. Some projects we need to put on hold for another three years.

We live in a world with more opportunities than ever and it's tempting to want to do it all at the same time, but that's not the wisest approach. Every year I'm noticing that I get better life quality when I avoid doing too many things and rather choose to focus my efforts towards a few things per year. Toronto is a huge city with so much to offer, but there's no need to cram all the things I want to do into one year. Nowadays I write down 3-year plans, 5-year plans and 10-year plans in my journal to help myself see what I need to focus on this year versus what can wait. I don't want to rush through my life, I want to be able to stop and be grateful for everything I get to experience. I want to be able to focus more time on all my relationships; God, my marriage, friendships and family members. I need a slower paced lifestyle to be able to live a meaningful life.

My husband and I decided to cut four different things from our schedule so now our life is less full again. We also decided to make Sunday our new rest day and keep this day free from any other programs than church. I look forward to a less busy November because the month of October ended up being too busy. I tend to need to suffer a little bit before I learn what I need to change in my life. I've learned most of my life lessons through doing the wrong thing first (and feeling the pain) before I learned to do things the right way. Life is all about growing and learning new things and every year we become a little wiser. It's not fun to make mistakes but I don't think it's possible to learn anything important without making some mistakes. there's a lot of hope in that.

Present Over Perfect

Shauna Niequist has written a new book called "Present Over Perfect:Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living". Shauna has also created a Five-Session-Video-Study based on the book. "Present Over Perfect" is a book about Shauna's own journey from living a very busy life filled with too much of everything to her deciding to build a new way of life from the inside out. Shauna decided to choose a new way to live that would include enough time for rest, deep connections with others and time for prayer. I think most of us can relate to Shauna's story, it's so easy to end up striving to do everything in life perfectly and become exhausted as a result of that.

Walks in nature help me relax

Ever since I moved to Toronto six years ago walks in nature have become one of my favorite ways to relax. I strive towards getting 2-3 nature walks into my schedule each week. Time spent in nature helps me stay balanced and feeds my soul.

My husband and I dream of buying kayaks one day. I feel like going kayaking together would be a fun and relaxing way to spend time together as a couple. I doubt we will prioritize buying the kayaks this year but it is fun to dream about the future, for now we will stick to nature walks, biking and hiking.

Are you tired?

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me-watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

Matthew 11:28-30 The Message

The whole Bible can be narrowed down to two main commands: “Love God!” and “Love people!” We are all familiar with loving people, we understand that loving people is all about being there for others through both the good times and the bad times. Loving God can seem a bit more difficult, how can we love an invisible God? We love God simply by spending time with him. We can talk to God through prayer and we can read his word in the Bible.

Establishing a routine of opening up the Bible and reading it for a few minutes each morning is a great way to ensure that we will start the day with a peaceful heart. Reading God’s word daily helps us stay focused on what matters throughout the day, it helps us stay self-controlled, kind, gentle, patient and loving. As a new Christian I had a hard time understanding the Bible in the beginning so I loved reading devotions, which helped me understand different passages in the Bible.

Last week I bought a new devotional book called “Peace for Today” by Sheila Walsh. This book has devotions that help me find peace every morning. A devotion is a short text about a particular topic followed by a few Bible references on the same topic. The devotion explains what a short passage in scripture means so that it becomes easy to understand it. Once I understand a passage I can see how it relates to my own life today.

This morning I read a great devotion called “When the journey is too much”. It’s a devotion about the importance of taking time to rest in between everything important that we are doing in our lives. God is not a demanding God, God understands our limits and he wants us to take time to rest. Sheila Walsh writes about how we have all experienced exhaustion at some point in our lives, even the mighty prophet Elijah in the Bible experienced this. So what did God do when Elijah got exhausted? Here’s what Sheila writes in “Peace for Today” (pages 32-33):

“Immediately after his desperate prayer, Elijah fell asleep under the broom tree (v.5); he was exhausted. And what did God do? He didn’t lecture Elijah about his calling or tell him to toughen up. No. Instead, God tenderly cared for Elijah.”

I find it helpful to know that although I live in a world that places a lot of demands on me, God is not a demanding God. God won’t ask me to push myself beyond my limits. God has given me a body with limits for a reason, a body that needs rest, sleep, food and time alone. When we learn to listen to our bodies’ signals, and choose to give our bodies what they need, we are honoring God with our bodies and lives. God is not asking us to live lives where we are constantly sleep deprived, stressed, and unhealthy. If we love God we will choose to take good care of the body he has given us.

“The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.”

Mark 6:30-31

Taking care of me

Things I like to do to "take care of me" this time of year is to take bike rides along the lakefront, treat myself to healthy breakfasts with fresh fruit and to prioritize time for rest every weekend. One of my favorite relaxing and restful things to do on a Saturday morning is to grab some croissants and coffee and have my breakfast in the park on a sunny summer morning. The month of June is definitely one of my favorite months of the year! :)

The Storm Inside

We all face storms in life. These storms many times devastate us and leave us torn apart and beyond recognition. Heartbreak. Fear. Regret. Insecurity. Shame. When these emotions well up inside you, it's difficult to believe you will make it through. We have an enemy who says you will not survive this one.

But God offers us a way through the storm. In The Storm Inside, we'll look at the stories of eight women of the Bible who traveled the path from shame to love, from disappointment to hope, from insecurity to courage, from despair to faith, and more. We'll get to know them as real people and see how God came through for each of them. We'll see the crucial choices they made, and we'll lay hold of the grace that forgives what is past, gives strength for the present moment, and offers hope for the future.

Join Sheila in this eight-session video-based Bible study of eight women of the Bible, whose stories still speak today, encouraging you that God is faithful enough to get you through the worst storms in life.

Sessions include:
1. From Shame to Love
2. From Disappointment to Hope
3. From Fear to Joy
4. From Heartbreak to Strength
5. From Regret to Rest
6. From Insecurity to Confidence
7. From Insignificance to Courage
8. From Despair to Faith


You can buy "The Storm Inside" by Sheila Walsh as a book, audiobook or DVD Study at www.chapters.indigo.ca

Moments of stillness in a busy world

I love living in a large metropolitan city where there are always a lot of things happening. Fall is also the season when my husband and I are usually the busiest. It's fun to be busy with work, projects and people you care about. Humans are built to live active lives, but we also need time for rest. Finding that balance in life between an active lifestyle and time for rest and relaxation is what most people struggle with in our modern culture.

 

 

It's easy to get so caught up in life that we find ourselves always on the go, going straight from one activity to the other all day long and then crashing on the couch at the end of the day. I think once a woman hits 30 at the latest her life has gotten really busy. How do you balance kids, marriage, work, home and your own health in so few hours? We can't escape the need to prioritize some things higher than others. If we live for an average of 85 years we will have time for a lot of things in life, we don't necessarily have to do them all at the same time. There's a time for everything in life.

 

 

 

Everyone is different so each person has to find her own routine to stay balanced in life, that's why things can get tricky if we simply try to do what others do in life. What works for one family might not work at all for another family to stay balanced in life. I think the more we can learn to listen inwards and resist the urge to constantly compare our lives with other people, the better we will get at finding our own personal balance.

I personally try to plan time for relaxation and stillness into my everyday life. If I don't take the time to be in nature or at least outdoors every week I will get miserable. Taking a morning walk in my neighborhood on a sunny fall morning can do wonders to my well-being.

I love walking over to the pond nearby and stand there for 5-10 minutes watching the wildlife and enjoying the stillness, then I walk back home feeling refreshed from my time spent in nature.

On a cold, rainy or windy day it can be enough for me to take a 20 minute coffee break from whatever I'm doing and just enjoy the stillness indoors for a little while. If you have kids at home what you need might be something entirely different, maybe what you need is to get out of the house, meet up with a good friend and enjoy an hour with another grownup for a change.

I also try to create peaceful places within my home where I can enjoy moments of stillness during my week. Our family room is one of my favorite places within the home where I love to enjoy a homemade latte and 1-2 chapters in a book I love. I think weaving in moments of stillness and tranquility into our lifestyles is vitally important if we want to live healthy balanced lives.