Slow Down!

For the past month or so at River Church, the teachings have been about rest and the biblical idea of observing the Sabbath. The challenge has been to slow down and take a break. It seems funny that someone would need to remind you to rest, or even teach you how to rest. But our culture doesn't seem to believe in that concept. The more you work, the more money you make, the more things you can buy. Which means you have to work more to make the money to pay for all of the things you just bought. The problem is you don't have time to enjoy these things with the people you love because you are too busy working to pay for them.
Always up for a challenge, we at the Fessler house signed up to observe a sabbath day. The first one that we took was so nice that we decided to try and observe it once a week. What does that mean and look like for us? Well, so far it involves doing fun things as a family and taking a break from work. This includes Mike not talking or texting or checking e-mail that relate to River Church or Kiawah. For me, that means no housework, no laundry, no cleaning bathrooms, no vacuuming. I have cooked dinner for us, though. We do still have to eat!
The nice thing is there is no schedule to worry about. We don't feel rushed and we feel like we actually get to enjoy each other. Both Sabbath days we have observed so far have been refreshing.
What have we learned so far? Sunday does not equal a Sabbath day, especially if you are in ministry. A Sabbath day can be taken any day of the week. The point is to rest physically from work but to also, more importantly, rest spiritually through praying, being still before God, and reading His word so that we can refuel and recharge from the past week's activities.
On our last Sabbath day, we took Will and Luke to the Children's Museum downtown.
We spent about 2 hours and had to drag Will out of there. He loved it! The only way we could get him to leave was to promise him a cupcake from Cupcake which was right across the street. Below are some pics from our day of fun.
Luke was excited to go to the museum!

Will shopping at the mini Publix. He picked his own groceries off the shelves and put them in his little shopping cart. This was his favorite part!
He even got to scan his groceries! He was in heaven!
Mike and Will in jail in the pirate ship room.
Luke having fun in the baby room.

The King and his 2 princes in the castle room. The Queen was taking the pics!

Will loving his cake pop at Cupcake. After he finished, he managed to eat half of my cupcake!