Sabbath Rest

I am rested from the week before thanks to a wonderful day at home yesterday. I am ready to start a new week with a gathering among the people with whom I share a common life in Christ, where I can be ordinary, vulnerable, and real --- as well as accepted for who and what I am.

I shall be as refreshed by their presence as I was by yesterday's Sabbath.

A few years back, our  grandson asked, "Was I born before Christmas or after Christmas?"

Poor kid -- asking an esoteric thinker such a question!

"Both," I said in a way he is used to being answered by me, stretching his thinking.

"You were born after Christmas of the year before you were born which was closer to Christmas than the year you were born and you were born before that particular Christmas."

"But was it before or after Christmas?" He insisted on the simplistic.

"I already gave you a nuanced answer," I replied.

Grandma quipped, "Look it up," both of us knowing that he would and would soon be using it on us.

Do I rest on the first or the last day of the week? Yes.

My body and spirit seem to demand Saturday off -- like I am wired for Shabbot as we all are. Sunday is not my Sabbath. That is when I work and worship. Calendars are man-made and have changed with time, but God makes 7 day cycles of the earth and the sun and every seventh cries out for rest and refreshment -- whatever that is to you and me (Sometimes a meeting -- usually not --- but whatever it is). I am not a legalist (as you know) but moments of legalism tend to point us to higher law, rooted in relationships and principles.

When is it? Well, it depends on when you start counting, but I have always figured that a weekend was a great way to start a week AND a great way to end one as well.

And I have found my Sabbath Rest in the One who said "Come unto me ... and rest." 

And I continue to find it among the people who are, for me, a Fellowship of Joy!