Sabbath

After church today, we were invited as members of the branch council and their families to our 1st Counselor's house for a bbq.  It was a great time.  Those Sisson's know how to throw a party.  It was a great crowd and we enjoyed burgers, hot dogs and catching fish.

It brought up an interesting and friendly debate among the group as some participated in canoeing, swimming and playing, while others didn't.  Sabbath Day.  It's a toughy.  I happened to teach a lesson to the Young Women that day on the Sabbath Day, so the topic was fresh in my mind as well.

We had decided ahead of time not to bring the kids bathing suits and not swim, but then you get into the nitty gritties of the topic and who's to say that swimming is bad and canoeing is ok.  Or fishing.  I go back and forth on things that I think are ok on the Sabbath and things I don't.  I try pretty hard to leave all work to the rest of the week.  Even preparing meals with lightness and avoiding things like laundry and cleaning.  However, there have been times when we have guests coming for dinner that we do a quick tidy up and vacuum.  Who knows!

I know growing up that the rules went back and forth on whether we were allowed to watch television on Sundays or not, etc.  It was pretty hard and fast rule that there were no sleepovers on Saturday nights leading into Sunday, and there were no birthday parties on Sundays.  It's a hard rule to enforce when your kids are heartbroken about not going to their BFF's party.

I'm not sure where I stand.  And I'm sure it's the type of thing that you're constantly fine tuning.  The advice I gave to the Young Women was this:

It's called a day of rest.  Sometimes people joke about it being a 'day-off'.  A day of rest becomes a day of naps.  I explained that for 6 days a week, we are immersed in this world.  We're surrounded by outside influences all the time.  We live in the world, but we're not supposed to be of the world.  I told the girls that Sunday is a day that Heavenly Father has given to us as a gift.  And we should think of it as a gift.  It's a day that we can set all that other stuff aside and become rejuvinated through him.  We can worship and recharge our spirits, so when Monday hits, we're ready.  He knows how hard it is and has given us this wonderful gift of the Sabbath Day to lean completely on Him.  Take advantage of it.  Use it as a day to recharge your Spirit so you can face the world again.

That's my philosophy.  I don't know how that interprets into every situation yet.  But that's my guidepost for now.