Several years ago, the Lord began teaching me about a principal that I’ve had the chance to share with others. You may remember it if you happened to be in the audience on one of those occasions. It was a message on the topic of the Sabbath – on creating space and margin in your life to experience rest.
At the time I first began to think about this concept seriously there had been a record breaking snow/ice storm in Dallas that shut the city down for about a week. Families were holed up inside of their homes while schools and offices closed down. A newspaper article recorded people’s feelings about this “mandatory” vacation.
“Snow. Ice. Single-digit temps. Could plague of locusts be far behind?
“No school again tomorrow! I think I’m going to go nuts being stuck in this house!!!”
“This has ruined what was going to be a fantastic week. And it’s made me now use two of my floating holidays.”
“Well, isn’t this neat . . . all the electricity on my block just went out! Great. So now you can add ‘trapped at home with no electricity’ to the list! Fantastic.”
And my favorite, in light of the Super Bowl event Dallas hosted that year:
“Dear God, I’m not sure what we’ve done wrong here in Dallas. Maybe we shouldn’t have hosted the Super Bowl at Jerry’s World . . . not sure. But would you please forgive everyone and bring back our friend, the sun? We promise never to host the northerners again.”
Clearly, everyone wasn’t pleased with the prospect of breaking the rhythm of their normally hectic, fast-paced life.
Well, this week it has happened again. Since last Friday, Dallas has been frozen over. As I write to you, I am in my pajamas looking out the window at my children sliding down the hill in our iced-over backyard on an old cookie sheet that I will never (EVER) bake anything on again.
This week has been fun. We’ve had hot chocolate, homemade pumpkin bread and cinammon rolls, played Uno, caught up on some school projects, watched some recorded shows that were lined up on our DVR, cuddled, lunched with our neighbors who walked over for a visit and spent some quality time with our extended family.
It has been a nice break. I like it!
I’ve been searching online to see if I can find another article like the one from a couple years ago. I’m anxious to see if the locals are having the same reactions they did before. Can’t find anything yet but I’m very curious to see how you feel when you are in a situation like this. When you are made to stop the regular rhythms of your life and just be still, do you feel anxious, concerned, grateful, behind on projects or something else entirely?
I’ll sit here in my pjs and wait for you to respond 🙂
Priscilla
