As much as I want to deny it, fall is settling in around us. The leaves on our street are already tinged golden, the breeze a little more cool than warm. The kids are back to school, sports and music lessons and all the things are in full force.
Summer in our house is lived at a more frenetic pace than the slow roll I like to imagine it would be. Perhaps that because my role as mom is to coordinate, pack up, haul away, and clean up the fun we schedule for ourselves.
As our family chats about what’s to come and our expectations for fall, we keep coming back to a few ideas. They all center around intentionality and rest.
And it’s about more than having time to fold the laundry and cook an actual meal (which, it turns out, is hard to do when you’re never home). It’s about making intentional, purposeful space in our lives to be together, open God’s word, and rest and rejoice in the ways we’re seeing him work. And for us, this means reclaiming some basics of a slower pace.
As author David Mathis writes in his book, Habits of Grace, we must remember that “It is loving (to others) to regularly commune with God. There are good horizontal effects to having our souls established and flourishing vertically.” We will be a better spouse and a better parent when our “soul is being routinely shaped and sustained by a real relationship with God in his word and prayer”. On my own, I’m selfish and entitled, unable to produce heart change—let alone the miraculous and sacred work of loving someone day in and day out. This work is done through regular surrender to the work of the Holy Spirit.
Credit: iStock | Kanonsky
Here’s what we’re going back to this fall, as we prayerfully try to recapture some rhythms of rest and relationship:
First, a Sabbath: This idea of setting aside a day to rest is one that I naturally bristle against. My default is to let the to-list dictate our days, which can quickly cause conflict in our marriage because my sweet husband doesn’t feel connected or loved when I present him with a mile long list of house projects Saturday morning.
In God’s goodness, we were reminded of the grace of Sabbath, and we both just breathed, “That’s what we’re missing.” When we neglect Sabbath, we not only miss out (dare I say disobey) God’s call for us to rest, we also stir up conflict because we both feel as if the other one is doing life wrong. Sabbath gives a clear picture of when we will work (chores on Saturday) and when we will rest and play (naps and games and family worship on Sunday).
Second, we are committing to schedule margin into our week. In the Pacific Northwest, summer comes with a real urgency. It’s just so short. These sunny days and chances to swim and sit on the back patio don’t last long, and we find ourselves running fast. In our conversations, we found ourselves wrestling with—and really, fighting for—margin. To allow space in our calendar, in our hearts and minds even, to be home, together. To put the screens away, and perhaps linger a little longer over dinner, without the rush of “what’s next?”
When we don’t schedule days (or hours even) of downtime, our calendar inevitably fills. We start saying yes to things that aren’t priorities instead of saying yes to the things we’ve intentionally committed to in this season. Margin means we have space to rest, read, garden, play, visit with the neighbors; it means there’s space in the day when notifications are turned off so that we can fully give our attention to the people in front of us.
Finally, we want to purposefully pursue our people. Life just gets busy. And as our days fill with work, church, school and sports, we can easily find ourselves sidelining our marriage and our children. Of course they’re a priority, but our time, money and even daily conversations might tell a different story. So instead of hoping for date night or hoping for time together to catch up, we’re planning and preparing for it. Our marriage’s success and our time invested in our children are non-negotiable; and for us that looks like planned for rhythms of prayer and worship, rest and play, and time together.
These basics are by no means a recipe. They are simply ways we’ve felt convicted to fall back on as life has gotten a little busier than we would like.
In order to pursue and love our families well, in order to settle into cadences of rest, we must be working from of outpouring of the Spirit. An hour watching Netflix just doesn’t refresh in the same way an hour intentionally spent reading and worshiping does. We are called to read our Bibles and worship God and rest, not because God wants to control us, but because our good and gracious Creator knows our hearts and souls are regenerated and made new by these things. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to fill us so that we can enjoy and glorify him by enjoying the good gifts he’s given—such as our children and spouse.
About Anna: Anna Sutherland lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she is stay-at-home mom to Owen, Henry, and Hadley. She and her husband Nathan run the non-profit Flint & Iron, through which they develop resources to equip families to love God and use tech. Check out the Gospel Tech podcast and the Gospel Tech Online Workshop for more resources!
