Keeping the Sabbath Holy

Yesterday at work I was asked a few questions about what the Sabbath is and what we do on this special day. I'm afraid I didn't have time to adequately answer the question and it came across sounding like "we don't do this, and we don't do that, and oh, we don't do that either." My friend summed up how it sounded, "Oh, so you sit around bored all day." lol I really don't want to give that impression. The truth is that I love Sabbath! I don't know what I would do without it. I found a list on a great website, (sabbathtruth.com), thought it summed up Sabbath keeping pretty well.

Keep the Sabbath Holy - 12 Biblical Concepts

1. The Sabbath is a day to cease our creating, working with the creation, and appreciate what God has done in the world and is doing in us. Genesis 2

2. Elaborate food preparation is to be done on the day before the Sabbath so that there is no baking or heavy cooking on the Sabbath. Exodus 16

3. The Sabbath is a time to lay our burdens down and rest. We should not do any servile work on the Sabbath. This includes our entire family, even our servants and beasts of burden and strangers who live among us. Jeremiah 17; Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5

4. The Sabbath is an holy convocation. We should meet and worship with others. Leviticus 23

5. We should be reverent and show God that we love, honor, and respect His authority. Psalm 89:7, Habakkuk 2:20

6. The Sabbath should be a day of delight and rejoicing, a day which we forsake our thoughts and words for God's thoughts and words. Isaiah 56, 58

7. The Sabbath is a time of healing. Matthew 12, Mark 1, 3, Luke 13, 14

8. We are not to buy or sell on the Sabbath. Nehemiah 13

9. The Sabbath is a time to do good and visit and comfort the sick. We should do spiritual work on the Sabbath, serving others. John 5

10. The Sabbath is a time of prayer. Acts 16:13

11. The Sabbath is a time to reason with others about spiritual principles, and for ministers to teach the word of God. Acts 17:2, 18:4, 11

12. The Sabbath is a time for Singing. Ephesians 5:19-20, Colossians 3:16, Psalms 92 is called the "Sabbath Psalm" 

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The Sabbath is a sign of creative and redeeming power; it points to God as the source of life and knowledge; it recalls man's primeval glory, and thus witnesses to God's purpose to re-create us in His own image. The Sabbath of the Lord bears His name and seal. "It is a sign," He says, "between Me and you; . . . that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you." because "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." Exodus 31:13; 20:11. 

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No Plans - Helen Austin

Living Under a Rock

Somehow whenever life happens, I neglect my blog. Since my last post, about 3 months ago, so much has happened. Let's see if I can mention the highlights quickly.

We went on our trip to Mexico and had a good time. The only bummer was that we had about $1,000 stolen from our bank account. (Still trying to figure out how to pursue that.) That put us with about half of what we had planned on having for the trip and when we returned home. Even after that happened we were intent on not letting it ruin our trip. We flew in to Cozumel island and from there took a ferry to the mainland. We then took a bus over to the other side of the peninsula to Merida. We saw a lot more of town this time and enjoyed it even more than the first time we went. While there we went to see Progresso again and ate so much vendor food we were in pain. lol It was really fun though. We saw some dancing while in town over the weekend and even got to see Miss Yucatan. We also took a day trip to Cuzama where there is a cenote tour to go on. You visit three different cenotes via a little rail track and cart that is pulled by a poor emaciated donkey. (The owners weren't that well off either, so we gave our driver a decent tip, hoping he would share some with the poor donkey.) It was a lot of fun though. I will have to post pictures later. It was so neat to see the caverns and swim in them.

From Merida we went to Tulum and stayed at Cabanas Copal. It was really nice there and we got a really good deal, so we stayed a couple extra days. It was so nice to stay right above the beach, sleep listening to the waves, and awaken to the rosy sun rising over the vast ocean. While there we had an encounter with a giant spider, though. It was awful because I am the default spider killer. Josh is scared to death of them. I don't like them either, but I have to protect him, so I took the spider on and won. The sweet taste of victory was short-lived, however, when I realized I was suddenly massively outnumbered. Apparently the spider was carrying hundreds of babies, which spewed forth once I crushed the giant arachnid. Needless to say, I let out quite a startled squeal. I felt like I was in some kind of bad horror movie. Josh told me to use the spray sunscreen to get them and, thankfully, it worked well. I felt bad, though, as we were staying in an eco resort, and I don't know how they would have taken the news of so much death and destruction. Luckily our cabana had sand floors, so it was easy to hide the evidence of the massacre.

We spent the rest of our trip in Playa del Carmen before heading back to Cozumel to come home. It was very nice as we got some good deals there too. We got to stay right on Qinta Avenida (5th Avenue) our whole stay there.

It was a good trip and we got to see a lot. The only drawback, besides the money situation, was a souvenir we didn't plan on bringing home. One of my biggest fears is parasites and I have always been scared to death of contracting one. (Thanks to my worm obsessed fifth grade teacher.) Imagine my horror when I realized my painful and incredibly itchy rash on my feet was hookworm. Yeah, it wasn't pretty. The lengthy and multiple trips down to the hospital to get checked out and finally obtain our medication weren't fun, either. Blessedly, it didn't take too long to start going away.

We reached our goals again at work and so got our 100% party again. This time we all went to see the Giants play. It was pretty fun. They won, so that made it even better. :)

Grandma became very ill and Michele (my sister) had to take her to the hospital. They found out that her stomach was twisted up high into her chest and she had to have emergency surgery or she would die. I was very concerned, so we made an emergency trip up to see her. We couldn't both afford to fly and Josh worried about me going by myself, so we drove about 17 hours, stopping only for a quick nap along the way. We left here around 8:30 am and ended up at Mom and Dads at 4:00 the next morning. I felt really bad waking them at that hour when they expected us much earlier. We got another nap and then headed into Spokane to see Grandma before her surgery. She seemed to be handling it very well and made it through surgery fine. (It's been hard recovering, but she is now at a rehabilitation center and is able to eat soft foods again.) We visited Michele and her family the next day and spent the evening with Josh's Dad and sister, Cassidy. The next morning we took off bright and early and drove straight down, (Josh didn't even nap), and arrived back home at 3:30 the following morning. That was hard. We both kept nodding off. Josh only admitted it to me once we were home though. We won't be doing that again. We were glad that we made it up to see her, though. I would have felt horrible if she hadn't made it through and I hadn't been there to see her.

That was a couple weeks ago and we are already looking forward to going back up to visit everyone for Christmas. We're working as much as possible so that we will be able to make the trip again so soon. Josh has switched to clean up at the store for a couple months. That means that he has to be at work at 3:00 am. It's been hard for him, but he's been doing really well so far. Just one more of those shifts this week and then we get a day to work together again later in the day. :) He is napping right now. I'll have to wake him soon so he can still get to bed early.

I've been working my fingers off making scarves. I decided that I would try to put them up on Etsy.com and see if I could sell them. I have posted a link on the side of my blog. I'm very excited and nervous about this new venture. I hope that I am able to sell them and that people enjoy them. I put a lot of love into each one and like to think of them keeping people warm and cozy. :)

Wind Whispers on Etsy

Well, That's all I have time for now. Who knows when I will post again, but hopefully it will be soon. And hopefully I will finally getting around to replacing the Christmas music on my podcast. lol