Skipping Sabbath

Greetings Rafikis!!

So I'm a fan of John Grisham's writing, you know, the legal thriller guy: The Pelican Breif, The Firm, A Time to Kill; all these works were books before Sandra Bullock and Sam L. Jackson were a casting thought. Every so often he steps out of the mold of legal thriller and writes something like Bleachers (which I have yet to read), A painted house (which was an awesome John Steinbeck-like look at early mid-century rural cotton farm life), and Skipping Christmas (known to most as the movie Christmas with the Kranks...yeah it was a book first too!!! READ PEOPLE).

In Christmas with the Kranks, this family decides that Christmas was something they did more for other people - their daughter, neighbors, etc.- than themselves. So when daughter decides she wasn't coming home for Christmas, they decided to skip it and go on vacation instead. No tree, no lights, no presents, no parties.

This morning I woke up and began to list my day in my head, before I even opened my eyes:

Clean my room

Vacuum the house Fold my laundry

Workout (HA!)

Homework

Homework

Homework

Australian Open Men's Final (GO FED!!)

No trees, no lights, no presents, no parties.

Then I opened my eyes, shot up in bed, and opened my curtains. It was for this reason I chose this bedroom. Even though it was the smallest in the house, it is bright and the view is phenomenal and I was paralyzed by what I saw.

I am privileged to have a 2nd story bedroom that looks eastward over a magnificent view. When the day is not blanketed with snow bearing clouds, I look out. This morning, over the farms and barns and farm houses, through the branches of the giant bare cottonwood tree in my front yard, I watched the sun rise. And in a subtle, gentle way, God said to me, "Ssshhh. It's Sabbath".

Today I tried to skip Sabbath. But as I write, I'm basking in the glow for the sun as I prepare to bask in the glow of the Son on His Sabbath made especially for me. I'm throwing two fingers up in the peace sign at that WHOLE list above and I'm going to church. I want my "Trees, lights, presents", and a God party that lasts the whole day.

Luke 4:16 - He went to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day He went into the synagogue, as was His custom.

- Fidz