The Missing Piece

Finally!  I have procrastinated for far too long writing in this blog.  Part of the delay was pure nervousness, part waffling on topic and direction for my writing, part having a major fibro flare up that lasted about 8 weeks, part just simple avoidance.  I find that it is much harder to actually write my thoughts down than to talk about them.  Well, enough is enough and it is time to face this blog and put it to work sharing what is happening in my life.

I changed the title of my blog to reflect a better picture of where I am spiritually and what my blog will explore.  You get to join me as I recall past lessons and experiences, current thoughts and peeks into my daily life.  You are all aflutter aren't you?! :-)  

What does living the Sabbath rest mean?  Well, first off it reflects a major change that started a little over 2 years ago in my spiritual journey.  '

I was raised in a Christian home, meaning my parents had accepted Jesus as their Savior and as a family we worshiped at church, attended Sunday School, VBS, youth group and other activities.  We prayed at home, we were taught values and morals based on the teachings of the Bible and we honored God and country. I accepted Jesus as my Savior as a young child and grew in my love for God and loved studying the Bible and how it applied to my life on a daily basis.  I married the love of my life, John, and we started our marriage and home with God at the center and His Word the foundation for our home.  Sounds good so far right?  Well, as most of us know, life throws curves, bumps, ditches and heavy rains along the way.  Those adventures will be posts in and of themselves.  Let's fast forward to 2010........

2010 held MANY changes for our family! I want to start with the theme of this blog, Sabbath rest.  After over 50 years in a traditional or contemporary mainstream Christian church John and I were both hungry for something more, a restlessness had settled over our hearts.  Have you ever felt it?  You feel like you are missing something big or important or that a piece of the puzzle is lost.  One evening at Carraba's we bumped into a couple that we had known for many years but had lost contact with when we lived in GA for 6 years.  We did the quick, "So good to see you.  We should get together soon." thing and got busy and no calls were made.  Several months later we ran into them again at Longhorns and repeated the previous lines.   Ahhh...but THIS time my friend called me and she and I set up a dinner date4 of us to actually talk and get reacquainted!  When the subject got to "What church do you attend?" we told them where we were going but that it didn't really feel like a good fit anymore.  And then....DRUM ROLL....they shared that they too had felt that "missing something" and in their search they discovered a Hebrew Roots church.  Our ears perked up and we asked them to share more, beginning with explaining what Hebrew Roots meant.  We visited the church, we read some books that were shared with us, we asked LOTS of questions and we rejoiced because that missing puzzle piece just got dropped into our eager hands.  That piece was discovering Sabbath and Sabbath rest! Discovering our faith's Jewish roots and beginning to learn and understand all that encompassed and how to live it out was the new path on our journey.


I'll leave you with this snippet of our life at that point. We decided to take God's word literally.  We attended the Friday night service at our friend's church and then RESTED on Saturday.  Real rest.  No shopping, no chores, no housework, no "normal" Saturday activities at all.  We spent the day reading our Bibles, praying for family and friends,reading the books given to us by our friends, talking to each other, and even napped before the Saturday evening Torah study at church.  And as we rested we discovered what we had been missing; a sacred appointment on the 7th day to commune with God, to rest and enjoy His works, rest from our work and to be refreshed.  Spiritually and physically RESTED and REFRESHED!

Shalom,
bev