Stories

I am a Central student going into my Junior year of the college studying Elementary and Early Childhood Education and if there is something that God has taught me it has been that I need to rest or Sabbath. Freshman year I was sure that college was a time for late nights and cramming before tests . Now I have done those late nights and cramming sessions or essays last minute to meet deadlines, but the idea of a Sabbath was never in my thought process until last year when God shared what he has already told me.

God brought up the 10 Commandments once again. Within these commandments, God says he wants us to “remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy” (Exodus 20:8). Because of this, a couple of friends and I have started celebrating Shabbat, which is the meal before the Sabbath. We get together on Friday evening to have dinner, communion, and fellowship. This is a time to reflect on what Jesus did for us on the cross and a time to be thankful for the friends we  have been given and the time we get to spend together. Not only was it a time of remembrance and celebration it was a time of rest for me. Sadly, this rest wasn’t carried on into Saturday, but after doing this a couple times I felt this rest carrying itself into the rest of my week. The stress of school and life started to dwindle the more and more we celebrated Shabbat.

God showed me that our Sabbath is so important, especially with the type of society we live in. I noticed that I was getting burnt out, stressed out , and was just flat out exhausted at the end of every week. God put it on my heart this year to really take Shabbat and the Sabbath to heart. I have said goodbye to the hustle and bustle of the how we are supposed tolive our lives. I have chosen to lean into the rest that God gave me last year through practicing remembering the Sabbath and  keeping it holy.

I have seen that God has been working on me this last year and this summer by putting on my heart to take things off my plate that I want to doand take time to rest and listen to what God wants me to do.