My Experience with the Sabbath

(A 13 year old reflecting on the Sabbath)

Exodus 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Today as we were getting ready for sabbath I was reflecting on how the getting ready experience on Friday was back when our family believed in the Trinity, and even for the time up until about a month or two ago when we did believe in the true God, the effects were still there although milder.

Back in those times, Friday was a day of general chaos. People were flying all over the house, everyone was stressing out, there was never enough time and we came into Sabbath feeling wasted and worn out. I was thinking to myself, "Man, Sabbath is pretty lame if we spend half a day stressing out and doing double work all to get a big day of complete boredom." Because we were worshiping a wrong God at this time Satan was able to get into my brain more and maximize on these thoughts and make them bigger.

"Michael, the Sabbath is boring."
"Did I tell you the Sabbath is boring?"
"Don't forget, the Sabbath is boring."
"Hey, did you remember? The Sabbath is boring."
"Why are doing all this junk for a day of boredom Michael? Seriously..."

And on it goes... After awhile the effects of this thought bombardment took hold. Eventually it got to the point where every Sabbath I was doing something that I shouldn't on that day, like playing games etc. Of course this all changed when I gave my heart to the Lord. But until a month or two ago the experience was still a bit stressful, and I didn't look forward to it.

But now we have started to make more of an effort to keep the Sabbath more fully. We spend the whole of Friday getting ready, this allows for a lot less stress. At first when this idea was introduced about using the whole of Friday and making getting ready for the Sabbath our primary task on this day, I thought, "Oh no! I'm going to lose another whole day!" But over the last few weeks we have had tremendous blessings that I'm not sure I'll be able to count my blessings one by one anymore; I'll have to start doing it two by two! I feel like I'm the happiest person in the world; in fact, I hope my happiness slows down soon because otherwise, I think I'll pop.