A Rule of Life baby step

After being introduced to the idea of a Rule of Life in our Domestic Church formation last month, Michael and I have been tossing around different ideas for starting to lay out one of our own. One of the “rules of thumb” we thought might be a good idea for our family was to plan just one major event per day on the weekends (if there are multiple things going on that day to choose from). For example, doing a family 5K run on Saturday morning would nix a birthday party that afternoon.

St. Paul tells us in Romans 12:2 that we should “not conform to the pattern of this world.” If the pattern of this world isn’t BUSY, I don’t know what it is.

I think that the biggest reason behind Michael and I wanting to have a rule about the number of activities we do is the need for our kids to get enough rest. We don’t need a home visit from Captain Obvious to know by now that both us and our kids will be MISERABLE at some point that day
 if the kids don’t get enough sleep. For me in particular, it is honestly hard to fully enjoy an outing when I know I’ll have to ‘pay for it’ later when I have three very tired, very whiny young children to put to bed.

Weekends are where Mike and I tend to overdo it the most. So many times we have said yes to just a little too much, and by Sunday night, we are ships passing in the night. Michael’s ship most often heads to the couch to catch up on his favorite shows. My ship busies herself with trying not to be grumpy while cleaning up weekend messes and making over-ambitious to-do lists for the upcoming week. My ship then heads back to harbor to turn on her trusty sound machine and go to bed super early. True story I’m afraid. (Although I would be exaggerating if I tried to convince you that we are so popular and social that we have a dozen events and invitations to choose from every weekend. We do have some lovely, low-key weekends fairly often.)

Here’s to hoping that Mike and I’s little baby step toward creating our rule of life helps us to have more energy for one another more consistently, especially by Sunday evening.

Speaking of Sundays…I smell some pondering in my future on God’s commandment for us to keep holy the Sabbath day and to make it a day of “rest.” Observing the Sunday commandment with a right heart isn’t something I’ve talked or read a lot about, and it’s something that I think a lot of people kind of gloss over.

Hmm…

You might have just read the beginning of an upcoming post on keeping Sunday a holy day for rest and for honoring God. Because I’m curious…and I may or may not have just found a whole section about it in our awesome Catechism. Also, I’ve had a nagging feeling for a while now that somehow my family’s busy, social lifestyle can be tempered just a little bit more for the glory of God. To be honest, I feel like Sundays for us feel almost always just like a Saturday, but with the morning blocked out for mass. I’ll let you guys know what I find.:)

God bless!

Erin

This little cutie pie loves her rest