April 18 // How to Have a Weekly Day of Rest

some tips and inspiration for a day of rest

Hello! I hope you had a sweet and meaningful weekend. Today we’ll be continuing talking about a weekly day of rest because it’s a big, life-changing thing!

Imagine What Could Be

Imagine a weekly holiday.

Imagine that every single week, you are committed to spending one whole day eating good food and doing things you like (as a family)…but most importantly, not necessarily doing anything at all. For one whole day, there’s nothing you need to accomplish.

Imagine that you worked so hard during the week that you have a whole day dedicated to sitting back and enjoying.

These are all part of what makes a weekly day of rest so powerful. It’s less restful when you have people who rely on you for sustenance, yes, but your day of rest is richer and fuller because of them. When you release yourself from your own expectations—even just for one day each week—you are reminded that you are not omnipresent. You cannot be everything for everybody all the time.

A day of rest encourages you to work hard throughout the week, then stop at the end of it—regardless of what you got done—and admit that your work will always be with you. It will always be a pain in some ways. There will always be more that you could be doing. But this day is not the day to think about those pains.

A day of rest is intended to serve you and do what’s best for you. If it’s a burden, you’re doing it wrong 😉 The idea of adding something to your life might not feel freeing, but will you try it?

Choose any 24-hour period that works best for you (like Saturday night to Sunday night) and prioritize rest. This will be an exciting conversation to have with your kids, and I can almost promise that they’ll love this and constantly ask you how many days there are until the next one.

Life Hacks: Tips for A Day of Rest

I hope you read Becca’s post on Friday about reclaiming the Sabbath! Even if you’re not religious, establishing a weekly day of rest is so important for individuals and families. Here are some things we do in ours:

• We begin our day of rest at night, kicking it off with a big feast. We make “fancy drinks” that the kids look forward to all week. We also light two candles during dinner, and I ask the kids to remind us of two things that we are about to do for the next 24 hours: “Cease” and “Celebrate.” We stop working hard and we focus on gratitude.

  

• During this dinner, we go around the table to talk about what we are thankful for and announce the Kid of the Week.

• The next day, as parents we say “yes” to almost everything. It’s the day the kids are allowed to play on the Switch for a little bit, or pretend with Woodzeez for hours. We usually do a hike or spend a lot of time playing outside. Since I’m more lax about how the kids spend their time on our day of rest, I’m more lax about mine, too. I take a nap, read, write, or do whatever I please, as long as it’s truly restful.

• We use paper plates and cook simple meals to keep dishes minimal, and the only chore expectation we have is “clean up after yourselves.”

• Find activities the kids do that you can do together but always feel like you don’t have enough time for. On this day, you have as much time as you want.

Everyone looks forward to our day of rest. We count down the days toward it. We put in extra effort—in cleaning, food preparation, school, etc.—so that the essentials are done before the day of rest begins.

Knowing that rest is coming on the seventh day helps us work harder during the other six.

Maybe your day of rest is going to be Tuesday night to Wednesday night, and you have a no-screens rule. Great!

Maybe your day of rest will be from Friday night to Saturday night, and you invite friends over for pizza to begin your feast. Sweet!

However you choose to implement this day of rest, we highly recommend trying it. Let us know how it goes or if you have any questions!

Hopefully this was encouraging!
Warmly,

Hope and the Family Scripts team