Gen 2:2 By the seventh day God had finished his work. On the seventh day he rested from all his work.
How many of us actually rest at least one day each week? If you are like Jan & I, you fit in some chores or you rush about doing one thing or another. It seems that we are forever busy! While we aren’t getting paid for the work we are doing, we aren’t allowing our minds and bodies the time they need to relax and be refreshed.
This leaves us starting the new week with less energy, patience, mental acuity, etc to best handle the tasks and people we have to deal with during the week. Even worse, by the end of the day we have very little energy left for our family and spouse. It’s very easy to feel frustrated or upset at trivial things. And we continue this pattern week after week.
So, how do you break this pattern and rejuvenate yourself and your marriage? Ideally, you would devote one day of the week (weekend) to doing something fun and/or relaxing. However, most of us would find this very hard to do. So, at a minimum you should set aside one or two nights a week to do something just for the two of you.
If you have trouble figuring out what to do, then think back to things you did while you were dating. Try some of those activities, you could also find one or more fun games to play during these times. (Jan and I enjoy playing the card game Cribbage. This two player game is easy to learn, takes about 30 minutes and only requires a deck of cards, and a means to keep score.)
Also, since it is summertime, how do you handle your vacations? Do you rest and relax or do you fill them with lots of activities that leave you exhausted by the end of the vacation? We need to have times of rest. God made us this way and if we don’t voluntarily rest, we will eventually burn out and find our health, our family and or our marriages destroyed.
Take some time to ask yourselves these questions:
What sort of activities do I find fun and relaxing? What sort of activities do you find fun and relaxing? How can we combine our interests to insure that we both are rejuvenated and ready to face the challenges of life with love and joy as God desires?