This weekend is both delight and dread.
It is a lovely long weekend … yet it marks the effective end of summer.
So we live it up this weekend, soaking in the sunsets, the smores, the sleep-ins and the sweet times with family and friends.
Summer is like that indulgent aunt who loves you, but has no real responsibility for your well being. She dishes out the good stuff in life, spoiling us with the most indulgent things of life and living.
It would be easy to look at summer and say it is not reality, but a daydream in the sun. Summer, though, is so much more.
It is like a refreshing drink when we are parched. A feather soft bed when we are exhausted. A glimmer of light on the water from the full moon up above. It is rest, and refreshment and renewal for our hearts, minds, souls and bodies.
Actually, I think that summer is the ultimate sabbath of the calendar year … giving rest and refreshment to all facets of our lives. It is the time of year when it is totally acceptable to have no plans at all.
One thing that happens so naturally is the opportunity to worship our God and Creator, for his Earthly dwelling shows so well in summer, and it inspires our worship to the Creator.
The sunrises and sunsets, the flowers, plants and trees, the vegetables in our gardens and berries growing along the roadside all speak to a good and wise Creator, worthy of our praise. We whisper thanks as we stand at water’s edge, hike up a mountainside and hear a coyotes call into the night.
As we bid adieu to this fair season, the sabbath experience can continue, if we commit to intentionally including rest and reflection into our new goals for this new season. We know how life-giving this can be from our summer experience, lets take what we have learned into this new season.
The worship does not have to end, either, for God has created variation and change in our seasons. As we continue to allow sabbath into our routines, let us ensure that we give thanks and praise for this life that we have.
Less dread, more delight as we step away from this summer and into the fall.
itsawonderfilledlife 