All those things we used to do on the Sabbath, how and when do we get them done now? That's the question I'll attempt to answer leading up to this Sabbath.

# Leaving room for grace
As I've stressed before, Sabbath was made for man and not the other way around. This means we approach our Sabbath keeping with a lot of Grace, especially as we are in the begging stages of our faith walk in this particular aspect. Sometimes things just don't get done. Sometimes we do things on the Sabbath that we shouldn't. Each and every time we repent and learn from our experiences. 

# Re-establishing rhythms
Rhythms are food for my soul. It's not as good as scripture, but they nourish me to a degree and leave my willpower to focus on more important things. When we began keeping the Sabbath day, we had to reconfigure our entire week. When would we do the laundry? We share a laundry room with 3 machines with 99 other families, so it's not like we can just do it at any time we want to. What about cleaning and grocery shopping? And the one that's my biggest hurdle: How do I handle the studying I need to do on the weekend? 

Most weeks I'm able to secure the 7 am spot at the laundry room on Sundays, which means I can have our week's worth of laundry done and hung on the lines before church at 10 am. This week, I wasn't able to, so I will have to see if I can sneak in a load or two before the Sabbath begins Friday or during the next week. That in turn, eats away at my highly limited study time. 

When it comes to cleaning, I've tried to get more done during the week and this has actually been the easiest rhythm to reconfigure. 

![jennifer-burk-159621.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmPWX4t3KeLVCrH7BhWCvRXwsTKbZHgmv88Jtb8Fyt1fai/jennifer-burk-159621.jpg)
[Source](https://unsplash.com/search/photos/clean?photo=wP9yLk_VKI8)

Grocery shopping is a difficult one, we usually shop for the entire week and we don't have a car so we need to go all three to get the groceries home. We can't get it done during the week because my husband isn't home in time and we often have commitments after church on Sunday. I've tried doing smaller trips for just 2-3 days worth of food, but that has me spending way too much of my valuable time with my son in a grocery store and while he doesn't seem to mind, I really do. We looked into ordering groceries online, but it way too expensive here.

Then there is the struggle of getting enough study hours in every week. Last semester I relied heavily on the weekends to catch up on my studying. It wasn't ideal as it took me away from my family, but it was a needed sacrifice for the time being. With keeping the Sabbath, I get an entire day with them and we've been reaping the benefits, but on the other hand, my studies have suffered. I'm trying to cram in some evening study time, but after tucking in my son, my brain is pretty much fried. I'm trying to tell myself that it's only one more year to 1,5 years and then I'll be done. My current degree is useless without the master's so I have to get it if I ever want a chance of getting a job in my field. We haven't found a good solution to this yet. 

![kiwihug-284614.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmeKnCrfC7PgQNw3H768nhNfkB83fCW8buX1MDmq5Nknww/kiwihug-284614.jpg)
[Source](https://unsplash.com/search/photos/bible?photo=9uL9h8zaBc0)
# This is where the grace comes in
This week has been rough, hence the lack of posts all week. We've all been feeling unwell for a couple of weeks and this week I had to keep my son home from daycare a couple of days. Those were wonderful days that had us wishing I could stay home with him all the time, but for now that's just not in the cards for us. I've gotten most of the cleaning done as I've been home more, but groceries and studying are severely lacking. 
With this in mind, I will most likely not be keeping this Sabbath with my family. Instead, I will be hard at work studying. I want to keep it real here. I could lie and say that of course, I will keep the Sabbath, but I probably won't. What good will it do to keep a day of rest if I spend the entire day stressing over all the things I haven't gotten around to this week? What good will it do me, if my focus isn't on our Heavenly Father, but on worldly matters? I honestly think it will be better to spend the day getting somewhat caught up and then working towards being able to keep the next Sabbath. 
During this week I found an old pamphlet I had on the Sabbath written by a Danish Rabbi. In it, there was a section on what to do if you had to work. The Rabbi said to try to avoid it if at all possible, but if it had to be done, it had to be done and then the Sabbath rest should be pursued some other day. 
For us, the Sabbath is a time of rest, reflection and fellowship. We just happen to have a day like that lined up Sunday. So for this week that will constitute my Sabbath. Is it perfect? No. Should I strive to do better next week? Yes. Will God forgive me for my worldly concerns and preoccupations? I hope so.  

### What have been (/ would be) the biggest hurdle for you in keep the Sabbath?