Preparing for the Lord's Day

“Consider the Lord’s Day an honour and delight. Let your heart be elevated in holy joy, and your lips be employed in the high praises of God. This day more resembles heaven, than any other portion of our time; and we should endeavour to imitate the worship of heaven, according to that petition of the Lord’s prayer — “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Never permit the idea to enter your mind, that the Sabbath is a burden. It is a sad case, when professing Christians are weary of this sacred rest, and say, like some of old, “When will the Sabbath be gone, that we may sell corn, and set forth wheat?” As you improve this day, so probably will you be prospered all the week.”
From Archibald Alexander on the Lord's Day.

I have been wanting to add my voice to some of the discussions going on lately about keeping the Lord’s Day. In keeping with the purpose of my blog, I want to talk about the practical aspects that apply to the homemaker. There is much to talk about!
I think that the first thing that must be talked about is premeditation.
It is very important, that if mother is to have a rest on the Lord’s Day as well, that she plan and work for it all the rest of the week.

Karen Mains in her book, “Making Sunday Special” talks about the rythym of the week with Sunday as the pinnacle. On Monday-Wednesday, we look back to Sunday, and Thursday through Saturday we look forward.

I have made a list of things that must get done for the Lord’s Day. Things such as a meal made (we have to eat!) and clothes cleaned. And then a list of things that ought to get done – it is certainly more restful if the living areas are nice and neat, and we love sitting down to a lovely table on this day of days.

Then I decided what needs to get done in the first part of the week, the looking back part.
On Monday we clean up any leftover mess from Sunday, and there’s plenty! The dishes might not have all gotten clean, only rinsed and stacked. The extra chairs are all out and about if we’ve had company. And dirt was probably tracked in from our ungrassy backyard.
On Tuesday, there are shoes to shine or clean, and perhaps suits to have cleaned. There is also lots of laundry to be done, because we probably have only done what was absolutely necessary on Saturday, leaving the day for other things.

Wednesday is a planning day and because it is often a company day in and of itself, I try to make some dishes that I can also use on Sunday or Saturday.

Thursday and Friday, we make sure that we know where our Sunday clothes are and get them ready if need be. We begin any cooking and preperation for special activities.
Saturday is the day that I always say has three days worth of work in it! Now it doesn’t have to be so, but I am an unorganized person…the things that I plan to do don’t always (should I even say usually?) get done. I might plan to start cooking on Wednesday, but whether I do or not is a question.

On Saturday, I have, in the past tried to get all of my work done by around 1:00 in the afternoon. That way, I had some time to prepare my own heart before our Lord’s Day eve dinner. And do you know what? Having a special dinner on Saturday after which the work stops and the enjoyment of Sunday begins forces me to be more diligent in preparing! We haven’t done a Lord’s Day eve dinner in several years, though we are beginning to think of it again.

Now –a –days, Saturday is filled with baking, cleaning and school planning, and the occasional contra-dance or party. My goal is to be done with everything in time to get a good night’s sleep and not have preparations on my mind as I rise on Sunday morning.