Sunday

Sunday’s seem to be one of the most difficult days of the week. I find it interesting. My observations are that each person views Sunday as a day where they get to choose what they want to do, but as a family it doesn’t always work. I also feel like it’s the one day where Satan and his minions want to destroy you, and they work EXTRA hard at doing so.

I grew up just as many Christians do, knowing that Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest. What exactly that meant though, it has changed over the years. In the scriptures it says it’s a day to rest from labors, we should keep it holy, and have our worship and thoughts be toward the Lord. As I have grown and developed Sunday has been many things for me. It has always been a day where I did not go to work at any job. It has been a day where no shopping has been done, no going out to eat, or getting gas or those types of things. As a child it meant going to church, maybe napping, having a nice dinner and some fighting and playing with my siblings, and the Disney movie special on ABC. Somtimes it also included going to Grandma’s house. As a teen, I started using it as a day to listen to churchy music, read the scriptures or other church related things, trying to feel the Holy Spirit and learning of God. As a young married person, I tried to keep it that way. As I had babies and was a young mother, it became a desperate time to get a break from the kids with my husband home. My nice church clothes turned into practical wash and wear church clothes and wondering why I attended church to constantly be in the hallway and wondering why I was there because fighting my kids at church wasn’t any fun. I’d come home and just crash. I hated the effort and battle that ensued. I guess that’s why it is where I am now.

Now that my kids are teens and tweens, I just think that they’ll grasp that it’s a holy day. That they’ll start thinking like I did and want to feel closer to God. I realize that I was a “special” child and that my realization at 11 that God was real and that I wanted to be close to him was unusual, but it’s not unheard of. I guess I just have thought that my kids would have similar desires. They don’t. They are normal kids who fight me on speding family time together, reading scriptures as a family and having gospel discussions seems like a constant battle.

Sunday’s go like this at my home. I get up before everyone. I shower, then get my daughter up so she can shower and wash hair. When she finishes, I get the boys up and one showers while the other eats and starts getting ready. We fight about getting ready, using the bathroom, what’s for breakfast, how to do hair, who’s breathing where etc etc. At some point we have all eaten, gotten ready and are waiting to go to church. We all have different levels of attitude whether good or bad about heading there. Some days I have tried to listen to gospel music, or a talk from some church authority to help lighten the mood in the mornings, but it doesn’t always work. I fight with my kids on what they are putting in their heads all Sunday with television, books, homework EVERYTHING.

Once at church we fight on whether one can walk around before it starts, where to sit, who to sit by, who sits where in the pew, if one can do something in their laps before the sacrament, and so much more. When church is finished, the gathering and finding of each other is a hassle, the getting home and whether to chat with people can be difficult, but it’s all exciting. Home it is. Church clothes off-which is always a fight to get hung and put away nicely, and then the fight of pajama’s or other clothes that I do not deem appropriate wear, but have mostly given up, what to have for lunch or meal or whatever time it is, and if someone wants a nap, what is the appropriate noise level in the house? Everyone has an agenda. What they feel is appropriate or inappropiate for Sunday. Even husband/father has differing opinons from mine. All becomes a battle.

Truthfully, I think everyone could improve where they are at with Sunday holiness and worhip, including myself. I don’t have the answers, but I know I do not feel good about what happens in my own home on Sunday’s. Everyone is an indiviual, and you want to encourage the learning and spirit of the home, but don’t want to shove it down anyone’s throat. I do not know how to make any of this better, but I hope that I am doing the best I can and setting the best example I can most of the time. In the end, I hope that Satan doesn’t win and that my family will be able to feel the spirit and realize the importance of the gospel and have testimonies of their own. I only wish it wasn’t so painful.