Growing up, we didn’t buy anything on Sunday. Not gas, not food, nothing. We didn’t watch movies or listen to the radio or clean our rooms or do our homework on Sunday.
I resented it, sometimes, but now I am glad. Because of those rules, Sundays became days of socialization and community.
There was church in the morning and church in the evening. In-between services I either went to a friend’s house or stayed home and slept and read books. After the evening service, I went to a youth thing, or stayed home and played games with my family.
They were beautiful days.
I don’t have any cut and dried ideas about what is “okay” to do on a Sunday and what isn’t. I guess that’s for you to decide personally, to set rules for your family but not necessarily the rest of the world. But for me, I would like to honor Sundays like I did growing up.
It is hard.
Now I am convinced that it is possible to go through college without ever doing any homework on Sundays. But I kept getting into a cycle of getting lazy and depressed during the week, slacking on the homework, and then working overtime on the weekends trying to get caught up. I saw it as a sort of crime and punishment thing. I failed during the week, so now I had to pay for it by doing homework on my special day.
I was fully planning to do no homework today. I was caught up, and if I worked hard on Saturday there would be nothing to do on Sunday.
However…(of course there has to be a however)
I got nothing done on Saturday. It was one of those days. A fail day. So here I am, doing homework and housecleaning on Sunday.
Here is the strange thing. The reason why I’m writing this post. Today has been one of the best Sundays I’ve had since I started school. If you don’t count the days when I’ve had visitors, it is the very best. From the time I got up to now I’ve been doing something. Cleaning, studying, sorting my money, something.
I realized that if I didn’t do any work on Sunday I would have nothing to do and the day would become just another lonely fail day. I realized that the only good parts of the past Sundays were going to church and doing homework.
So now I am in a quandary. If I don’t work on Sunday, what am I supposed to do?
I have drawn the line here: I will not write on Sundays. Well I write, obviously I’m writing now, but I don’t work on my novel. I don’t work on anything that I’m hoping to sell. I guess that’s the one thing I can do, you know. Keep from making money on Sundays.
What are your opinions on Sundays, and keeping them sacred?
The Girl in the Red Rubber Boots 
Hey, lady! Love to keep up with you via FB.
The idea of Sunday has taken me years to figure out. For a long time, I would use it as a catch up day, kind of like you are doing now, especially when I was in college.
Over the years, I have come to the point where I see it as a day of delight. Delight in the Lord, delight in my family and friends, and delight in creation. The idea to set aside one day and make it different from all the others has been a challenge to keep. I admit that sometimes it gets obliterated by other things but, overall, we have enjoyed the specialness so much that we try to preserve it.
I like to begin the day by focusing on God, who gave us all the goodness that we enjoy. It is a privilege to spend time with others singing praises. The rest of the day is to be with people we love, or enjoy the outdoors. Maybe we will eat food we especially enjoy or do a fun activity. I guess you would say it is about building relationships using the gift of time. And that is especially significant with our busy lifestyles.
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I was talking about this very thing with my husband today. I was raised similarly to you and still struggle to figure out how to “remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.” I think that you are wise to ask what to do on Sunday instead of focusing on what not to do. Things to do, in my opinion, include spending time focusing on God, resting and getting refreshed. For me this means that I need to plan ahead to get my homework done(which I REALLY struggle to do)and have my home organized enough that I don’t find it constantly calling me to some project. I’m thinking that God is also drawing me to be less involved technologically on Sunday. I’m definately a work in progress and this issue is one that I’m still refining.
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