Writing Restored by the Sabbath

by Emme Gannon @GannonEmme

Sunday was a sacred day to my grandmother—a day where she would abstain from all manual labor. From her morning worship experience at church, she would reflect on her life and His purpose for her being. In the afternoon our family would gather at her modest home to enjoy a meal that she had laboriously prepared the day before and had only to warm in the oven for all to enjoy.

For my Nanny, concentrating solely on the Lord and His gift of family on that day was her lifeline. It was where the voices of the world became interrupted by the voice of God. It was where His divine orders became illuminated and truth revealed. Having been orphaned at age five, she learned early the importance of knowing His voice and direction, lessons that would ground her when she was widowed at a young age and left to care for her three children. 

Sundays at my grandmother’s house taught me the importance of setting aside a day to reflect on what is really important. School and petty differences were all set aside as we gathered after church in the sacred space of my grandmother’s home. Lest we forget what that day was about, she’d placed lovely framed scriptures and reminders in every room. One saying that had been cleverly placed on the dining room wall especially stayed with me and my brother and our cousins. One that we have taught our own children. “Only one life, it will soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.” As we followed scents of homemade buttermilk biscuits, fried chicken, and cinnamon cake, that plaque on the wall would catch our eyes. It soon became tattooed in our minds, ready to blink like a neon light at the most opportune times.

It is out of the place of rest and relaxation that our bodies, souls, and spirits refresh and change course from the responsibilities of the world to the realm of the holy. A place where God meets our waiting heart and is able to whisper meaning into all the turmoil and busyness of the past six days. We reconnect. We contemplate. We abandon our will for God’s. We are restored once again from the kingdom of the world to the kingdom of God.

Resting on the Sabbath used to be an American tradition until states began allowing commerce to continue on Sunday. As more and more companies embraced the seven-day week, Americans easily became caught up in the constant busyness of our world. Sunday soon became a day to catch up on what we’d not had time to do in the past hectic six days. 

How does constant busyness affect the writer? 

Jesus said in Matthew 12:34, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Or, we might say, the writer writes. What we pour into our hearts is what flows out of our being and into our writing. The only way we can truly write from God’s heart is to know His heart. The only way to know His heart is to take time to meditate on His Word and the power of who He is and the individual purpose He has for each of us. By rejecting time spent in rest before the Lord, we risk losing our soul to worldly thinking. 

Being the best you can isn’t enough. We’ll never reach our potential by striving. Only by surrender to the God who formed us in our mother’s womb and whose love for His children is a creative force that can only be known by intimacy with Him. By resting in His presence, we enter the creative world of the spirit that is unknown to those who are living by the standards of the world. It’s a challenge in today’s world to set aside the Sabbath as a day of rest and meditation, but a choice that has untold blessings.

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Emme Gannon is a wife, mother, and grandmother who loves to write stories that stir the heart. Her award-winning writing has appeared in Focus on the Family magazine, several anthologies, and numerous newsletters. She just completed her first novel.