How To Change Your Life With One Day

Are you exhausted from doing all the mom things? Maybe you are a mom who spends the week keeping up with the kids’ homework or home education, meals for everyone, the home, and all the things, and feels like there is just no rest anywhere in sight. Maybe you have a side job or a farm, or both, on top of it all, and it’s just always go-go-go, leaving you feeling like a spinning top. Well, today I’m going to tell you How To Change Your Life With One Day.

Lately, a growing number of moms who are raising and home-educating multiple children reach out to me on my YT channel, Mountain Mama’s Home. They want to know things like, how I do the homemaking, the homesteading, the homeschooling and still find rest? How do I find a moment to myself? How do I deal with the overstimulation, the overwhelm, the constant motion all of these things?

Across the board, many are expressing desperate burnout, anxiety, and heartache. Some of them, like me, need to hold part-time jobs, in addition to it all.

I Get It

Since we are a family who early on decided to let the Lord take the wheel when it came to the size of our family, we have a larger family. We are 8 in all, with 6 blessings that fill our heart with more joy then we ever thought could exist this side of heaven.

We also believe that the Lord has called us to home educate our most precious blessings, and we have been blessed with a homestead for our family that is providing healthy food, as well as businesses to help us provide (gotta keep afloat somehow).

We have many plates full, so I get this question from the mama’s asking me. I understand it deeply, to my core.

In my journey I’ve experienced so much overwhelm, loneliness, exhaustion, and even sickness. I’m actually currently dealing with a chronic illness. But I’ve learned little secret I discovered that I will share with you today that helps me tremendously.

Some people are not going to like what I have to say about this, but those people are not who this message is for. This message is for those holding on by a thread.

My Secret

I have learned that the devil wants us chasing our tails. He doesn’t want us to have a moment’s peace. He knows if we are run down, depleted, exhausted, always running here and there, that we become weak. When we are exhausted and weak, he can have his way with us. If he can have his way with us, he has an open door to our children.

I discovered that the solution to this problem is quite simple. In fact, the solution is even listed as one of the 10 commandments. Not kidding! How simple is that!? Here it is…

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

It took me way too long to figure this out, but my secret is that I have a Sabbath day, and I have learned the hard way that I must protect it.

A Typical Mother’s Sunday

For a woman with young children, Sunday’s typically look like this.

Wake up.
Wake the family up.
Make breakfast.
Get the kids fed (all of this takes time which is ticking by and the mom is keeping an every watchful eye on, keep in mind).
Next, get the kids ready. Have you ever brushed a little girls long baby fine hair? There’s nothing quick about that. Half the kids can’t find their shoes and the youngest won’t leave his on once you do find them. He won’t leave his clothes on either. Or his diaper.
Finally, 30 minutes before it’s time leave, mom must race. She needs to make herself presentable. She’s running out of time and now the stress is on. If she finds a split second to check her appearance in the mirror she feels self conscious because she didn’t have enough time to get ready is embarrassed to be seen like this, but anyhoo, it’s time to go!
As mom gets in the car she feels frumpy and frustrated and frazzled.
Everyone piles in the car and goes to Church. Mom enjoys a brief moment of “rest” (as long as the kids are not bickering).
Get to Church.
Now it’s time to smile and be sociable! For the introverted moms, this is absolutely exhausting.
Get everyone seated and listen to the sermon. Somedays it was great and she got something out of it! Some Sunday’s, not so much.
Now time to socialize again.
Now it’s time to go home. Another brief and debatable”break”.
Family get’s home, and it’s past lunch time. Some weeks that went smoothly she was able to prepare a Sunday casserole in advance, other weeks that didn’t go as planned-no casserole.
Mom makes lunch and feeds everyone.
Mom washes the dishes and cleans the kitchen.
It’s now 2 or 3.
Finally mom can now rest for an hour.
Now it’s time to start dinner and the evening rush is on.
Day over.

After some time of doing this with my small children, I realized there was no rest in it. None at all.

Sunday History

In researching for this video/post, I found some interesting information about the Sabbath and Sunday.

I think everybody knows that originally, in Hebrew times, Saturday was regarded as the seventh day, and the true Sabbath day. That’s a rabbit trail that we won’t digress onto other then to say, apparently, it was Constantine who established Sunday as a day of rest around 321 AD.

Here is where it gets interesting. Around 365, Laodicea (basically like an ancient metropolis) counseled the Catholic Church to make it illegal “to “be idle from work” on the Sabbath. SEE HERE.

I had to read that 3 times to make sure I read it right. I’m still not sure I read it right. The Catholic church made it illegal to obey one of the 10 comandments?

Laodicea is thought to be the same group of cities Jesus condemned SEE HERE. Apparently they had adopted a lot a bad doctrine, among other things.

I don’t find this difficult to believe, seeing as they made it illegal to rest on the Sabbath.

To me, it seems we are still under Laodicea ruling because the cold, hard fact is that if you have a gaggle of young children, there is absolutely nothing restful about getting everybody up at the crack of dawn, and getting everyone ready to rush out the door. There is absolutely no way this does not qualify as work, and not just work, but STRESSFUL work. If you have done it you know.

I guess those Laodicean’s were a lot like society now, they like to keep mama’s hoppin.

I know. You only ever hear of the devout Christian church going women of young ones talking about how they do this every Sunday. They talk about how hard it is. But they firmly believe they are doing what all of us should be doing, and they believe this is the righteous sacrifice to make, and the right thing to do. If you don’t, well you are just wrong.

I have several points to make today regarding this.

The first one is this. I’m not a legalist, but one could argue that instead of making one more righteous, working half the day to prepare your family for church on the day we regard as Sabbath could be considered as breaking one of the 10 commandments and therefore making one less righteous.

The second is another important verse a lot of people miss. Colossians 2:16 which reads, “Therefore do no let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.”

What About Hebrews 10:25?

I know what you are thinking now. What about Hebrews 10:25 where it reads,

“not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as ye see the Day approaching.”

I think the first fact we should establish is that this verse does not say, “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together on the Sabbath day”. Nor does it say, “You are commanded to assemble yourself weekly”, or “You must be at every assembly that takes place.”

The second fact we need to acknowledge is that God did not command people to gather on the Sabbath day. As we’ve established, congregations meeting religiously every Sunday is a human-made idea.

We will come back around to Hebrews 10:25 because I have something else to point out about it, but for now let’s take a look at some more of the things the Bible does say.

Jesus Said “I’ll Give You Rest”

In Titus 2, women with young children are commanded to be “keepers at home” and to love their children and husbands.

Obeying this verse is work. Women with young children care for their children all week. This work is hard work, and it’s even harder for those who are homeschooling.

Religious church going mamas end up having to work Sunday too, and we often hear them express exhaustion over the whole church morning routine. When they do, they are systemically told, “It’s because Satan is trying to keep you from coming!”

But here is what Jesus said.

Matthew 11 Verses 28 to 30, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

There ain’t nothing light about getting a bunch of kids ready for Church on Sunday morning, let alone every Sunday morning.

A lesson I’ve learned in life, is that if something is too heavy, it’s because I’m either not relying on God enough, or because I’ve taken on something God didn’t ask me to. Jesus said He gives us rest.

Since God is not going to step down and get my children ready for church on Sunday so that I can obey Exodus 20 and rest like my body, heart, and soul desperately need in order to heal and recover and mentally prepare for the week ahead, then it is clearly my choice to spend half the day working to rush the family out the door.

Home Church Counts Too!

If guilt was a destination, I think some (not all) churches, and some Christians could be travel agents.

Have you ever experienced being guilt tripped because you didn’t go to church?

I have. It used to work on me too. I’ve since come to learn a dark fact that was very difficult to accept.

There are many wonderful church leaders. Leaders who go above and beyond, who continuously work tirelessly and sacrifice time, donations, and so much labor to the church and activities. They have earnest hearts and love.

But sadly, just as the Bible told us there would be, there exist false prophet leaders who prioritize power and money over hearts. Full pews is their ego ticket to ride and their pay too, and they will misuse Hebrews 10:25 against you in a heartbeat.

There are also misinformed leaders who are simply inexperienced and don’t know any better.

These same leaders usually refuse to recognize that a Christian mother of young children is, like them, also in ministry.

They also refuse to recognize Christian homeschooling is a ministry.

They think they alone carry the ministry torch, when the fact is if more mothers and fathers were encouraged and supported to see their role as a critical leading discipleship ministry the world would be a better place, and church leaders would not have bigger jobs than they can clearly handle.

⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:6-9

This is a command to parents to disciple their children.

Sadly, instead of encouraging parents to do this, too many churches embrace sending our most precious vulnerable and weakest away from us, and into the Godless, prayerless, soft and sometimes hard war zones we call public education where small children are forced to undergo school shooting drills and learn that there are 12 different genders. The result is hurting generations of kids who become lost souls (many of which ironically spent their childhoods being taken to church).

Quite diabolical if you ask me.

But I digress.

Back to the guilt trips. They used to work on me, until after having my 4th child, homeschooling awhile, dealing with taking care of the children all week, and cooking from scratch to accommodate one of my children’s many food allergies, and then working half Sunday too, I realized something wasn’t right.

I started feeling like a light bulb that was always left on, and I started experiencing health issues and major burnout.

For awhile I was mad at God. I thought he had forgotten the mother’s plight by never providing mothers like me a moment to breathe and rest. But then it was around that time a revelation hit my husband and I.

We realized we had a handful of kids. Then we realized that if we called our family together in the living room living room for a study and some worship we were an assembly of people!

We realized when we did this we were fulfilling Hebrews 10:25.

Here is the really cool thing that Satan doesn’t want anybody to know. Homeschooling moms have opportunity to do this daily.

Now before some disgruntled devout churchgoers get all huffy, and suggest getting everything ready the day before Church, let me just state that sure! This might work for some! But one size does not fit all. Not everyone can take half a day on Saturday to prepare their young family. In addition to this, MANY mothers find that even though they DO get everything ready the day before, it doesn’t always make a difference.

The fact is, the Bible does say in Matthew 18:20 “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” It does not specify where they need to gather.

Tips for a Restful Sunday

I have a few suggestions and tips that can help you have a more peaceful, restful Sunday that leaves you recharged and ready for the week ahead.

Before I share the tips though, I want to say this. There are seasons of life where it will be very difficult to create a restful Sunday. When I was homeschooling 6, before my oldest graduated, I was in a long season of grueling hard work. It was the best I could do just to carve out a couple of hours of rest on Sunday. I know there are hard seasons in motherhood especially for large family, homeschooling parents.

Currently, there is still one and sometimes two Sunday’s a month where there are things that must be done one Sunday because life happens during the week. For example, we recently had a very sick dog that we had to take care of and it cost me a couple days, which had to be made up for on Sunday. I believe Luke 14:5 addresses this issue, ” And He said to them, “Which one of you will have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?”

The trick is to not to let the seasons become permanent. At some point it’s important to begin trying to get back into a habit of resting on Sunday. I have a few videos on time management HERE and HERE that can help you with this.

Here are 5 tips that can help you begin to create restful and precious Sabbath days for your self and your family.

Tip 1. Plan Ahead

Just as if you were planning a dinner party, you can plan ahead for a restful Sunday starting on Friday. On Friday make a Sunday meal plan and get the food purchased or out of the freezer that you intend to have on Sunday.

Currently, I work half of Saturday in the office around 2 Saturdays a month. After work, however, I try to put together the food plan and make as much as possible in advance.

On the other two Saturday’s a month I will have a cooking marathon (where I’m also working and filming), and I make as much food as I can for Sunday and the week ahead. Those always make for the best Sunday’s and weeks!

Try to have a breakfast casserole like this one prepared ahead of time for a restful Sunday Morning.

Tip 2. Clean The House

If possible, get the house clean! It’s so much nicer to rest in a clean home. If you don’t have time to clean at least try to tidy the place up.

We clean on Friday at our home, sometimes on Saturday. In our home I guess you could say Sabbath starts Saturday evening, and it’s not uncommon that we leave the dishes on Saturday night. And I will admit, on Sunday, our home looks like a disaster again. But everyone is happy, fed, cozy, peaceful and RESTED.

Tip 3. Don’t Forsake The Assembly

This can be the hard one. I think it’s one of the most important things to do though. As a family, gather everyone in and sit down together for a Bible reading or if you want to get fancy, a Bible study. Don’t forget the discussion time! That’s the best part where you can talk about ways to apply what you just read!

Lately, my husband has been reading through Proverbs with our family.

Tip 4. Rest

If you are a doer, this can be the hardest part of all! It’s important though because this is what can help you keep from burnout. Find a way to rest, and relax.

Tip 5. Spend Quality Time Together

I believe satan would love nothing more than to keep families from tying heartstrings and having good times together. Sunday is the perfect day to spend some time making sweet memories together and stop and smell the roses. One thing we’ve started doing is having a game afternoon, and it’s been a delight to spend time being goofy with the kids!

Final Thoughts

Our family has found a church that we love. I rarely attend, but I love it. The pastor is a good shepherd who has helped our family in times of trial. I know we can call on him and he would be there.

Even though we don’t attend regularly, we cherish the times we do get to, and the church has made a difference in our children’s lives.

To millions, Church is needed. I believe it’s especially important for youth.

Churches rooted in Christ regularly give millions of people strength, fellowship, and therapy, every day, and there is POWER and LIFE in the church. There is power in gathering with other believers and praying. We need more earnest pastors and church leaders who are seeking first the Kingdom of God, and this world would be a much more terrible place without them and the church leaders and the work they do.

I also believe in tithing to our local churches, unfortunately, money is a necessary evil needed to survive and pastors and churches need to survive.

In addition to this, there are times where we (especially mothers in the trenches) need fellowship. Proverbs 27:17 reads “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”

On the other side of the same hand, there can be death and powerlessness in the church as well when church leaders fail to recognize that there are other members of the same Body of Christ with different looking but equally important callings and needs.

Ideally, we would all be able to take a Saturday as a “Sabbath” rest day. Ideally, we would then be able to attend Church on Sunday. But the reality is this simply would not work for many families on a regular basis for a variety of reasons.

Home church works too (so long as you actually go through with it). Today is a time where we even have the ability to do virtual church, and we can tune in to sermons online. So many churches do local livestreams which is amazing.

In Mark 2:27-28 Jesus tells us, “And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.”

I believe Romans 14 applies to us all, and this is one instance where to me, it fits perfectly.

If a mother has the health, the energy, and the need to be in Church every Sunday, and has found a way to do this with minimal stress and work, then that is what she should do.

For anyone to say this is a requirement that ALL mothers and even fathers of young should live up to and make sacrifices to fulfill is not Scriptural, and I believe it is putting pharasitical yokes on people that God does not. If the church is hindering you from fulfilling the responsibilities God has called you to, including rest, and if it has become a yoke of slavery, something isn’t right.