Remembering to Rest

I remember being told to remember the Sabbath Day, as if it were possible to forget.

Sundays were for two-hour drives (one way) to the closest church my father approved of. Sundays meant no work, no school, no play. With my undiagnosed religious OCD, I was skilled at self-policing. I only read my Bible or Elsie Dinsmore and other books ordered from the Vision Forum catalog because anything else would have been too “secular” and not “edifying” for Sunday. I played only hymns on the piano. We listened to Doug Wilson and R.C. Sproul on our way to church in the morning.

There wasn’t much time for anything other than traveling and worshiping. We had a church service in the morning, followed by a fellowship time with snacks that women and children had prepared, followed by another church service, followed by all the children packing up the metal folding chairs because we were actually meeting in a high school cafeteria and not a church building.