Do You Need a “Snow” Day?

Like much of the country, our little farm here in East Tennessee saw record-breaking cold and snow during the month of January. And even though I’m a homeschool mom, I celebrated with many of you when our activities were canceled and we were forced to stay home, hunker down, and lay low.

(I must be honest. In my short career as a farmer, I’ve learned that the animals on our farm still need water and food when the weather is bad. I’ve come to understand that farming does not shut down for the cold. But while we still had to get out and bucket sustenance to our chickens and ducks and sheep, the snow and cold did put a stop to our nonessential farm chores.)

Our family has tight rules in place that limit our outside activities so we can be centered on our life here in East Tennessee. But I still find that being a mom of four children means the words tired and busy constantly tumble out of my mouth. As we sat on the couch during this time of snow, the fire in our woodstove blazing and blankets tucked around our legs as we watched movies and drank hot cocoa, I couldn’t help but think, Why does it take God shutting down the town with snow for me to shut myself down and rest? Why does it take an act of God for us to just stop?

As the weatherman began warning us of frigid temperatures and icy conditions, I heard my friends sharing variations of a common theme: “Man, I hope it snows. We could use a break. I really need to not have to do anything for a day.”

The Bible is full of Scripture encouraging us to rest.

In Matthew 11:28, Jesus said “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (NIV). In Mark 6:31, he encouraged his disciples to get away from the crowds: “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (NIV). Even the well-known Twenty-Third Psalm reminds us that God “makes [us] lie down in green pastures, he leads [us] beside quiet waters, he refreshes [our souls]” (verse 2).

I mean, even God took a break after creation.

In the past, our family has purposely tried to take Sundays off. No big farm chores. No technology. No going out and doing things. It was amazing how good it felt to pull out board games, take naps, and just rest–together. But my husband is an ER physician and works many weekends and holidays. (He never gets a snow day!) We tried to rotate our Sabbath to a different day of the week when he worked on Sundays, but we soon lost focus and stopped doing it altogether.

I tell you that to remind you that we all have our exceptions and excuses. We always have reasons why we can’t make rest a priority. But even the busiest of us has the opportunity to make changes that can help us heal physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

In this new year, I want to encourage you with eight ideas that could keep your family from getting too busy so you can find more rest:

1. Start small. Choose one or two things you can do on a daily or weekly basis to make you and your family rest.
2. Put down the phone. Stop sitting and scrolling. Sit down (or lie down!) without the phone. Stop even allowing the phone in your bedroom. We waste so much time on our phones. Use the time you would have been scrolling to just rest!
3. Say no! I recommend the book The Best Yes by Lysa TerKeurst. One of the major lessons I took away from it is that just because you have the financial or physical ability to say yes doesn’t mean you have the emotional fortitude to say yes.
4. Introduce moments of calm. Whenever I can, I escape the cacophony of little voices, put on a movie to keep them occupied and not fighting among themselves, and lie down on my bed. I try to take an hour of horizontal time each day. I don’t always get it, and I don’t always sleep, but not being “on” for an hour is so helpful.
5. Rethink your to-do list. Because I live out in the country, I can’t (and don’t want to) go into town every day. I’m purposeful about what I need and when I need it. My goal is to not leave my farm two days a week. Staying home for two days might not be possible for you, but you can try to determine what you can cut out or consolidate so you aren’t “going” so much.
6. Schedule downtime. Consider, for instance, putting “play board games as a family” on your to-do list!
7. Take a sabbath. Taking a Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments. And yet how many of us actually preserve a Sabbath at all? Do some research on what this means and how you can follow this commandment with your family.
8. Schedule an occasional “snow” day! We shouldn’t need the weatherman to tell us we need time together. Take a personal day at work. Keep the kids out of school. Put away the homeschool materials and pretend it’s snowing outside.

Wendi Kitsteiner is a former city girl now living on a farm in the middle of nowhere, Tennessee with her husband and four young children. She is passionate about the causes of infertility, adoption, and keeping it real as a mom. You can follow her at flakymn.blogspot.com or becauseofisaac.org.

Photograph © Randy Fath, used with permission