today's learnings...

I had the undeniable privilege of sitting at my friend, Cynthia's, home for hours today gleaning from her experience and wisdom. What an incredible experience!

Cynthia and her husband, Bill, have homeschooled for almost 20 years. Their oldest son is finishing his first year at Cornerstone University. During this journey of homeschooling, they have embarked on a pilgrimage of studying the Jewish roots of their Christian faith. They've traveled to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. They've fellowshipped with Jewish friends, learned from rabbis and have developed a deep, deep love for God's chosen people.

I don't know if Bill and Cynthia's pilgrimage will resemble Chad's and mine at all but it was so refreshing and enlightening to learn from her. She shared their journey. She shared the ups and the downs of learning and embracing their Jewish roots of faith.

My desire in meeting with Cynthia today was to learn more of their family's Shabbos (here's a tidbit I learned... Sabbath is the English spelling and pronunciation of the Hebrew term Shabbat. Shabbos is the European Judaism spelling and pronunciation. This family first learned from a European Jew and thus they use the term Shabbos). I wanted to know what their time of rest and worship looked like. Cynthia shared with me traditions that her family does and things that worked and didn't work for them. She gave me some Biblical explanation for some of the traditional Sabbath rituals and shared how much Shabbos means to her family.

I also went to talk with Cynthia about the spring holidays that God ordained in the Old Testament for His people to celebrate. In April, I will be teaching (with a lot of help from Cynthia!) a one day unit study on these spring holidays to our homeschool cooperative as a Bible history class. There is so much to these God ordained holidays and I only have time to do a simple survey of each one. I'm so thankful that He is teaching me so much about these special times. And, I'm praying for all of God's words and none of mine on that day!

So, as I begin to look forward to my family's next Sabbath celebration, I have to say I'm getting excited! I'm enjoying the rhythm of my weeks now that I have Sabbath to look forward to. Thursday, Friday and Saturday I am preparing and anticipating our time of rest and worship as a family. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I am finding myself remembering and reflecting on the time that we had. It's a nice rhythm, a wonderful way to stay focused on my Creator, the creator of rest and worship.