I admit it. I was a little crispy fried a couple of weeks ago. I hadn’t had a full day off in a few weeks. A few hours here and there but there were a couple of short term projects that needed to be completed and this wasn’t the normal schedule.
Finally, Wednesday came, our day off and and I took full advantage of it. I woke up early, and stretched out and decided I had nowhere to go, so I read, watched some TV and stayed in my pajamas. Until about 10:30 then Doug and I got ready to go out to eat.
He surprised me by heading out of town to go have some fun. Both of our phones kept ringing. Work, counseling, work, advice, work. At one frustrated point, I said,
“Wait! Everyone knows it’s our day off. Why do they call us anyway with non-emergencies?”
The answer was simple, we didn’t have boundaries.
The calls weren’t emergencies. They were simple things. I wasn’t mad at the people, I was annoyed with myself knowing that I hadn’t set boundaries to protect time off.
Sometimes, things are your own fault. So when you are feeling frustrated, ask yourself, “What am I doing to cause this?”
No, you didn’t set up the phone calls but you did respond even if it was just to open and read the text message or the email or listen to the voicemail.
What boundaries do you have to put into place so that you can get quiet and have some down time?
Remember, Sabbath is not a suggestion. It’s a commandment.
Pastor Susan 