Texas is having a bit of a cold morning and I've quit coffee. I cradle my ginger-peach-green tea and curl my toes into the carpet, too lazy to go put socks on. Hear me, please, I am neither complaining about the chilly 42 degrees nor boasting to my northern counterparts who no doubt would be grateful for a balmy 42 degree mid-November morning. I'm just stating my obvious.

I pick the warmest spot in the house, nestled in with the houseplants soaking up the morning sun, and I start my Sunday.

I'm still getting used to this whole Pick a Service, Any Service church thing. I've picked the 5pm service because I've learned I like starting my Sunday slow. I like pacing it. I like the reminder that Sabbath means rest, and not the harried, hurried Sunday I've always lived. And maybe that makes today just like any other day of my life, starting with tea and bible and writing, but something about today feels different.

We talk about rest the other day. It sneaks into so many conversations these days, perhaps because I'm catching up or perhaps because it is my year of Jubilee, I don't know. But Isaiah is always there, on my tongue "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength." And today I read Psalm 116: Return to your rest; for the Lord has been good to you.

Somehow that prevailing feeling comes to we who practice a day of rest that it is the hurrah of the week, the last day and the dealings are finished, we don't pay our bills, we don't pound a nail, we don't add to our load.

But today, I return to my rest knowing that in doing so I acknowledge that the Lord has been good to me. That this sabbath is not about putting my feet up or laughing with friends or purposing to not think about work or bills or weeks, it is about the confession of God's goodness.

He did it after all. In that first story," It is good," He said, "and then He rested."