How to Plan Ahead for a Day of Rest

So the circumstances were that I had just given my life to Christ after having been a runaway drug abuser, sexually abused, in and out of mental institutions with a single mom and kind of a distant father. Ann's life was a mess.

She didn't know the first thing about how to be a good wife or mother. So focus on the family was like manna to me. Every day I needed wisdom. I needed guidance. I needed the lessons and the teaching that came every day from 11 to 1130 into my kitchen. And I know today that my life has changed because of Focus on the Family.

I'm Jim Daly. Working together, we can give families hope and equip more parents like Ann. And thanks to a special match right now, any gift you send will be doubled. Call 800-AFAMILY or donate at focusonthefamily.com slash gift. What a way to say from generation to next, this is what I want our family to look like. We're the kind of family that slows down and connects with each other. We're the kind of family that after dinner, we help each other with the dishes and putting the ketchup away. We're that kind of family. And for our kids to know that they grew up in a family where conversations were safe, prayers were said, food was prepared.

What a gift. That's Kathy Lipp and she's with us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. She'll be talking about the importance of a day of quiet and rest during your week and how you can get there. Thanks for joining us.

I'm John Fuller. You know, John, in our very busy and often overloaded lives, that day of rest becomes more and more important. I think the older you get, the more you realize, you know, the Sabbath is an important day and the Lord told us to take that day off and commune with him and talk with him and kind of use family time around that.

So here at Focus, we care about your relationship with the Lord and those around you, your family. And Kathy Lipp is back to talk about how important it is to have a Sabbath day. And she's been here a number of times. Always, we always get a popular response when she's here. She and Roger have four adult children and she has written over 20 books. She's got a podcast.

She does a lot of different things. So it'll be interesting to find out how this concept of Sabbath is something that Kathy has been applying in her own life. The book that forms the foundation for our conversation today is called Sabbath Soup. I think that you got your answer.

There you are. Weekly menus and rhythms to make space for a day of rest. It's a terrific book, so colorful, really well put together.

And you can get more details about it and request your copy from us here at Focus on the Family, column 1-800, the letter A in the word family, or stop by the show notes for all the details. Kathy, welcome back to Focus. Thank you. I always have so much fun here with you guys. Thanks for having me back. Not only do you bring the fun, but this time you brought chocolate chip cookies for us, which wow, that was unexpected. I tried to figure out how to get soup here.

TSA had different ideas. I think cookies were a great second. I'm glad. You and Roger, your husband, made that decision to move out of the city and into the rural parts of your state of California. And it seems like you've gleaned a lot since you've done that. You've kind of gotten an entirely different rhythm to life. And we've talked a bit about that in other shows with you.

But yeah, what's happening? Well, you know, it comes with so many different phases of life. You know, we, we had young adults while we were living in San Jose who needed a lot from us, you know, that you think 18 years and then it feels like, okay, well, that was the beginning. And the kids still need you and the kids still, you never stop parenting, right? And it's nice that they still want to be around us.

So we'll take it. But we did move out to the mountains of Northern California and a lot in our life has changed. And one of the things that really changed for us was really observing more of a rhythm to our lives, not just the calendar year, because where we live, we got 14 feet of snow a couple of years ago.

That's a lot. We're in Colorado. We don't get 14 feet here. But I what I've understood now is Colorado and California, the mountains of California kind of the same, we don't have a lot of fall, we kind of go from summer to okay, winter is here. And you have to observe those rhythms. And I feel like in our, you know, Monday through Sunday, we get more choices about how we observe those. And I've just come to understand that if I take a day off, and for us, it's primarily Sunday, it changes everything about how we live. And it just, it makes our lives run better. I feel more invigorated for work on Monday, I feel more excited for the weekend.

On Friday, everything changes. And I just feel like I'm really able to see the benefits that God has promised with Sabbath, where you're tapping into that, you know, the command the Lord gives us to take a Sabbath day of rest and to really remember him, commune with him, be mindful of him, particularly on that day. We obviously as Christians want to live every day in that way.

But what else is there? I mean, you're talking about the benefits that we derive from that rest. What else is into the Sabbath that we need to identify, especially as believers? Yeah, so I find Sabbath to be the day set aside, particularly where I can spend time with God, I can spend time with those, he's kind of assigned me to so my family, my neighbors, my friends. And then also, it is such a great reminder of God's provision of the the time that we've been given, you know, that God says, we can get what we need to get done in six days.

And what a gift that is. And to be able to take that last day, and rest and recharge and be able to it's just a difference maker in my week, because otherwise all the days kind of run together. And it's easy to feel overwhelmed and exhausted when there's really no true break. Yeah. In that way, food plays a role in the Sabbath break.

It plays a role in every day practically, at least my experience. Yes. But Sabbath is a special time. But the whole concept here is how do you how do you as the preparer, right of most dishes, I'm sure. Not that Roger can't do it, but I don't know. Not his gifting. Let's just say that his gifting is dishes, which I'm grateful for. And if I really don't feel like doing something, he says, I know where the frozen pizzas are. And I know how to barbecue. So like, yeah, you'll do the dishes. I will cook for you all day long. Okay, so now how does food play into the Sabbath back to the original question back to the original question and we're redeeming manhood here? Yes. Okay, so here's what I came to figure out because I've really tried to do this Sabbath thing for a really long time.

And here's what I figured out. We can say, hey, we're not going to work on the Sabbath. Hey, we're not going to, you know, do yard work and things like that. But everybody still wants to eat.

It's very annoying. So what I had to do was treat Sabbath kind of like a mini holiday to say there needs to be some preparation. If I'm going to take time off on Sunday, then food needs to be thought of and prepared before that. And so that's why on Friday or Saturday, I'm doing a lot of cooking to kind of carry me not just through the Sabbath, but through a busy work week.

And so this book is really a plan and the recipes and all of that to make that possible. But I've learned over 35 years of trial and error. Okay, so here's the softball question or a softball question, Kathy. So if you could roll the clock back 30 or 35 years, how could you have gotten yourself in the midst of raising children to get a handle on this in those circumstances? Yeah, because we have a lot of younger moms listening who are thinking good for you. Throw a toddler in that mix. Oh, absolutely.

And by the way, mama for kids. So I'm not speaking in theory. I'm speaking in experience. The first smart thing I did was say when I go to Costco, I'm buying soup on Thursday to have on Sunday. Like I think so much of it is decision fatigue.

Like I can't make one more decision. It's like, oh, they have to eat on Sunday. And so if what I started doing was just saying we're having soup Sunday after church. And it took my ideas from infinity to like 30. Like this tomato soup made it easier.

It made it so much easier. So if we could start saying like, okay, Saturday night or whatever night works for your family is going to be our big meal. You know, that's going to be the roast chicken or the pot roast or whatever that is. And then Sunday after church is soup.

It's always soup. And then we're going to throw a bag salad with that we're going to do a loaf of French bread done because really if I didn't make that decision, it was drive through. Okay. The weekly plan that John was getting to sometimes. And John, you and I did a, we did a video broadcast cooking show video show of once a month cooking. Yes.

And we put our aprons on and we went to town and we made some dishes. People are going, are you serious? You got to look it up.

Rabbit hold and not available. I'm not sure how you find it, but it's somewhere in the archive. But that seemed, you know, it's great once you do it, but it's a day's worth of work. I mean, you're doing 30 meals.

Let, no, it's not a day's worth. Okay. Okay. Good.

Because let me tell you, focus on the family sold me the bill of goods about the 30 days. It works. It works. It works.

It absolutely works. But there is the planning, the shopping, the prepping, yes, exactly. There were friends helping you with this, but you were all helping each other, right? Like we all went together. And by the way, I loved doing that. We did it.

I did it for a long time with five other women. We called ourselves six chicks, freeze and fix. And it was like a store. Yes, we could have, we could have opened a store back in the nineties, right? And, but it was days of work.

It really was. Once it was done, it was great, but you also were not cooking that night cause you were so exhausted and it can work for a lot of people. This is a gentler approach to planning, but I'm very grateful for that 30 day plan back then because that said, okay, I can't do that anymore, but I can do something smaller and there's no product placement going on here.

Costco has not given us a dime for their chicken noodle soup, but it sure is good. Let's talk about that yummy stuff. The food, what kinds of things do you prepare for the weekend versus the week?

Right? So what I like to do is I like to plan some really great meals for the weekend. So like we were talking about before, kind of a roast chicken or a pot, a pot roast or something for Saturday night, you're making enough so you have leftovers.

So if you had four kids like me, you were making two roast chickens or buying two roast chickens at Costco because yes, somewhere Sam's Club also love me some Sam's Club. And then, so we've got soup on Sunday after church and then Sunday night we always do like a family favorite, maybe a lasagna, a chicken cacciatore, something like that. Monday night I'm taking that chicken and I'm making the leftover chicken from Saturday night, making some chicken quesadillas or something like that. I'm taking the, we call those loop meals, leftovers on purpose so that you're not having to cook again. You're just assembling Tuesday leftover soup because you don't make a little soup. You make a lot of soup. And then Wednesday night if you have leftovers from a Sunday night that that lasagna chicken cacciatore, you're going to have that or you're going to go into your freezer, find something from Aldi's or Trader Joe's and you're going to make that. Thursday night everybody goes out to dinner at least once a week, at least every family I know and Friday night at the Lipp household is always pizza. It might be homemade pizza, it might be takeout pizza but there's always a pizza involved and that gets you through your week. John, this was not the day to not have breakfast before coming in. You're running on coffee and one of Kathy's homemade chocolate chip cookies. No kidding.

It's crazy. Now in the book you do concentrate on soup. The title is Sabbath soup. Why is soup the thing on the Sabbath? Okay, first of all, soup is economical.

It's easy. It is delicious. And if I make my soup on Friday, it's going to taste even better on Sunday. It's true. It's like stew.

The longer it's together, the more they act like friends. Exactly. You want all those delicious flavors to melt. Now there's over a hundred recipes. Only 24 of them are soup.

The rest of them are all the other things I talk about in there. We've got some great breakfast recipes, but soup is that easy decision. If you just say, hey, Sunday after church is soup, you've helped yourself so, so much. And I believe soup season is year round. I love a good chili in the summer. I love a good tortilla, chicken soup, anything like that year round.

I love a soup. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly and our guest today is Kathy Lipp. We're talking about her book, Sabbath Soup, weekly menus and rhythms to make space for a day of rest. And we've got copies of that here at the ministry.

Get in touch. 1-800, the letter A and the word family, 800-232-6459. We're stopped by the show notes for all the details. Kathy, Jean was fantastic at the dinner meal. I mean, it was so consistent and the kids would, you know, the boys would come up and we'd spend an hour, a lot of laughs, a lot of fun around the dinner table. And I think we did it mostly because it just was the right thing to do. It felt like that's where we get our time together as a family. But you know, later now research has come out that really supports this. And what it's pointing to is a rhythm.

And this is where I'm going for you because in the book you talk about the importance of rhythms with the Sabbath. But actually, families that eat together for dinner, particularly just having that set aside time, they do so much better in every metric. Emotionally, the kids are healthier. There's like this transference of relationship that occurs around a dinner table particularly. Speak to that. Yeah.

So just think about it. If you're growing up in a home where somebody every single day is sitting down, taking a breath and asking you about your friends, asking you about your teachers, asking you about your day. And you're getting to hear these more grown up conversations about what's going on at work, you know, how mom is dealing with that coworker who hasn't been very supportive, how dad is excited about being on the baseball team that he like, when my kids show up at my house, and they're all in their 30s. Those are the conversations they remember those things that I don't even remember the funny stories.

Yeah, absolutely. And it gives our kids a history. And some of us didn't grow up with that.

Some of us are building that for the first time. And what a way to say from generation to next, this is what I want our family to look like. We're the kind of family that slows down and connects with each other. We're the kind of family that after dinner, we help each other with the dishes and putting the the ketchup away, you know, we're that kind of family. And for our kids to know that they grew up in a family where conversations were safe, prayers were said, food was prepared. What a gift. You read also about sharing from abundance. I mean, as a Christian, I think this is so critical.

But what what does that look like? Yeah, you and then your neighborhood? Yeah, I developed the muscle of cooking for six. And I have not lost that memory, even though you're only two, we're only two. So I bring meals to my mom, who is 80 perfectly okay with cooking.

But it's not so fun when you're just cooking for one, right. And then we have a neighbor, Paul, who is a firefighter, and he's single, he's been single his whole life. And when after the cal door fire that came through our neighborhood, and he was on it, he developed COVID. And I wanted to bring him some food. And he said, Thank you so much. He goes, if I don't get food like this, I'm eating Lunchables three times a day. And I'm like, Oh, no, that no, I, I can cook for you. So every week, Roger, and I show up at his house with a big cooler bag of all sorts of different meals that I've prepped on Friday and Saturday, we take it up to his house Saturday night.

And if you want to feel appreciated, bring a bachelor some meals, you know, I he's so great. I bet your home will never burn down. It will never burn down. If Paul's on duty, I'll be there with the hose to take care of that. He's gonna make sure my at least my kitchen is safe. He'll be telling all his buddies, we can't let this house burn.

This is my meal ticket. But you know, this, it's, this is how Jesus and his disciples lived. Interesting. You know, they lived in community, they lived sharing their abundance with each other.

And it's not so different today. There are so many families who are struggling whether it's because of health issues or finances. And you have some kind of abundance. I don't know if it's time, money or energy, but your abundance can serve another family.

How can we learn to live with bountiful eyes? Yeah, I love that concept. So looking around your neighborhood, looking around your friend group, and saying, who's in need?

Is there somebody, you know, our other next door neighbors, and when I say next door neighbors, it's a 20 minute walk, we don't live next to anybody. But we just found out that the husband has been going through radiation. And it's very simple to say, I'm going to pray for you, you know, and they know that we love Jesus. And so I know the prayers are appreciated.

But also, so is the cream of chicken and wild rice soup. And the little treat the pan of brownies, that kind of thing. We just found out that our little country school, they're required to provide breakfast and lunch in California now.

Well, they're a school district, I'm not exaggerating of eight kids, eight, eight kids, it's a school district of eight kids. And when we found out that the two employees at that school were providing those lunches, it's like, okay, how can we as part of the community be part of help? So it's just saying, we know there are needs, and asking God, can you make those needs visible, make the invisible visible so I can meet those needs in a timely manner. And it's not just because we want people to think well of God, it's because God has changed who we are.

And that's our job to look for those needs. Such great concepts. I love what you're saying, because when you put some emphasis on the Sabbath, it gives you space to live with this abundance mentality and with the generosity model. Absolutely. You know, Kathy, Jesus demonstrated this whole idea of sharing a meal together, of course, the Last Supper, right?

Da Vinci, many artists have depicted that, etc. What is it about food that draws our hearts together, that connects us together? It's like God created us this way, right? He could have made us just to like put a battery in probably, right?

But he didn't. I mean, we have to eat food, we have to sup together, as they say, but what do you think the dynamic is in the big picture? I love that you just said that I've never thought about it like that, that God created us for with this need for food, right?

Like, I don't know, that's so simple. But why have I never thought of it like that? And here's what I'll say, with the exception of some restaurants, I have never been fed without feeling loved. You know, when somebody cooks for you, when somebody creates for you, when somebody invites you to their table, that is a way of demonstrating love. And so when I think about how do I feel loved?

Yeah, there are a lot of ways to feel loved. But somebody saying I took time out to cook for you, or even it was really interesting. I heard about this concept of grief groceries, which I had never heard of before. And I heard about it right before, sadly, one of my friends lost her baby. And so we showed up on I got all of our friends together. And we went to Trader Joe's, and we got to, I think, three big freezer bags. And we dropped them on our porch with frozen pizzas, you know, peanut butter, all the things that we knew she loved. And we just dropped them off.

And we walked away. And we just said, there's something on your porch for you. And she brings that up. I probably every six weeks about how loved she feels. Food is love.

Food is love. There's something you know, we did a program long ago about creating a kind of a tic tac toe diagram around your house and getting to know those houses like, you know, you're the center of the tic tac toe. Know those other whatever it is eight or nine houses just around you. That touched about 250,000 people's lives just having their church. Oh, my God, do that. And I was so struck by that.

And again, you don't need a program. But their point was just get to know the people next to you and what they found in that context of grief, grocery giving, for example, was just the amount of pain going on. Yeah, you know, people were just not a culture, at least out here in the West.

You know, we're kind of we go into our homes and we don't really interact with our neighbors too much. And what a beautiful thing they found. You know, one guide talked about a neighbor. His was had cancer. Nobody knew about it.

He was a widower. And so they were able to begin to minister to him. And again, just a beautiful way to reach to your neighborhood and many, many people became Christians because of that active love and kindness, typically around food.

Ironically, it was that good deed. It's the cookies or whatever it might have been. And people go, Why do you do this? And then that opens the door to talk about your faith in Christ. You know, I found one of the simplest ways to really connect with a neighbor is to say, I made too much soup.

Can I bring you some? Oh, that's good. And so it's not threatening.

It's not it doesn't. The stakes are so low, right? To offer that is such a low stake and to accept it is such a low stake. Now the problem was broccoli cheese, but that's okay. Why is that? Oh, I love broccoli. Okay, respond. If you like broccoli cheese, push one. If you don't like broccoli cheese, push.

Yeah, that'll work. But it's such a again, just such a good model and a good modality, right to touch people. And it's pretty simple. Kathy, for the mom that is feeling already super stressed out. You said speaking to moms, particularly, and dads, I think this area stresses that us out as well, if we try to get in and help and we're not very good at it, that doesn't turn out very good. I used to love you know, when Jean would go on a trip, it'd be pizza and hot dog time. And she didn't really like that for the kids.

You know, she wanted the broccoli. Yes, believe it or not. And, you know, but the point of that for that mom that feels already super stretch, maybe working outside the home, like you said earlier, to be able to think this through and to find margin, right in her life to be able to do this extra thing. For some, it could sound like just more work. Absolutely. And right now, if you're buying most of your meals prepped, go off.

I think that's great. You know, do what you need to do. Don't feel guilty.

No, don't feel guilty. Feed getting your kids fed is a miracle. You know, it's a miracle. But also if you are married, how can you know Roger will sit down, he'll say how can I help? And it's chopping vegetables like chopping vegetables anybody can do. Your kids can help with that stuff. And I understand mom, that the investment in teaching them to chop is also work. This is all work we we as a society, I think don't value how much work goes into feeding our family. And for the first thing is to acknowledge that and say this is hard.

Maybe nobody taught us how to do this. And we're still expected to put healthy, tasty, economical meals on the table every single day. It's a minor miracle that anybody is fed. But I hope that with having some pre decisions where you decide, we're going to do this on this day, you can find the easiest route from place A to place B to get your family fed. And if it's buying the soup, buying the Costco chicken, whatever it is, or saying I need some help getting dinner on the table that you can do that. Yeah.

And again, I just want the listeners and viewers to hear it from you. This book Sabbath soup has 100 over 100 over 100 recipes in it. Yeah.

20 How many a 24 of soup 24 soup a bunch of other things. Yeah. Is your cookie recipe in there? It is.

Yeah, the oatmeal chocolate chip which john and I just had. Those are with the book right there. That's thank you. I appreciate that. But this has been great. I hope it's helpful to you.

This is one of the things Jean saw the book and went, Oh, can I keep that so she was right on it very quick. And thus we are sharing john's version of the book here. But thank you for being with us. Oh, you guys, it's always so great to talk especially food with you.

That's so good. And let me turn to you. If this is an area that you're struggling with or you don't know what to do, get in touch with us. One, marriage counseling is always available here in focus. But two, what a great way to minister to your family to enjoy the Sabbath together, and a way that makes it a bit more organized without a lot of pain to get their Sabbath soup.

So get ahold of us. If you can make a gift of any amount to focus on the family, especially here at the year end, it really helps us. One time gift or a monthly gift is really good. We'll send you the the book is our way saying thank you for being part of the ministry. Yeah, help us reach individuals who are struggling, like parents who are at their wits end couples who are facing a broken marriage and they don't know where to turn. We're here for you and we rely on your generosity to continue ministering to so many. So please call 800 the letter A in the word family 800-232-6459. Or you can donate online and also find out more about Kathy Lipp's terrific book Sabbath Soup, which is really a beautiful full color book full of delicious recipes, a great addition to your kitchen or a thoughtful holiday gift. And you can, as I said, donate and get that book.

Details are in the show notes. Next time, we'll hear from marriage coaches Dave and Ashley Willis. They'll share about the power of encouraging words. God spoke the world into existence with his words, so we know that they carry so much power and we need to learn how to speak them correctly and in a loving way and so that we can build each other up and not tear each other down. Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. You want your teenager to become a successful adult, right?

But how do you do that? Well, Dr. Ken Wilgus has worked with teenagers and their families for decades. His new book, Feeding the Mouth that Bites You, will help you with your adult in training. He'll explain age-appropriate freedoms for your teenager, the best ways to communicate, effective discipline, and most importantly, help them become a functional adult. Get Feeding the Mouth that Bites You at focusonthefamily.com slash store.