31 Days in December #21: A pleasurable pause

The typical breakfast is fresh bread, sausage, and cheese. Today D adds Nussgipfelli and Mandelgipfelli (croissants with nut and marzipan). We'll miss these wonderful morning meals!

There's a McDonalds along the canal

We spend a few hours in Thun, finding gifts for friends. It's a relaxing day as the sun burns off the fog. This sabbath rest provides a change of pace before a busy Sunday and the trip home.

Fog lifts off the meadows

A few steps away at the bakery

After an afternoon pastry, it's time for a walk up the stairs above the house.

Steps lead up the village slopes

Over 160 steps but the old man does it easily.

I love walking the street past the beautiful houses.

The back of the house

How has God refreshed you today?

Read more:
*Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. Exodus 34:21 ESV

*Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14 ESV

*The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath. Mark 2:27 ESV

Moravian Prayer: Our frantic pace convinces us of our worth, God. Let us hear "your Spirit's pleading" that calls us to worship and spiritual renewal. May we find our rest and our worth in you during this season of preparation and waiting. Amen.

From CS Lewis (Screwtape Letters) "Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy’s ground. I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula. It is more certain; and it’s better style. To get the man’s soul and give him nothing in return—that is what really gladdens Our Father’s heart. And the troughs are the time for beginning the process."