An overnight sleet-rain mix had made the roads in our Southern town impassable. So our little church sent out the message to stay home and stay warm. On this particular Sunday, the unexpected cancellation was what my soul needed. Instead of rushing around to get dressed and get out the door, we stayed in our bathrobes. We ate an unhurried breakfast of pancakes. And then the kids (ages seven and ten at the time) prepared a homemade worship service for the four of us. I had suggested they might like to play church this morning and dress up like pastors. They were thrilled.

Using their best energy and effort, they crafted a liturgy consisting of a reading from their children’s Bible, a sermon (handwritten reflection on the Bible story), a time for spontaneous prayers, and music from the old Baptist hymnal we had at home. They scrounged up candles and a decorative cross from the bookshelf and would have had a lovely altar on the upholstered ottoman had I not intervened due to a leaning candle. A red scarf served as a stole over Charlotte’s nightgown. And Henry found the microphone in the dress-up box for that modern church effect as he announced our music. He had marked close to thirty hymns with sticky notes, including his favorite, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” (I intervened once more to suggest he narrow his selections down to five.)

The service began. It was simple and pure. We were lifted by the children’s praise and an unexpected break from our typical Sunday routine. All other concerns, all other tasks, were set aside. Partly by necessity – we couldn’t go anywhere, anyway. And partly by choice – to savor the rare beauty of the icy day and this sweet time together. It was a perfect reorientation for me, a reminder of why I need days off from focusing so intensely on doing, earning, and achieving.

To place God at the center of our lives and have his values and his sense of time shape our own, we need regular and deep experiences of Sabbath. This is hard for families to do, but not impossible! An illustration that has profoundly shaped my family’s approach to Sabbath is Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s phrase “a palace in time” (The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man). Into the rhythm of every seven-day week God has woven a palatial twenty-four hours that is meant to be free from everyday pressures so that it can be full of intimate connections and delightful, reorienting experiences. It interrupts the flow of our fast-paced schedules that press us toward output and acquisition. And like a precious portal, it leads us out of the hustle to return us to the childhood freedom of just being alive and enjoying the gifts of God.

I haven’t been to many real palaces, but I know that they are well fortified. What they keep out is part of what makes them safe and special. It is the same with Sabbath. We get into it by keeping things out of it (Marva J. Dawn, A Royal Waste of Time). As natural as it is for kids to live freely and lightly, they also absorb our family perspectives about time, and they can vicariously experience our worry, rush, labor, or laziness. The palace principle – that we must bar the door against certain intrusions to experience the delights within – has given me helpful clues for how to modify the family’s schedule in a way that connects kids to the blessings of Sabbath.

Deciding that certain activities are off limits for ourselves and our kids on the Sabbath is not a punishment. Not a show of piety. Not even countercultural bravado. The palace boundaries preserve our children’s freedom. We learn this way of parenting from our heavenly Father, whose rules are always purposeful, always for us. Jesus says it this way: “The Sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). If there is anything that monopolizes your child’s attention or subtly sends them the message that their worth is based on their accomplishments, the boundaries of the palace are a way to say, This is not the center of our lives; Jesus Christ is the center of our lives.

Sometimes, pausing something like mind-numbing entertainment or a high-pressure hobby for one day can help us realize that we need to permanently delete it from the family schedule. Other times, we pause simply for moderation and refocusing. A bride and groom on their wedding day don’t mow the grass or go into the office. Not because mowing and work are bad. They are simply the kinds of activities to put on hold so that a couple can enjoy a palatial moment in their lives. In the same way, we pause certain activities in order to clear out the hours of the Sabbath “so that something of value can inhabit them” (Dallas Willard, “Disciplines of Abstinence and Engagement”).

What is “something of value” that is hard to come by – for you or for your kids – in the course of a normal day? Maybe it’s sleep. Maybe it’s a rich conversation with a parent or friend, uninterrupted by to-dos and appointments. Maybe it is the freedom to unfurl your beautiful body from its work-cramped stasis, to walk and stretch, to sink your toes into grass, water, or sand. Maybe your family’s screen- bleary eyes need time to look around with no agenda – to watch the robins pecking for worms, to admire the clouds, to “consider the lilies” (Matt. 6:28).

Are any of these things spectacular? We don’t seem to think so when we rush past them each day without a second glance. But in the light of Sabbath’s slow gaze, we recognize that this is beauty our souls were meant to stand back and celebrate! If God used his “day off” to enjoy the world he created, it is only fitting that we spend time admiring nature on the Sabbath too. When we do so, we are flooded with delight and gratitude for the Creator.

Truth is another “something of value” that God wants us to encounter in the palace in time. Sabbath creates an unpreoccupied space for the voice of God – on the pages of scripture, on the lips of the pastor, in the whisper of the Spirit – to reach the ear of our heart. Children are naturally hungry for truth, if we can clear aside the many distractions that often prevent them from deep encounters with God’s sources of revelation.

The architecture of Sabbath was also designed to bring us together as the community of faith. Scripture echoes with the reminder that the Sabbath is a day for sacred assembly (Lev. 23:3). Fellowship can be challenging, messy even. But congregating as a community gives us and our children a sense of belonging and companionship, and it is something the palace in time clears the schedule to accommodate.

At the center of these gifts – freedom, nature, truth, community – is the Lord, the giver of all. In the biblical account of creation, God takes a restful Sabbath to enjoy the results of his labor. He isn’t recharging (this isn’t necessary for God); he is resting for the sake of savoring.

We join God in the palace of rest to savor alongside him. Our enjoyment becomes an offering to the one who makes it all possible, and he receives the gratitude that bubbles forth from our hearts and lips. This is the essence of worship, the holiest and highest of activities we undertake within the time palace, and the one activity that we will continue to do forever and ever, even when this earthly life is over.

Excerpted from Savoring Childhood by Grace P. Pouch. Copyright © 2026 by Grace Pate Pouch. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press.