Keeping the Sabbath Holy
My comments regarding service activities for youth on the Sabbath (March 2001) generated a lot of mail. Here are some great responses that should guide parents and leaders as they plan Sabbath activities for young people. The principle to remember is Keep the Sabbath day holy.

While looking after a person�s physical needs or helping your neighbor in an emergency are clearly within the scope of Sabbathkeeping (Luke 14:1-5), I have difficulty fitting �raking leaves� into either category.

The argument that �it is better to go and work for the Lord on Sabbath than to overeat and then to go home and go to sleep� is wrong on two counts:

1. Nowhere does the Bible sanction nonessential work on Sabbath.

2. One wrong (overeating and sleeping) does not excuse another wrong (raking leaves on Sabbath).

If leaders want to help young people develop Christian characters, they should take them out on Sunday to help their neighbors. It would be a help to the community, the young people would sacrifice their own time for the work of the Lord, and it would be a witness to the community that Adventists care about their neighbors and keep the Sabbath.

Raking leaves on Sabbath may be a convenient way to fill the Sabbath hours and at the same time make the young people feel good, but it is a poor witness to the community. The Sabbath commandment does not say, �You cannot do work for yourself, but you can work for somebody else as long as they do not pay you.� �Gerhard Pfandl, associate director, Biblical Research Institute.

We need to choose carefully the things we do that represent to others our beliefs about working on the Sabbath. This is not only a personal issue; it�s also a biblical one. If clearing leaves was an emergency, that would be an acceptable Sabbath activity. But to premeditate and plan to do it on the Sabbath in any culture or country would seem to negate the idea of the fourth commandment (which we all know says, �In it thou shalt not do any work� [Ex. 20:10]) and to ignore the holiness of the Sabbath. �Faye Weeks.

Can�t Live With Him
I have fallen out of love with my husband. After 13 years of marriage I have finally figured out that this man is never going to treat me with the love and respect he pretended to have when we were first married. He makes cutting remarks about my intelligence, my physical shape (I am a size 14), and my children. I work at a full-time job. He�s retired and does very little to help me around the house. Plus, he�s caused a rift between my children and me. I�ve had it, and I don�t want to live with him anymore.�Unhappy.

Dear Unhappy:
How sad to invest 13 years in a relationship just to end up falling out of love.

You must have been getting some needs met to have stayed so long. Why not make a list? Do you really want to give these things up?

Have you asked him how he feels about living with you? Is he happy? Is he getting enough of his needs met in this relationship to be willing to make some changes so that you two can stay together?

Just because two people are married, that doesn�t mean they can�t spend some time apart. Some couples get along better when they live separately and �date� each other on occasion, rather than argue over nitty-gritty daily encounters, such as whose turn it is to do the dishes or take out the trash. Sometimes it�s only when you step away that you realize you mean more to each other than you thought.

But it�s also true that absence can make the heart grow fonder�for someone else. That�s what leads to divorce. It�s one thing to separate for the purpose of saving a marriage�and another to separate as preparation for divorce. I don�t think you really want that, do you?

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Kay Kuzma, Ed.D., is founder and speaker of Family Matters. Send your comments and questions to Dr. Kay, c/o Family Matters, 1105 Big Creek Road, LaFollette, TN 37766; via e-mail to [email protected].