Sundays can be so hard.
This is the mantra that I and my other young mother friends often repeat to ourselves. We know we're doing the right thing, dragging ourselves and our kiddos through morning services, Bible classes, lunch with church friends, quick naps, evening services, and then often dinner with church friends - sometimes with a baby shower thrown in the middle somewhere - but it can be so hard.
The current challenge in our family is keeping a 2-year-old from talking loudly, fussing, screeching, singing at inappropriate times, greeting other 2-year-olds across the auditorium, standing on the pews, crawling under the pews, running off down the aisle, stealing goldfish from neighbors, throwing toys at elderly members in adjacent pews, coloring on the backs of the pews, spilling Cheerios (and then crunching them), and just generally driving us crazy during worship service. Yesterday morning was definitely One of Those Times.
However, I found that I couldn't get as upset or worried about the whole ordeal as I might normally because I kept thinking of this illustration from one of Luke's children's Bibles:
This is the first part of the story "Jesus and the Children," and I just think that it's probably the best illustration of Jesus that I've ever encountered. I love the wistfulness in His eyes - as if those children remind Him of what it's like to be with the Father, and while He knows His responsibilities to the adults around Him, He wishes He could just run off to the swimming hole with the Short Crew. And I'm guessing that this was exactly the case when those children were brought to him so many years ago.
So I'm sitting there in Sunday morning service in the midst of an entire auditorium-full of well-behaved, still, quiet people - and my son is that noisy blur of motion on/under/above the seat beside me. I know I would normally feel humiliated by his unchurchly behavior, but I can't help thinking that if Jesus walked into the room, He'd probably kneel down right next to Luke, pick up one of his plastic rhinos and "roar" away with him.
~~~
By the way, if you have a toddler who loves to read, and you don't already own Read with Me Bible for Toddlers,
then perhaps you should consider purchasing it. Luke has asked to read from the "Bible book" every afternoon for the past few weeks ("no, the BIG Bible book" when I try to vary the routine with one of the other twenty or thirty Bible story books we own). He loves the crazy illustrations, and even though I'm getting pretty bored of the selection, I appreciate its Scriptural accuracy (you'd be surprised by how unbiblical some baby Bibles can be!) and the brevity of the stories. Thanks to Gram for finding this gem of a book...
The current challenge in our family is keeping a 2-year-old from talking loudly, fussing, screeching, singing at inappropriate times, greeting other 2-year-olds across the auditorium, standing on the pews, crawling under the pews, running off down the aisle, stealing goldfish from neighbors, throwing toys at elderly members in adjacent pews, coloring on the backs of the pews, spilling Cheerios (and then crunching them), and just generally driving us crazy during worship service. Yesterday morning was definitely One of Those Times.
However, I found that I couldn't get as upset or worried about the whole ordeal as I might normally because I kept thinking of this illustration from one of Luke's children's Bibles:
This is the first part of the story "Jesus and the Children," and I just think that it's probably the best illustration of Jesus that I've ever encountered. I love the wistfulness in His eyes - as if those children remind Him of what it's like to be with the Father, and while He knows His responsibilities to the adults around Him, He wishes He could just run off to the swimming hole with the Short Crew. And I'm guessing that this was exactly the case when those children were brought to him so many years ago.
So I'm sitting there in Sunday morning service in the midst of an entire auditorium-full of well-behaved, still, quiet people - and my son is that noisy blur of motion on/under/above the seat beside me. I know I would normally feel humiliated by his unchurchly behavior, but I can't help thinking that if Jesus walked into the room, He'd probably kneel down right next to Luke, pick up one of his plastic rhinos and "roar" away with him.
~~~
By the way, if you have a toddler who loves to read, and you don't already own Read with Me Bible for Toddlers,
then perhaps you should consider purchasing it. Luke has asked to read from the "Bible book" every afternoon for the past few weeks ("no, the BIG Bible book" when I try to vary the routine with one of the other twenty or thirty Bible story books we own). He loves the crazy illustrations, and even though I'm getting pretty bored of the selection, I appreciate its Scriptural accuracy (you'd be surprised by how unbiblical some baby Bibles can be!) and the brevity of the stories. Thanks to Gram for finding this gem of a book...
I've been told that Uncle Wayne, as a youngster, would stand in the pew, turn to face the rest of the congregation (remember, they were the preacher's family - so of course they were sitting at the front!) and loudly RE-announce the song numbers for any who may not have heard.
ReplyDeleteAmen. That is all I can say to that.
ReplyDelete