Have you ever had to sit out in the “vestibule” with a cranky child? Maybe for some other reason? Has it happened frequently? How do you feel? Do you feel left out? Frustrated that everyone else gets to participate? Maybe you feel alone, but yet when someone volunteers to help out you kindly say no?
Well i have a confession to make…I’ve been there! It was a frustration that I couldn’t be a part of worship. But this past Sunday as I started to enter the auditorium with my 5 year old son, and he put on his brakes and said “please mommy no”. My heart sank! I didn’t even make it in this time. We took our place on the pew under the coat rack and I said to him…”can’t you please try? Daddy said if you tried you could put the offering in the plate”. To which he replied” but mommy there’s too many people and it’s too loud”. “All i could muster was an “ok we will sit here.” I gave him a little squeeze and listened to the music playing in the next room. As I sat there watching him finger his little tiny toys he would interject his observations on life…..he would make me giggle and then all of sudden he chimed in “i like this song”.
In that very moment I realized something…..i was worshipping along with everyone else. I may not have been sitting in the same room, i was not even singing the songs with my mouth. I was listening though. I listened to the music, the prayers, and in those quite moments with my son I praised the Lord. I praised Him for two things…..
1. My son is learning to communicate what overwhelms him. It wasn’t all that long ago that my son would have screamed whined, made awful noises, hide his face, fidget, and try to run away.
2. That in those moments when my son seems most distant, and that he is absorbed in examining life’s little oddities, like bubbles in a glass of water. He is listening to the faith based surroundings…like a simple song being played and sung in the next room.
My heart leapt for joy. I knew that at that moment I will not live the “normal life”. But it is the life God has for me. Will it ever change it may or it may not but for now, I will worship with my little boy in the Narthex!
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