For the Mom Who Finds Sunday Mornings Downright Hard
Hey, Momma. I see you there, weary-faced, babe sleeping your
arms, and beside you a toddler squirming like a worm freshly emerged from the
soil. I see you there with your child who still outright refuses to go to his
class. I see you occupying the back row, swaying with the crying babe on your
hip in the foyer, or practically excommunicated to the nursing room when your
baby does anything other than sleep. I see you walking in late, wearing a
little bit of shame at your perpetual tardiness. I see you there woman who is
wife to the deacon, the pastor, the man who works graveyards, weekends, or
overseas. I see you sitting alone, wrangling kids alone. I see you there Momma
who isn’t married at all.
I see you there Momma who struggles with wanting to go on a
Sunday morning because it’s just so exhausting. I understand how it might seem
like you could get more out of your at-home Bible studies than attempting to
listen and worship alongside a squirmy kid and a crying baby.
Momma, you might feel like you are unseen, less important,
the wild-cry tamer. You might feel like the call to come forward for prayer or
communion is for the ones not holding babies. You might feel like sitting in the very back with your kids and
guarding the silence is your humble sacrifice to the body of Christ.
But let me tell you something, when Jesus told his
disciples, “Suffer not the little children to come unto me” (Matt 19:14), He
wasn’t speaking lightly. He was rebuking his disciples. And He really meant little children. Not just the years when
kids love going to kids’ church and when they have some kind of attention span.
He didn’t just mean the years beyond squirmy, screamy toddlerdom, or the
terrible two’s, or, Lord help us, the defiant threenager years. He meant little children. The original Greek word
used in that passage, paidion,
actually means infant or young boy or girl, less than seven years old.
Momma, when you go to church, you are not just one person.
You are entrusted with the care of little lives too. You are entrusted with
modeling what it looks like to be a part of the body of Christ, what it looks
like to follow Christ. Your mom-job all by itself is a really big deal.
I am not trying to argue that one shouldn’t teach young kids
good behavior or that some of the elements of worship are done with soberness
and respect. But, Momma, will you give yourself some grace? Will you recognize
your value? Will you stop living in fear and trembling of the usher walking up
and telling you your kids are being disruptive?
In your arms, you hold an unreached people group and a
really great reason to go to church and to think you have to hide out in the
very back or cover up the sin nature all babies are born with {and all toddlers
kind of throw in your face} so misses the heart of Jesus.
Momma, do you know how precious YOU are to Him? How precious
THEY are to Him?
Your kids are not
your excuse to stay back, they are your reason
to go forward. They are your reason to worship and sing and cry out for
Jesus.
It’s not just that there is something about those little
years that make us feel tired, desperate and bring out all our own insufficiencies…
It’s that when you humble yourself and let your child watch you need Jesus, you
both get to be apart of the miracle.
You and your kids see heaven touch your dusty clay earth.
No matter how exhausting of a task it might be to do without
a husband, when you walk into the that church, when you hold that child in your
arms as you sing out in worship, when you walk up to the front, kids in tow, to
receive the elements of communion, when you go down to that altar and kneel
with your little people surrounding you, when you pray and let the tears fall
as you ask Jesus to meet you where you are, you aren’t the only one going to the foot of the cross. No, you are
carrying your babies with you.
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Here’s where I get a little vulnerable and tell you how much
this has been my struggle for the past two years. And one I have failed at miserably quite a few times. It’s been really hard to want
to go to church lately, hard to go by myself, hard to know my kids will
probably beg to sit with me instead of going to their classes, hard to know I
am going to have to shush and watch and cross my fingers and hope that no one
yells or runs into the aisle this time. It’s hard to not feel like I have a
home church yet, to still feel unknown.
I want to just stay home, use my husband’s job as an excuse.
I want to throw a pity party and look at all the other families who go and have
a husband and a wife and kids whose socks match and hair is brushed. I want to
look at the wife who has someone to help her when the boy gets rambunctious.
But, you guys, I am finding that when I
do it anyways, when I recognize the value and the weight of my mom-job, when I
care more about my little people He actually entrusted to me than everyone they might
disrupt… God’s grace is just so abundant. He really is willing to be strength
for our weak places.
Maybe this sounds weird, but I can hear it… God whispering, “Well
done.” I hear it when I’ve chosen to walk up to the front with both kids
holding my hands to receive the elements of communion. I hear it when I have
knelt at the altar and cried out to the Lord with both kids sitting right
beside me. I hear it when I’ve closed my eyes during worship so I could turn my
focus to the Lord and open them to find my kids clapping off beat, raising
their hands, doing a happy dance, singing.
I just know it. I am modeling what it means to follow
Christ. Perhaps, I am doing one better than the teaching they do in the Sunday
school class, I am showing them. No, it’s more than that, I am carrying them
with me.
I’d love to hear from you (whether you have help from your
husband or not because I have a feeling sometimes getting to church is just hard for all of us). Have you ever felt like it was super hard to go to church with
your kids?
By Grace,
Amanda Conquers