Church in the time of children
Grace comes to me in snippets: A stanza of a hymn, a sentence of a sermon, a “Lord, have mercy” heard between wails and whines.
It comes to me in knowing smiles and understanding glances, in the silent recognition that I am here, that I brought my noisy, boisterous children here, too, and that there is no better place for us to be.
It comes to me in tiny hands folded in prayer, in jumbled “Our Fathers” and grinning “Amens,” in the reassurance that small hearts are being molded, shaped, and filled with the very bread of life.
It comes to me through fellow travelers on this motherhood road: in shared humility and doubt. “Should we have bothered to show up today?” “Do all children make this much sound?” (Yes, and yes.) It comes to me in laughter and commiseration and tender kindnesses: “she can share our snack,” and “I have an extra diaper.”
It comes to me with jubilation and unrestrained joy, with waves and giggles at familiar faces in the pews. (Wouldn’t it be lovely if we all greeted one another with the unabashed enthusiasm of a cheerful toddler?) It comes with questions asked from curious three-year-olds at communion: “Mommy, what are you eating?” and “Mommy, what is Pastor doing?” It comes with newfound reverence for the mysterious symbols, chants, and songs of grown-up worshippers - those hallmarks of Sunday mornings, as constant as the rising sun, yet as inexplicable to a child as a foreign language.
Grace comes in silence, too, when the day has retreated and I yearn for my own Father: the One who knows each quiet longing of my soul - who has seen each small victory and embraced me through each stinging defeat. It is in this silence that I am strengthened for the journey ahead: for its frustrations and struggles, its joys and its triumphs. Grace may come in snippets. But come, it always does.
