Sunday Thoughts

Today someone asked me why I go to church every Sunday evening. So I was thinking about that, and what I do on Sundays, and why I like Sundays.

I like to dress up on Sunday mornings. Today I wore a new pink blouse I got at Ross, and a black skirt. No one fainted visibly, but the truth is I seldom get new Sunday clothes, preferring to have a few outfits that I rotate all winter long.

I make my family dress up for church too, even if their friends can wear t-shirts and khakis with lots of pockets. I know they're nice t-shirts, but I don't care. This is church. Dress up. Steven wore his black pants that just came from Ben, and already they're almost high-water.

During testimony time, Bonnie said her pressure cooker exploded this week. We are all thankful she's ok.

The sermon was about abortion and other moral issues. The preacher told about how he and his wife were expecting a child about 28 years ago, and the ultrasound showed that there was a lot wrong with the baby. The doctor advised them to abort it. They asked a minister for advice, and he said the doctor probably knows best. Hard to imagine, but abortion really wasn't on the church's radar screen back then. Then someone gave them the verses in Ps. 139 about being formed in the mother's womb even when the substance is "yet unperfect," and they decided to carry the child to term. It was seriously deformed and didn't live long, but they are eternally grateful they made that decision.

In the middle of the sermon, Jenny leaned over to me and whispered, "MOM!! What does it mean to commit adultery??" I said it's like if I would leave Dad and fall in love with another man. Matt and Emily said later that's the same answer I gave them, back in the day. More specific questions are coming down the pike, I can see them now. Yes, I am all Victorian about these things.

We played musical children after church. Steven went to Trenton's house, Benjamin G came home with Ben, and Janane came home with Jenny. Janane has been terrified to come to our house because a) she is scared of Paul b) she's scared she won't like the food and c) she is scared of me because I am just so serious. But she seemed to do ok.

We had ham, baked potatoes, gravy, broccoli&cheese, carrots, and peanut butter pie for Sunday dinner. The girls helped beforehand; the guys and I did the dishes, as always.

Then I took a long nap.

And then I combed the little pigtails and had a snack and went to church again. Sunday evenings are less formal and more varied than mornings.

Kevin B. was in charge of the "singspiration." He led a lot of congregational songs including the tearjerking "It is well with my soul." And he shared the story of how the song's author, HG Spafford, lost his small son to illness, his business to the Chicago fire, and later his daughters to a shipwreck, and then he wrote this song. Kevin also told how, one time when he and the quartet he's in sang this song at a prison, he told the story behind it and afterwards a volunteer came up to him and corrected a mistake he'd made in the story, and the volunteer was a descendant of HG Spafford himself.

A quartet sang a lovely song and I cried. I feel like I have become an old woman, crying whenever I hear songs about Heaven. I have a lot of friends there.

At the end of the service we all gathered around Arlen and Sharon and prayed for them, as Arlen is going to preach every evening for a week at a church in Ohio, starting tomorrow, a first for them.

Then I talked to people: to Carrie D, about her babies, to Carrie G, about going to Florida, to Susie, about the women's retreat next month, to Jean, about adoption and her precious little guy who is now theirs, to Ana, about our kids at Bible school, to Rachel, about Janane and how she hardly eats anything, to Drennan, about his writing-class paper that's missing, and to Edwin G, about the service in a few weeks and how he wants me to share how God parted the Red Seas in my life.

Then Matt and Emily went to a youth party, and the rest of us came home and made popcorn and grape juice, and Paul played Settlers of Catan with Ben, Steven and Jenny. Then Paul read a story and the kids went to bed.

This is why I like Sundays. Mornings, evenings, after, and in-between. Sundays are good.

Quote of the Day:
"It's scary way up here!"
--Jenny, walking around in Amy's high-heeled mules