Circus Sunday In The Back Pew

I love Sundays in our little rural church.

It is where generations of families sit in the same pew every Sunday, where adults learn just as much or more from the children’s sermon about always searching for the lost sheep than the kids do, where we sang Happy Birthday to the local man turning 80 years old today, where our 2 year old daughter jumps into the arms of our pastor on a weekly basis, our son lights candles, plays music, goes on youth group adventures and where all us we grow in our faith, connect with our friends and feel God’s love and peace on the prairie. 

It is also a church on the prairie with out a nursery. Every man, woman and child goes to church together.

For that reason, I have come to realize today there are many Sundays I won’t feel a lot of peace. 

Sundays are a circus. 

My organized husband packs a diaper bag full of every supply we could possibly need to survive our weekly church service. Then there is always a separate back pack full of books, quiet toys, an arsenal of Cheerios, fruit snacks and graham crackers, a few of the famed green nuks for Anika. 

I voted to change the “family” pew when we had Elizabeth. We no longer sit as a family in an upper right pew, the pew Nathan grew up sitting in and instead we now belong in the back or second to the back pew. Somehow I thought a back pew would hide the loud sounds coming from our pew. Not so. 

Today the loud noises from our pew did not come from Miss E, our loud, outgoing girl. Instead it was from our once quiet church girl Miss Anika that now has developed a strong desire to be out of church by the end of the first hymn. My husband and I were in literal all out sweats before we got through the opening prayer today. 

Anika was on the go, loud, throwing Cheerios, tossing her nuk and by the time I walked out with her, she was screaming.
Thankfully we were in the second to last pew and I could dash.

As you can see, Miss Anika was smiling at Nana and Gpa Eldon’s house after church.

I escaped with Anika to the church basement playroom where eventually two other good mom friends and their daughters joined me. We had a fun time and then we went up to rejoin our families during the last hymn. 

At the end of church our pastor said to me, “I am starting a sign up sheet next week to get a nursery started in the basement.”

It was like she read my pleading eyes. 

If I wasn’t on the conservative prairie, I think I would have shouted a big ol’ “Praise the Lord!”

I might actually hear a sermon in church again…maybe even this year, from a back pew on yet another family circus Sunday.

A few other pictures of this weekend…

Hunter is back to the piano practicing. He has his weekly lesson on Tuesdays during school when others are enjoying a study hall. I don’t remember ever studying during study halls so Hunter gets no sympathy from me. He plays. He practices and he may one day admit, he enjoys it.

The weekend weather was absolutely beautiful. Temperatures were in the mid-70’s, clear sky, sunny and not overly windy. All good drying weather for our area wet fields and roads and great park playing weather. 

Miss E took a swing ride with Gpa Eldon. She also put on her own shoes and wouldn’t switch them to the correct feet. That’s my girl.

Now I must wrap up this Circus Sunday. To clear my mind, talk to my husband, fold the socks sitting next to me on the couch and prepare for…Maniac Monday.

Thanks to each of you who shared your thoughts on my previous post about what to best prepare to teach a community education social media class this week. I will share with what I end up covering and hopefully more than 3 people show up on Tuesday night!

Updated: my friend Sara Stevenson Hale’s youngest Townes is having surgery on Monday, September 13th. Many of you have prayed for him before and prayers are especially needed today. Please read his CaringBridge site (link in upper right corner on this blog) and keep Townes and his medical team in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you.