Once we get inside the church, we are completely at peace and are immediately glad we went. Getting there is a different story. It's complete chaos in our house. Admittedly, we love to sleep in and our bodies go into shock if we're awakened by anything other than Emme's little voice coming through the baby monitor. We despise the alarm clock and we are both talented at hitting the snooze button with only the tip of a finger while never having to so much as open a sleepy eye. This gets us into some trouble on Sunday mornings. We rush to eat breakfast, get snippy with each other when we see that we're running behind schedule and then we arrive so late that we spend at the bare minimum another 10 minutes searching for a parking space.
Somehow, we continue to underestimate the amount of time it takes to do everything in our morning routines. I wonder when we're ever going to learn? Greg said that he's glad we're in church but he doesn't want to go if we have to invite the Devil into our house every Sundy morning before we get there.
I think back to when I was younger. My aunt and uncle would pick me up every Sunday morning at my Dad's house to take me to church with them. Now that I'm older and I'm trying to herd my own family out the door for church (and believe me, it's like trying to herd cats,) I realize how kind they were to always include me in Sunday services with them. They had two little girls of their own to get ready and somehow they always managed to pick me up too and still get to church on time. I can remember watching my aunt touch up her rose colored fingernail polish on the console of the car or the way she would unfasten the bobbie pins from the ends of her long, dark hair to release beautiful, bouncy, curls just as the church bell was ringing and we were pulling into the parking lot in the knick of time. I didn't realize until the past few weeks that she did those things in the car because she was busy taking care of her family (and me) before she took care of herself. I hope that she knows that including me in her busy Sunday mornings was worth it and really did help shape me. Here I am, 25 years later trying to carry on the same routines with my own family. And just like my aunt, I pull down the mirror in my sunvisor and touch up my makeup, make sure my lip gloss is on straight and smooth down my hair after we finally get settled in the car.
I learned so much from my aunt and uncle that had never dawned on me before now. I've learned that somehow God sees to it that we always get there on time. I've learned that church builds healthy routines (my aunt and uncle are following the same rountine that they've had for as long as I can remember and have one of the strongest marriages of any couple I know.) And most importantly, if you instill the value of church into young children then they will carry that priority with them into adulthood.
For me, I strayed for a good long while and there were many years that I didn't step foot inside a church but somewhere in the back of my mind, the values my aunt and uncle taught me stayed strong and I'm finally getting right back to where I belong.
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