Okay, don’t get me wrong…being that I work in Children’s Ministry with the church I totally understand the need for volunteers. I understand that we rely on regular help and leaders offering their time. My class of 4th, 5th and 6th graders has suffered it’s fair share of volunteer woes. Thankfully we have a strong commited group of knowledgeable leaders right now that I am SO thankful for. Point being: I get it. However, I wish I had known what they meant. I kept hearing “Awkward Sunday”. Awkward I am game for, but this? This wasn’t awkward, it was torture.
Do you have kids? If you dont you may not understand this, but every Sunday I look forward to that hour and a half of “adult time” where I can worship God and hear his word. I can laugh with friends and fellowship with the community. My hands are free to thumb through my bible, raise in the air in worship or even pick my nose if I wanted to. I am not holding a child, carrying a sippy cup and handful of diapers or frantically snapping or clapping to get the misbehaving one’s attention or trying to grab their shirt collar to keep them from toddling off… my hands are my own. My lap is my own. No one is climbing all over it, kicking it, hiting it, filling it with papers they’ve found in the seat in front of them…. get my point??? Church service is ME time. ME TIME. I love my ME time…especially when it is spent in the house of God.
Today that ME time was invaded. Other children I don’t mind, but MY children….the ones who demand my attention, the ones who know better than to swing upside down on the chairs w their feet in the air but do it anyway, the ones who know what prayer is and you should not get in people’s faces and tap them when they are trying to pray, the ones who bug me for the entire hour and a half for something to eat or drink as if they are shriveling away into nothing because I have starved them… yes THOSE are my kids. Maybe in general they dont bother anyone else…heck I might even venture to say others found them cute. But not me.
The big ones know better, but have not recovered from our movie date night where they got home and got to bed 4 hours past their bedtime. They woke up the next day at 5:30am and due to the events of the day nap or early bedtime the following evening were not in the cards, SO alas today they were overtired… I have yet to understand the biology of this but let me tell you overtired does not mean they lay there wanting to sleep. Quite the opposite. They are 80miles an hour up down and all around, half the time not even making sense and doing anything and everything you have taught them NOT to do. So on a day like this where ME time is so important for my own sanity and general well-being…. it was invaded, invaded for a purpose.
When I am being pulled left and right and whispered to every two seconds it is hard to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. In between potty requests, screams giggles and grunts, tattling on her brother, singing and humming and just plain nonsense Its very difficult to hear a single word Shawn is saying. It’s selfish I know.
Let me explain something to you…. everything about being a parent teaches you to heighten your senses. I know other mom’s that joke about “spidey hearing”…it’s no joke. My husband is dumbfounded when I can tell exactly who is doing what or who is awake and where just by a little crinkle of a paper or a tap on the floor. I know when they are getting into trouble, I know when they are lying, I know when they are about to have a meltdown… I know. I am their mother. It’s not as natural as you think though, it takes work… and some days; most days… it is exhausting. That is why ME time is so wonderful… I can shut all that off and relax, I can let out a deep sigh close out the world, close my eyes and just worship and listen to God. (granted even then I am not completely shutting it off, every time the big doors open during the sermon I force myself not to turn around and see if its Kellie coming to tell me one of my kids is causing a problem in class)
Today I understood the lesson presented by this demonstration of closing childcare and giving all the volunteers the day off (not sure what the sermon was about) . I appreciate my leaders in my class every week for what they do and would be lost without them. Despite understanding the lesson… at this point I am just too exhausted to care. It is like sensory overload. I feel for my son. I feel like this is just a glimpse of what he goes through with sensory integration disorder and when he gets overloaded and can’t handle it anymore. Trying to listen to the sermon, keeping Kaelob from whining and crying bc he didn’t have headphones for his DS( which had i known i would have totally brought w me) trying to convince Haylee to just let her sister “scribble” on her coloring book for right now because its so important to mommy to just let her be happy, trying to keep the baby happy and in one place while keeping her from screaming (even a happy scream)-which she does very often…. heck I didn’t even have enough senses left to worry about what everyone around me was thinking. I was on sensory overload, one moment at a time I was focused on talking quietly to Kaelob while keeping an eye on how far Peytne was getting, trying to reason with a very dramatic Haylee while still trying to hear what it was Shawn was preaching-forget even managing to finish the delicious coffee I had bought myself…
Don’t get me wrong seeing Kaelob and Haylee latch on to Chris like he was their new best friend and entertain themselves with his kindness made me smile, and gave me some relief. I know he saw me drowning and I am SO thankful to him for allowing Haylee to color on his shoes and Kaelob to demand a back rub (again a sensory thing)…but then I feel guilty. My children are taking his focus away from God, from church, from CHRIS time…. poor guy didn’t know what he was in for when we galloped in and plopped chairs down next to him. I of course was filled with joy hearing Peytne sing at the top of her lungs and say “sing, sing SING” in between songs because she just wanted to sing some more. Or watching them happily play the drums and not even realize that they too were worshiping. I truly deeply love these moments.
Maybe my lesson today was not about ME time but how to find that peace and calm within the craziness and exhaustion… to embrace those beautiful moments and try to let the crazy ones wash away…..
hmmm…not where I thought this was going…
Lesson learned. 🙂
A Penny for Your Thoughts... 