"Oh, boy, I can't wait for church tonight," my 5-year-old granddaughter said at breakfast. Several times during the day, I heard her say something similar. All the while, I was remembering her daddy had told us that since they had a ministry school at church on Thursday night, we might not go on Wednesday. We were at their Houston home for a few days on a visit from Oklahoma.
As the day grew late, and we were caught in traffic coming home from an outing, Anne-Marie became concerned about getting home in time for church. "Honey," our son said, "We probably won't go to church tonight."
"I wanna go to church!" she exclaimed. Each time he spoke discouragingly about the possibility, she wailed louder. "I wanna go to
chu-rrch! I wanna go to chu-rrch!"
"Why do you want to go to church so bad?" I asked, trying to calm her.
"Because!" she cried, "I want to lea-rrn. I want to learn about Jesus and God!"
Church would start in less than an hour, and the rush hour traffic was impossible. Finally, Jamie told his daughter that she could go to church. Our daughter-in-law, Tammy, would leave directly from work and meet them there. Meanwhile, Anne-Marie had fallen asleep in her car seat.
"Maybe you should just take her home and put her to bed," I suggested, looking at the tired-out, tear-stained little face. Jamie said she would wake up and keep crying to go.
He dropped his father and me at the house and took off with sleeping Anne-Marie and two-year old Maddie, who wouldn't be left behind, to meet his wife at the church.
Later, I asked him what Anne-Marie said when she woke up. "She opened her eyes and cried, 'I wanna go to church!'," he told me. "We told her we were there, and she was happy."
I'm so glad the children love church, even if it is just their age-appropriate classes. I was very surprised that when Jamie had asked Maddie if she wanted to ask the blessing over the food at dinner the night before, she bowed her head and said a precious little prayer. And to think she was hardly even talking when I had seen her a few months ago!
Maddie's speaking expertise had shocked me when she got my attention in the car on the way home from the airport. I heard her saying something from her car seat in the back of the van, and I asked her, "What did you say, Honey?"
In a very firm voice, she said, "You called my daddy, 'Jamie'. He's not Jamie, he's 'Benjamin!' I TOLD you!" (I forgot that nobody calls him his childhood nickname around home.)
What a blessing to see them grow, not only mentally and physically, but spiritually. One night as they were playing and running through the house, Maddie had on a princess costume and a boy's winter bill-cap with earflaps pulled over her red curls. They were told to slow down, and Maddie retorted gleefully, "I just can't stop running, I can't stop running!" Yes, and how swiftly, I thought, into the future God has prepared for you as you learn to walk with Him.
No comments:
Post a Comment