A lesson in futility...

Christmas was wonderful and we are home now, after a long visit in Alabama made even longer by the snow.  

Now it is Sunday morning and I am already home from church.  Ken and the girls are still there, but the boys had reached their limit, so home we came.  Today, since it is raining, we got smart and took both cars to church.  That way, when the boys could no longer be still and outside wasn't an option, I could just quietly (at least, at quietly as is possible with 2 wiggly little boys) excuse myself from the service and escape to the tranquility of our house.

Today we made it through nearly 20 minutes of the service.  That may be a record.

We are at a place right now where Nathan refuses to go to the nursery (read: screams like he is on fire) and if I attempt to leave him there, I am paged within 5 minutes.  Jacob has alot of anxiety about church and the crowds of people he doesn't know, so Children's Church isn't an option for him.  Though he will sit quietly in church if I am with him, once I have to leave to take Nate out, that's over.  On nice weather days, we play outside until the service is finished. 

Every Sunday morning, we do this.  After the hours that is takes to dress all seven of us and tromp to the car and parade into the church, leaving after 20 minutes (or less) seems like a lesson in futility.  I feel like Paul, "beating the air."  

I keep reminding myself that this is just a season.  Granted, a season that we've been in for 9 1/2 years now, but a season none the less.  Lord willing, we will one day get to listen to a sermon and enjoy a worship service.  But that time is not now.

So why do we continue to do this?  Because.  Because God is faithful and has asked us to be.  Because we are teaching our children what our family is all about, the importance of corporate worship, the need to be apart of the body.  Because one day we will be able to sit through more than 20 minutes.  Because one day they will listen and learn and understand and be sustained.  Because 20 minutes of nourishment from the word is better that none..... because one day in His courts is better than 1000 elsewhere.

Today, in one of the hymns we got to sing while before we left, we sang Isaiah 66:12, the words of the Lord to Jerusalem, "For this is what the LORD says: "I will extend peace to her like a river..."

In His words to His people, He is speaking to me.  Extending to me peace, nourishing even when I don't expect it.  He has been faithful to me, even in this season.  What else could I expect but that He will continue to be?  He has promised this to me and to my children.  At a time in my life when teaching and worship with the body seems rare, He still knows what I need. And what a joy to see Him provide.

  "He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young."  Isaiah 40:11