How Teaching my Children to Sit Through Church Saved my Day Yesterday

Years ago, when our oldest was a preschooler, and our second child was just a baby, we decided to do this crazy thing called Bringing the Children to Church. At the time, very few people did that sort of thing at the church we were a part of. Children went to Sunday School, and their parents went to worship service. There are a lot of reasons I will not go into here as to why we decided to make a different choice.

At one point, I truly thought I was crazy. Was this really worth all the effort? You see, my oldest child is almost three years older than my second child, but my second child is only three-and-a-half years older than my fourth child. What I’m trying to say is, I had three children under the age of four.

And of course I feel guilty saying anything about this because I know at least one of you has three children under two, but I’m saying it anyhow.

Ahem.

Our church had a mother’s room that was just fabulous. It was part of the sanctuary, but had walls and one-way glass. I could go into this room, and participate in the worship service, while rocking a baby or training a rambunctious toddler to Stay on Mommy’s Lap.

The worst day of training ever was the time that I took my youngest to nurse. He was probably three months. Shortly after that, my husband pushed our daughter, then almost-two, in the room with me. She was crying. I had a stroller with me, so I plopped her in it while I finished with the baby. A few minutes later, my three-year-old joined the party. She was distraught at being left behind.

And naturally men weren’t allowed in the mother’s room.

So.

I could go into the details of why that almost broke my resolve, but I won’t. I’m sure you can imagine what a hard hour that was for me, and you’ve probably had difficult hours of your own, some of you much worse than mine.

All of this is to say that today I have four children ages 5 to 11 who are trained to sit in church. We moved churches a little over a year ago, and the pastor at this church preaches twice as long as the pastor at the previous church. So now the children are used to sitting quietly for 45 minutes to even an hour.

We didn’t choose to do this so that people would tell us how well-behaved our children were, or that our children would be able to sit other places for long periods of time. We had a conviction and we went with it, whether there were any side-benefits to be had or not.

But, oh, are there side-benefits.

You see, yesterday a Bad Thing happened to me. I almost broke my ankle. Lest you think I’m exaggerating, I will explain.

We were making our way out to co-op. I had my four children, plus my friend’s son. As I was making my way back into the house to grab a few more things, I somehow lost my step. I would later discover that my five-year-old’s knee pad was left right in front of the door, and I was wearing platform shoes {don’t ask}, and so as a result as my foot began to roll down the side of the knee pad, it just kept on rolling {momentum and all} and then I heard this sickening POP sound and then I was on my knees wondering if I could get back up and what in the world I was going to do.

I stood up and it hurt. Oh, how it hurt. I wondered about going to the doctor right then, but then I thought about co-op and how this was supposed to be my first Plutarch lesson of the year, and how disappointed all these children would be if they didn’t get to go and so of course I went.

I hobbled from the truck to the tables at the park. One of the moms gave me an ice pack. I also tried sunbathing my ankle, based upon my inclination to believe that a suntan heals all wounds.

When it came time to walk back to the truck I was {1} not sure I’d make it and {2} pretty sure something was truly broken.

I made it, but it was awful. Right up there with recovering from a C-section.

We went home. My oldest made lunch. I languished on the couch. I tried to find a babysitter. Why, oh, why were my parents out of town?

The question of the hour was really: How crazy will my youngest son be if I take all four of them to Urgent Care with me?

This is where church comes in. All that training that we did for other reasons? It paid great dividends.

I took my children to Urgent Care. They went and got a wheelchair for me, and some super nice woman–another patient–wheeled me in. We waited an hour to get in. They read their books {with their backs turned to CNN–why must there be televisions everywhere??}. My youngest sighed and wished he could read. I spent the time trying not to cry.

They called me back. I brought my youngest with me because he never listens to his brother and he’d also be most likely to decide it was Time to Leave, whether I was there or not. The other three stayed in the waiting room with their books {Falcons of France, The Little White Horse, and The King of the Golden River, if you are interested}, and I silently prayed that the television would try its best not to discuss perversion or violence while I was gone.

Total, we spent another hour in the back. We waited for the doctor. We waited for the X-ray technician. My youngest sat on a bench by himself outside of the X-ray room, waiting for the pictures to be taken. We waited again for them to read the X-rays. We waited for them to bandage my ankle. We waited for them to check me out at the end.

It was two full hours of waiting.

And they did great!

I really can’t believe it. This was such a blessing to me. I am so relieved. I felt so overwhelmed and thought it was going to be one of those terrible disaster stories.

And that was when I realized that all those years ago, when we felt that conviction to bring the children to church, to have them worship with the congregation, God knew this day would come, too. He carried us through all those days of training when it was hard and we wanted to give up, and He blessed us yesterday with some of the fruits of that labor.

As if the joy of discussing a sermon later in the day, or holding a little child’s hand during worship wasn’t grace enough!

The possibility of side-benefits are never a reason to train children, in my opinion. I’m one to think that the thing we’re training them in must be Good in and of itself. But there are side-benefits, and that’s a fact.

And a relief.