This topic is fresh in my mind after a rather stressful morning at church yesterday! And when I say 'church' in the title I am talking more about Sunday morning church services. If I'm completely honest they have become a bit like work recently. J and I both serve on set-up teams and we have decided to just take one car so we always seem to have to be there early! This takes a huuuge effort to get everything ready for Chloe in time and we will normally be running a little late which then causes tension. I am also responsible for creche so there is the added pressure of making sure all the toys are out and the people running creche are at church and realise they are on that Sunday. If they aren't there then I have to step in. I'm not trying to impress anyone with this list of responsibilities - there are many people who do much more than we do - but giving you an idea of how it can be a very stressful morning.
Then when we actually get to the service, it seems like a battle trying to get Chloe to behave enough in order to enjoy the worship. No matter how many toys, books, crayons etc we have, it is much more fun to run around, make noise and crash into people's legs! I really miss engaging in worship and I think J and I need to work harder at taking it in turns to enjoy worship toddler-free. (As a side note, there are several people at church who I am MASSIVELY grateful to for entertaining Chloe for us during worship - you are lifesavers!). When Chloe goes to creche it is lovely because we know she is having a great time with her friends and we can listen to the preach without distraction. However it is very difficult to respond to any calls to prayer afterwards due to needing to collect Chloe from the creche or to set-down.
All of the above sounds very self-pitying and I can often feel like this! But this is such a mistake and leads to a very negative experience of church. I have realised that part of my negative thinking comes from the belief that everyone is watching to see how we handle Chloe's excitable behaviour at church and judging us if she seems a bit wild! Yesterday it was Mother's Day and we had teaching on motherhood. One of the women speaking said that often there is more pressure being in a church community. I can definitely see this - we have higher expectations of our children and therefore there is a greater pressure when we are around other Christians for our children to behave! Being completely honest, I can feel embaressed to the point of tears when Chloe refuses to do what we say and seems to be distracting everyone around when they are trying to worship. I want everyone to love her like I do and I would hate people to have a negative view of my daughter or label her as 'difficult'.
This thinking is so wrong however! If we are truly a church family then we accept eachother as we are and we all have a responsibility to children in the church. At Chloe's dedication the church promised to help with raising Chloe and I think that should take the pressure off parents for their children to 'perform' at church, as everyone is a 'god-parent' to the children. It is easy to feel isolated as a parent and daunted by the responsibility of raising children but our church family should be there for support and help. They aren't there to judge or condemn (or they shouldn't be).
I have had no evidence of people judging Chloe - if anything I only get wonderful comments about her. So I know I should snap out of putting her and myself down and accept that life will be a bit chaotic while we go through the toddler years. We can only do our best and give the rest to God.
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