"When is Worship Jesus, Mommy?" 5-year-old Josh asked as we finished up his bath.
"Actually, it's tomorrow, honey. This is Saturday night, so tomorrow is Sunday," I replied.
"YEA!!!" he shouted. "I get to have a doughnut!"
Benny and I wanted our children to learn at a very early age that
the church wasn't a building...it's the people of God coming together
to worship Him through singing, hearing God's word, giving offerings,
and enjoying one another. So we didn't go to church because we were the church. The Sunday meeting became Worship Jesus. For as long as he could remember, our firstborn had left early for Worship Jesus so
Daddy could look over his message notes and greet people as they
arrived. And Daddy's weekly 7-11 coffee stop resulted in Josh having
his Sunday morning doughnut.
At 5, our son anticipated going to Worship Jesus mostly because it meant no oatmeal or Cheerios. He got a chocolate doughnut!
Josh is now the father of two. He stands behind us on Sunday
mornings with his wife and children worshiping Jesus. During the break
in our meeting he often enjoys a chocolate doughnut with his 2-year-old
son, JJ. (The tradition now includes my children and grandchildren;
thankfully, there's a Dunkin Doughnuts near our building where I now buy a dozen each Sunday morning.) But Josh no
longer looks forward to Sunday mornings because of the doughnuts. He's
a passionate worshiper of His Savior and is modeling joyful and
affectionate worship of Him to his son -- a son who wants to
copy daddy in everything.
Right now JJ's "worship" includes playing air drums and jumping up and down like
Daddy. But I see the day in faith when his regenerated heart will
explode in worship, his hands will reach heavenward in praise, and
songs filled with sound doctrine will fill God's ears (and mine) with joy.
Just like Daddy.
Posted by Sheree
P.S. Be sure to keep reading below for our latest Spring Cleaning Contest entry...you still have time to enter. The deadline is this Friday!
The
Miracle on Shumard Oak Ct. (Allura's Garage)
The
biggest clue that our garage needed to be cleaned out was that there
wasn’t even a 12 inch path to walk through anywhere! It’s
been so cluttered with boxes of Christmas stuff that still hadn’t made it
up the ladder into the attic (we knew the ladder was there somewhere, but
couldn’t see it!) and old scooters and bikes that the boys hadn’t
ridden since they were 10. Add to that the ton of things I like to keep
handy for when I’m babysitting. Brian usually keeps the garage
fairly clean, : ) but because of added responsibilities at work, things piled
up. And before we knew it, we were waist deep in clutter. We had
set aside this past weekend to work on it, but were
dreading the task until our daughter mentioned the cleaning
contest! Suddenly, we had a reason to do
the hard work ahead of us! It took five of us about seven hours, and
there were so many trash bags we lost count. Everything we want to sell
in our Mission X garage sale was placed in a pile, and Jenn told us we have
one month to get rid of it or she’s calling the Salvation Army! (And if
you know her, you know she means it!) : ) We were thrilled to finally be able
to park a car in our garage!
Lost
and Found:
In
2002 Brian and I went to Hilton Head with his job for the World Com Golf
Classic. It was a lot of fun and very romantic. : )
A few
years later I finally got around to putting together an album of pictures and
souvenirs, but I had misplaced the official World Com luggage tag (and who
knows? It could be a collector’s item since World Com doesn’t exist
anymore!). So you can imagine my surprise when we found it under one of
the shelving units in the corner of the garage!