It was several years after I had lost both my paternal grandparents that I found out that they were SMOs. My stepmother is the one who told me. I had to sit down. Why had my dad not confided this to me? Why was I just now hearing this? Sunday? Morning? Only? Shocked and dismayed, I wondered how such wonderful Christians, and the people my father admired most, could only have attended church on Sunday mornings, callously skipping out on Wednesday night classes and Sunday evening sermons. How could this be? I came from a long line of Christians who were at church every time the doors were open, or as I considered them, faithful Christians. Didn't I? It took a few minutes, but the shock wore off. I accepted the fact that my grandparents had been SMOs, and I continued to attend church three times a week as an obligation, then service projects, dinners, and outreach events for good measure. My grandparents might have had issues with their Christianity, but I was doing much better. My nuclear family and me. All on the same pew. As it should be.
Then my husband lost his job.
I don't include this tidbit about my husband losing his job to say that I lost my faith. I include this because it was a life-changing experience that I didn't even realize was changing my life at the time. A true turning-point. My husband decided to go back to school. The best decision for all of us at the time. However, instead of allowing me to be the sole bread winner of the family, his pride took over, and he began doing what seemed to be the most lucrative. He became a pizza delivery boy. I am grateful for what he did and admire his work ethic, but people don't just order pizza at dinner time. My husband worked long into the night and every weekend, including Sundays, for about two years.
Like I said. Unexpected. Life-changing. I began to take my kids to church by myself, explaining to those who asked that my husband was working, internally cringing at my own words. I wanted to insert "We're not having problems in our relationship, just so you know," or "This is only temporary." I wondered what visitors thought, too. That I was a single mom? I couldn't stand the idea of someone thinking that about me. I was not a single mom. My husband had not fallen away from the church. But as badly as I wanted to protect my image and hated to think that I was being judged, there was something else that I hated more. Twice a week, I dreaded it, but I did it. Bible class. It was one thing to sit in an auditorium with a few other hundred people, hear a strong sermon, sing praises, and pray. It's another to sit alone in a room with fewer than a dozen women, all with a man's arm to hold onto.
There were other reasons I had a hard time in class. There is one part of my story that I left out, and that is that my husband wasn't the only one to get an after-school job. I took a second job as well. At an after-school care facility. As stressful as teaching all day was, it didn't even compare to the stress of this job. Two kids. Two jobs. Neither of which being a job where you "leave work at work." I began, in Bible class, to open my notebook and make to-do lists, half listening to what was being said, overwhelming myself with what I was writing. I had to pick up sliced turkey for the kids' lunches, reschedule those dentist appointments that I made six months ago, submit grades for progress reports, grade the papers first to get the dang grades, find my son's baseball shirt because it was missing again and he had a game the next night, buy and send a card for my mother-in-law's birthday, and then there was the same word at the bottom of every to-do list: laundry.
Making my list, and contemplating what was on my plate might not have been the best way to attend church. I certainly wasn't focused on God. It was easy, though, and let me explain why. Completely overwhelmed with life, I would have been receptive to the Word, had it been opened. However, more often than not, on Wednesday night and on Sunday mornings, we didn't open our Bibles in Bible class. The teacher might throw out a scripture reference in a class, sure. But the gatherings seemed to be just a forum where the teacher would introduce a topic and wait for commentary. I began to tune out the commentary and really started to weigh what I was doing at each moment of the class against what I could have been accomplishing if I was outside of the class. Again, not the best way to attend church, I admit. Please just bear with me. I didn't make a conscious decision to walk this valley, but I walked it. And what I learned is wholly and fully worth the anxiety and the unrest that I endured.
The first time I sat in the car while my kids were in Bible class, I felt like a depraved and godless heathen. I prayed for forgiveness immediately, but I had given in. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't go in there with my body fatigued and my eyes hurting, and nothing crossed off my to-do list. I stayed in the car, turned off the engine, and opened a small book light. And then something incredible happened. I opened my own Bible. I continued my prayer of contrition, and it became a prayer of petition. I even sang a little. Abide with me, fast falls the eventide. The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide. When other helpers, fail and comforts flee. Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me. I read Judges 11, about Jephthah, the son of a prostitute, and how he became a judge of Israel. It was not an hour of speculating how terrible things have gotten and how disrespectful kids are nowadays, and it was not an hour spent discussing whether I am a Mary or a Martha. I had done those before, in class. Numerous times. No, this was a new experience. I was not opening my Bible to find a scripture that would prove someone wrong. I was not praying in feverish urgency about a painful ordeal that I needed immediate help with. I was getting closer to my Creator, approaching the throne with a humble spirit and listening to His word with an open heart. I think God was using this time, when I was alone with him, to teach me how to worship.
I'm not going to lie, I did not always use class time to study and pray when I was going through this rather difficult time in my spiritual, financial, married, and professional life. It got much easier to miss class after the initial one, and I did it for months. There were times I ran to Wal-mart while my kids were in class, because I had to buy cereal and underwear, or Christmas presents, or a flash drive, or toothpaste. There were times when I cried in the ladies' bathroom, and there were times when I set my phone alarm, leaned the driver's seat back, and nodded off. This period in my life was just what I called it a couple paragraphs up. It was a valley. And God has since lifted me out.
If you drive into the parking lot of my church during Sunday School, you most likely won't find me sleeping or singing in my car, and I probably won't be at the store. I attend Bible class again, and teach it sometimes, too. I am able to manage my time much more efficiently now that both my husband and I have gone down to just one job each. I still consider myself an every-time-the-doors-are-open kind of Christian, because I honestly like being there, but something has changed. My overly critical attitude of Bible classes hasn't changed, no. I'm working on that one. However, what has changed is that I no longer scoff and sneer at those who bustle in right as service is going to begin, after Sunday School has ended. I no longer see a woman who is alone and assume she is a single mother. I no longer shake my head in disappointment on Wednesday nights as I take note of how empty the auditorium looks. I no longer find out that someone has to work on a Sunday and think, "Well, they should just quit that job." The term "SMO" is not in my working vocabulary.
And I think my grandparents did just fine.
Then my husband lost his job.
I don't include this tidbit about my husband losing his job to say that I lost my faith. I include this because it was a life-changing experience that I didn't even realize was changing my life at the time. A true turning-point. My husband decided to go back to school. The best decision for all of us at the time. However, instead of allowing me to be the sole bread winner of the family, his pride took over, and he began doing what seemed to be the most lucrative. He became a pizza delivery boy. I am grateful for what he did and admire his work ethic, but people don't just order pizza at dinner time. My husband worked long into the night and every weekend, including Sundays, for about two years.Like I said. Unexpected. Life-changing. I began to take my kids to church by myself, explaining to those who asked that my husband was working, internally cringing at my own words. I wanted to insert "We're not having problems in our relationship, just so you know," or "This is only temporary." I wondered what visitors thought, too. That I was a single mom? I couldn't stand the idea of someone thinking that about me. I was not a single mom. My husband had not fallen away from the church. But as badly as I wanted to protect my image and hated to think that I was being judged, there was something else that I hated more. Twice a week, I dreaded it, but I did it. Bible class. It was one thing to sit in an auditorium with a few other hundred people, hear a strong sermon, sing praises, and pray. It's another to sit alone in a room with fewer than a dozen women, all with a man's arm to hold onto.
There were other reasons I had a hard time in class. There is one part of my story that I left out, and that is that my husband wasn't the only one to get an after-school job. I took a second job as well. At an after-school care facility. As stressful as teaching all day was, it didn't even compare to the stress of this job. Two kids. Two jobs. Neither of which being a job where you "leave work at work." I began, in Bible class, to open my notebook and make to-do lists, half listening to what was being said, overwhelming myself with what I was writing. I had to pick up sliced turkey for the kids' lunches, reschedule those dentist appointments that I made six months ago, submit grades for progress reports, grade the papers first to get the dang grades, find my son's baseball shirt because it was missing again and he had a game the next night, buy and send a card for my mother-in-law's birthday, and then there was the same word at the bottom of every to-do list: laundry.
Making my list, and contemplating what was on my plate might not have been the best way to attend church. I certainly wasn't focused on God. It was easy, though, and let me explain why. Completely overwhelmed with life, I would have been receptive to the Word, had it been opened. However, more often than not, on Wednesday night and on Sunday mornings, we didn't open our Bibles in Bible class. The teacher might throw out a scripture reference in a class, sure. But the gatherings seemed to be just a forum where the teacher would introduce a topic and wait for commentary. I began to tune out the commentary and really started to weigh what I was doing at each moment of the class against what I could have been accomplishing if I was outside of the class. Again, not the best way to attend church, I admit. Please just bear with me. I didn't make a conscious decision to walk this valley, but I walked it. And what I learned is wholly and fully worth the anxiety and the unrest that I endured.
The first time I sat in the car while my kids were in Bible class, I felt like a depraved and godless heathen. I prayed for forgiveness immediately, but I had given in. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't go in there with my body fatigued and my eyes hurting, and nothing crossed off my to-do list. I stayed in the car, turned off the engine, and opened a small book light. And then something incredible happened. I opened my own Bible. I continued my prayer of contrition, and it became a prayer of petition. I even sang a little. Abide with me, fast falls the eventide. The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide. When other helpers, fail and comforts flee. Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me. I read Judges 11, about Jephthah, the son of a prostitute, and how he became a judge of Israel. It was not an hour of speculating how terrible things have gotten and how disrespectful kids are nowadays, and it was not an hour spent discussing whether I am a Mary or a Martha. I had done those before, in class. Numerous times. No, this was a new experience. I was not opening my Bible to find a scripture that would prove someone wrong. I was not praying in feverish urgency about a painful ordeal that I needed immediate help with. I was getting closer to my Creator, approaching the throne with a humble spirit and listening to His word with an open heart. I think God was using this time, when I was alone with him, to teach me how to worship.
I'm not going to lie, I did not always use class time to study and pray when I was going through this rather difficult time in my spiritual, financial, married, and professional life. It got much easier to miss class after the initial one, and I did it for months. There were times I ran to Wal-mart while my kids were in class, because I had to buy cereal and underwear, or Christmas presents, or a flash drive, or toothpaste. There were times when I cried in the ladies' bathroom, and there were times when I set my phone alarm, leaned the driver's seat back, and nodded off. This period in my life was just what I called it a couple paragraphs up. It was a valley. And God has since lifted me out.
If you drive into the parking lot of my church during Sunday School, you most likely won't find me sleeping or singing in my car, and I probably won't be at the store. I attend Bible class again, and teach it sometimes, too. I am able to manage my time much more efficiently now that both my husband and I have gone down to just one job each. I still consider myself an every-time-the-doors-are-open kind of Christian, because I honestly like being there, but something has changed. My overly critical attitude of Bible classes hasn't changed, no. I'm working on that one. However, what has changed is that I no longer scoff and sneer at those who bustle in right as service is going to begin, after Sunday School has ended. I no longer see a woman who is alone and assume she is a single mother. I no longer shake my head in disappointment on Wednesday nights as I take note of how empty the auditorium looks. I no longer find out that someone has to work on a Sunday and think, "Well, they should just quit that job." The term "SMO" is not in my working vocabulary.
And I think my grandparents did just fine.
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