Gasp...
How can it be?
My dad is an elder!
I started teaching the 3yr old Sunday school class when I was 12!
And did so until I was in college!
I almost went to school to work in children's ministry!
Yup!
It was not some great thought out thing.
Jilli had her first hospitalization around the age when she would have started to go in the nursery so we didn't start putting her in then... and then her medical needs started to spiral as she got older and we just never put her in Sunday School.
Both kids sit in service with us... well at this particular point in our lives Jilli sits nicely... Lydia is a toddler 😜 and makes her own choices sometimes....
We reevaluate this frequently... one of the things you can count on is that I am always reevaluating things in my head... to an exhausting point...
But this is what we have continued to settle on as the best option for our girls right now...
When I wake up on Monday morning and see people whose kids are sick now and were contagious the day before (we are often contagious with things before we know we have things, that is how things spread... its not the fault of these parents, it just is how life is with kids) I am reminded that we might be making the right choice for right now...
But there are many families with kiddos with health needs that do have their kids in Sunday school... thats what is right for their family and with the help of their church they make a plan that works best for their child... if you are in a position to make that experience best as possible for that family please do everything possible to make that happen! Families with kids with medical needs are excluded from many things... church should NEVER be one of them!!!
But sometimes I wonder if my kids are missing out... if they are missing a part of the culture... if they are missing Bible lessons... Will my kids even understand the Buzzfeed lists in 20 years that talk about there era of Christian culture?
Sometimes then when I start having these internal debates a children's Bible song comes on my phone that has sketchy theology at best and I think maybe my kids might be alright lol...
But in seriousness, I see some ways that my kids are having conversations that I was not having at their age.
There are ways that the American culture pushes kids to grow up to fast which leaves us with young adults searching for their childhood... one of the things that pissed me off the most as a teacher is when I would have to send notes home to families at the end of the school year telling them that their child was behind if they didn't know 19 sight words and read at a level B as a 4 year old... that was an obtainable goal for some kids but not for all and I question if it was even developmentally appropriate... it also brought phone calls of crying parents worried about their kid's future... their kid was 4, their life was not over because they did not know this information... many countries that preform better then us haven't even thought about schooling at age 4.
But there are other things that I think we sell our kids short on. Kids can have pretty complex, in depth conversations at a pretty young age if they are age appropriate. Kids are great at observing the world and can bring interesting perspectives. I wrote (this post) a few months ago about a conversation that Jillian and I had about hearing God after I was listening to a podcast in the car. She picks up a ton from the podcasts I listen to and not everything I listen to is about fluff (my top podcasts are: Relevant, That Sounds Fun, The New Activist, and Unedited). Friday night we had a whole conversation about the ennogram because That Sounds Fun is talking about the ennogram for the next few weeks.
But one of my favorite things is that I have heard Jilli singing more worship music in her everyday life... playing with toys, riding in the car, doing her meds... sometimes her version of the words are really funny... but her heart is in the posture of worship.
Yesterday was a kinda typical Sunday morning in our family... Brent was doing sound, mom was overseeing ushers, dad was an usher (dad also plays in the band some weeks), and I had the girls. This particular week dad was with the girls and I for most of worship and my heart was so thankful! I held one of Jilli's hands, dad held the other and Lydi danced on the floor in front of us... this isn't the typical American worship experience... but man was it beautiful!
So while sometimes I struggle with trying to make sure we are giving my kids enough of the "typical" childhood experience... I also see how beautiful some of the aspects of their childhood are that are a byproduct of us doing some things differently... us having the kids in worship with us was never some deep theological plan, I love the Sunday School teachers at our church, but it is what is working for us right now and there are some unintentional things about it that are beautiful.
Sometimes I feel when there is unintentional happy things about are life that are a result of doing things differently because of the kids medical needs that they are are socially acceptable to share... I feel like sharing the disability experience has to fall into the boxes of either being so sad and overwhelmed about it all or try to be a motivational poster... and I don't want either... I just want to live our lives... and in that there will be hard moments and there will joy... there will be unexpected things along the way.
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