BAD in the BACK PEW!

Feisty and tenacious, my 92-year-old mother is learning to text; granted, she’s not that successful at it, but she wields her tiny cell phone with gusto, popping it out and flipping it open, then punching the buttons faster than I can, and enjoying that instantaneous connection to the person’s voice she wants to hear. At 92-years-old, she’s pretty amazing. 

But on Easter Sunday, as the family gathered at her church in Houston, the tiny cell phone became her giant nemesis when one of her mischievous grandchildren texted her repeatedly during the service, startling her and upsetting her and disrupting what should have been a more reverent time. But we were in the back pew. And bad in the back pew isn’t unheard of, even in church.

“Somebody keeps calling me,” she said to me.

“So turn off your phone, “I thought to myself. Believe me, I didn’t say that one out loud. Not to my once red-headed mother who is one of the real McCoys known for their fiery temper and the McCoy-Hatfield Feud. Nope. I knew better than to say that out loud in church. This time I kept my mouth shut. My mom didn’t want to turn off her phone; she just wanted the person to quit texting her.

And that was just the beginning.

The church music was loud, a contemporary service with drums and electric guitars and lots of speakers, modern music with lovely lyrics and upbeat worship, but for a 92-year-old woman with hearing aids, the loud noise was impossible; she prefers a quiet traditional service with the familiar Baptist hymnal music of “Amazing Grace” and “Standing on the Promises” and “The Old Rugged Cross.” But all of us -- her daughters and son-in-law and her brother and sister-in-law and grandchildren -- couldn’t make it in time for the earlier service.  

And then it happened. As the uplifting, lively praise music reached a crescendo, I saw my mom’s involuntary reaction:  hands covering her ears, mouth frowning like she was in arthritic pain, eyes squinting as she peevishly glared at the musicians from her vantage point in the back pew, my mom, dressed pretty in pink, was pretty unhappy. But oh how happy it made everyone else looking at her for she was darling. Always will be one of my fondest memories of her. Vibrantly alive, actively involved, there was nothing passive about this woman less than eight years shy of 100 years old. Fully present in the moment, she obviously wasn’t happy, and we knew it.

Yes, she loves Christ Jesus; yes, she typically worships with reverence; yes, she’s celebrating the day of her risen Lord. But she was irritated and uncomfortable and ready for lunch. Even on Easter Sunday.

Later, my sister told me that mom once jumped so hard when the music began that she knocked her hearing aids out of her ears, and Janie had to crawl under the pews to find them. What a story that made. I got a text about that one – after the service, of course. Texting in church isn’t a regular occurrence.

Bad in the back pew, however, wasn’t the only thing we were convicted of that Sunday. The Romans 8 sermon by Dr. Duane Brooks was powerful, essentially discussing how God loves us and how there’s not one thing we can do about it. Not one thing. Even bad behavior in the back pew.

But I was also convicted of something else simply by watching my mother. Sometimes we want what is bothering us, like the phone, to stop.  To stop irritating us. To go away. And we’re not happy or comfortable when it doesn’t. Not one bit.

So when it doesn’t stop – again, like her cell phone -- we have to be willing to put the phone up and turn the hearing aids down and live without these conveniences so we can concentrate on God. And if we can’t do that by ourselves, we have to ask for help for I realized, belatedly, that mom didn’t know how to turn off her phone.

By concentrating on God, however, we’re doing the best we can.

A dear friend told me recently, “Becky, do the best you can, not more than you can.” Not bad advice. Whether we’re 92 or 22, that’s not bad advice at all.

The back pew, as it turns out, isn’t bad at all.

But next time, we’ll take Gran to the more traditional service!

Who can separate us from Christ's love?

Can trouble or hard times or harm or hunger? Can nakedness or danger or war? …No In all these things we will do even more than win! We owe it all to Christ, who has loved us.

I am absolutely sure that not even death or life can separate us from God's love.  Not even angels or demons, the present or the future, or any powers can do that. Not even the highest places or the lowest, or anything else in all creation can do that. Nothing at all can ever separate us from God's love because of what Christ Jesus our Lord has done.

Romans 8:35-3 (NIRV).