Church Without Guilt...A Novel Concept

For those of you without children with special needs, this post may not make a lot of sense, or maybe it will. I'm trying to show more honesty in my blog posts...mostly because I am bloggging mostly for myself. What good does it do to lie? None. It just postpones the inevitable.

Church is something that many Christians lie about. They lie to themselves, they lie to others. I grew up in church -- 3 times a week at minimum. And you know what, it was great. I loved it. That was the life I knew - and it worked. When I went away to college my church involvement wained. I had PCM (Practical Christian Ministry) and that was good - but it wasn't church -- not the way I knew church.

After college I did the 'church thing' again -- but only Sunday mornings...and more for the social aspect than anything. (Do you see the brutle honesty here.) Bill and I attended church after we were married -- I actually met him through a singles Bible study at the church we ended up getting married at. -- but it was the church all of our friends went to. We weren't involved, we just went to church.

After the girls were born we really tried to find a church HOME. A place where I could feel like I did when I was a child - it was my family. My friends were there. Churches have changed a lot since I was a kid though. And then you add a special needs child to the mix. One who can't just go to a regular Sunday School class. (they don't even call it that now.) Thankfully - about 4 years ago we found our church and it is a great fit for us. But, it has taken us a long time to get to that point. We haven't been attending very regularly over the past year - mostly due to Katie. It was impossible for her to handle church which meant that Bill and I had to take turns taking Mary to church while leaving Katie and the other spouse at home. That gets old really fast. The easier alternative was sending Mary to my parents church where my dad is the pastor and where she loves being in "grammoo's" Sunday School class (they still call it that at their church.) :)

Today marked a turning point for our family. About a month ago I took Mary to see a movie, and low and behold, who is behing us in line, but the Pastor of our church and his wife and kids. Coincidence, I think not...but God. We chatted a little, and in my embarrassment told him the truth -- that Katie's disability was keeping us out of church. He said -- funny you should mention that because we are starting a new program for special needs children . We are going to pair them with a "buddy" who will be with them every week. They will be like a classroom "aide" assigned just to the one child. ( Our church has recently gone through a major expansion ). "My old office" he said, "will be the home base for these kids." He asked me to drop an e-mail to the children's pastor and ask her what our options for Katie were. Kristin (the childrens pastor) said "Funny you should e-mail me b/c I have been thinking about Katie and your family a lot. We already have a woman that is interested in being Katie's buddy." I was floored. God is so cool. He had this all arranged. I didn't even have to stress about. A month later (today) we were in church as a family for the first time in a long time. Katie was with her new buddy Adore, who we "adore". She is a kind, wonderful woman who is willing to give an hour and a half a week to a child she had never met so that her parents can be in church together and so that Katie (and Mary) can hear about Jesus in their "Sunday School Class " -- that is what I am calling it.

God is so good. It is so nice to be in church singing "Shout to the Lord" and to know that I don't have to feel guilty that my spouse is at home, or that my autistic daughter is unhappy or miserable. What a great feeling. What a great day. I was able to be in church without any guilt...and the best part is that God actually spoke to me.....