Laughing in Church

My name is Shari. I am a midlife Christian stay at home mom and Grammy. We have 7 kids, but only 3 left at home. They range from ages 11 to 35. I blog at Faith Filled Food for Moms and Grandmothers about my faith, parenting, step parenting, grand parenting, gardening, cooking, blended families, addiction, product reviews and everything in between.

Humor is a coping tool in our family to deal with the stresses of life, the different stages of parenting, or just plain getting through the day. My husband and I have been known to dance down the isles of the grocery store, sing in the department store, skip through the malls, and put on “very special” performances for our kids’ friends.
Our younger kids tend to complain to our older kids on occasion about our “unique” parenting style, but of course the bigger kids simply smile, shake their heads and say, “If we had to deal with them, so do you!”

Our family has been local missionaries in a church restructure and rebuilding for the past year. The church membership was down to about 60 members and most all of these members are elderly. One Sunday morning, not too long ago, we were all sitting in church together. It came time for giving and “passing the basket” so our worship Pastor got up and started singing and playing the guitar. There was just silence (besides him singing.) Now the words were up on the overhead, so we wondered why no one else was singing. My husband and I just start singing anyway. It was rather awkward, but we’re used to being awkward.

I could feel the tension in my two teenagers that were sitting next to us. I looked over, and they were looking at us with funny smiles on their faces. My daughter mouthed, “Why isn’t anyone singing? Stop singing! How embarrassing! Nobody is singing but you two!” She said this across her brother who is 15 1/2. He just sat there looking at her with a smirk on his face.

Well, we couldn’t resist singing even louder.  As our daughter, who is 13, was dying of embarrassment, and sinking deep into her seat, I turned to my son and whispered ever so calmly, “Join us.”

The look on that child’s face was priceless. At first it was like the deer in the headlights stare, but then all of a sudden he and I started to laugh. He realized I was kidding him. We started laughing so hard and so loud, that my husband was even embarrassed. We tried to get back to being serious, but too late, everyone was staring at us.

Although we probably made a spectacle of ourselves, it was one of those rare moments that I got to wholeheartedly laugh with my teenage son. I wouldn’t change it for the world. We never did figure out why no one else was singing!