One Sunday morning I was so fed up with religion, that I stood up in the middle of a sermon being given in a packed-out elementary school cafeteria and yelled,
“Hey! My son needs help and I’m wondering what the church is here for if not to come alongside each other. We’re here for your children and you know it! Is there anybody in this building who will help me with my son?”
It was a desperate act on my part. We were youth pastors and I felt more like a failed politician in a last bid to save my political parenting office. Little did I know Peter the pedophile was teaching him to look down on me, while making me feel like I was loosing my mind. And I was genuinely starting to believe it.
It was cold and quiet and a long while before anyone spoke. Then one couple finally said they would, and the Shofners became lifelong friends. It turned out that they would never have grandchildren because their son was homosexual and their daughter anti-family. So, hearing me heart cry out loud like that offered them the opportunity to respond to a personal ache of their own.
It was a relationship I would embarrass myself publicly again to experience. Board games, shooting BB guns, walks and talks, home cooked meals… as spiritual grandparent role models the two of them came alongside my son offering him stability for the first time.
I never had to contact them. I was barely over the last kindness before they were calling again. As our families spent more and more time together, we were experiencing true Christianity and it rocked!
Years later on Maxine’s death bed, I put my 2-month old baby girl on the bed beside her.
At that time my little one was not yet talkative. She engaged in her surroundings mostly when there were no people around, except mom of course. But the minute she was near Grandma Maxine she started babbling a mile a minute, clearly trying to tell her something wonderful about where she was about to go. It seemed that she knew something about her future home and wanted Granny to have a head’s up. It was non-stop until I could see that Maxine was getting tired and needed to lie back down. Then just as before, once back in my arms, my infant settled into her old quiet, though fiercely observant self. Like Miriam watching her son, the Messiah, I pondered those things in my heart too.
Recently I attended a famous church in San Diego with a dear friend. Seemingly out of nowhere a teenager stood up in the middle of the service and yelled, “FREE Palestine!” The silence in the crowd of Christians was deafening. Not one parishioner or leader engaged them in a faith-based rebuttal. Only ushers led her out while her grandmother trailed along behind with a look beyond exhaustion.
That girl was as bold as I was, and if she is like me she was screaming for help. It was another missed opportunity by those who name the name of Christ. That was the moment when they were being invited as a crowd to suspend their monotonous rituals and welcomed The Holy Spirit to drop in where He was needed most. It isn’t the presence of evil in our midst but the apathy of His church that has us all at risk. History is repeating itself and this time its your turn and mine to decide which side of this eternal battle we are on. There is no more middle ground if there ever was.
I’m Adelaide. Thanks for joining me.
P.S. Let’s be the media our children learn from. Screen shot success & share #CoWkSavesAChild.
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