On a typical Sunday morning at church, our “pew” is a rather busy place. We have 4 little ones sitting with us now, two of them boys aged 3 and 4, who, while admittedly pretty well behaved for little boys, still require a lot of guidance and direction through the 1 1/2 hours of worship. Our smaller boy often ends up between Jay and I since he usually needs the most attention/help from us. And usually at least one, and sometimes both of us are very attentive and aware of exactly what he is doing as we help him learn what it means to be in worship, behave appropriately, etc.
This morning during the offering, the choir was singing – this is a regular portion of our church service. However, this morning my little brother was part of a trio that was singing a portion of the choral anthem which was a piece taken from Haydn’s “Creation”, and was just glorious. So Jay and I were a little more absorbed in this particular anthem than we might be on another week. Jay passed the offering plate in my direction. As is his usual custom, Nicolas “helped” by handing the plate from Jay to me. But today he added a new component: while passing the plate with one hand, the other hand reached into the collection plate and plucked out a coin. How Jay and I both missed this, I do not know. But as I received the plate from Nicolas, I caught the glint of the shiny quarter in his little chubby hand. Horrified, I whispered, “No, no!” to my puzzled little boy, and since the usher was waiting with a smile on his face (yes, HE saw what Nicolas was up to!), for the plate to reach the end of the row, I gently took the coin from Nicolas and popped it back into the plate. I didn’t figure an extended dialogue with my three year old, ending with a request for him to return the stolen coin himself to the plate would have been fair to the rest of the congregants who were themselves waiting for the plate, hopefully in their cases to put money IN rather than taking it out!!
In any case, I had work hard to suppress my laughter for the remainder of “The Heavens Are Telling”…and don’t you think (without the remainder of the lyrics from this song written in) that this particular title is hilarious given the situation in our pew this morning??!!
Classic! Well, just so’s he realizes, “the Heavens are Telling” but God already knows what his little mind’s cranked out! And He’s got a fix for that, too.