Topic: People/Family stories
Today’s service was very different for me. The service was very moody and somber. We did more of a Good Friday service instead of Palm Sunday because we're having a busy week there. We have regular Wed night service, the on Thursday we're having a Passover Seder. There is someone coming from Jews for Jesus to present it. Then Saturday we're doing a huge community outreach egg hunt and spring carnival. We get hundreds of people from the community for this....as well as one on halloween night, a fall carnival, not an egg hunt, silly. People want a fun, wholesome event to take their kids to, so we offer it and are getting to know our community...and they're getting to know us. Hopefully they see that we care about them and that they feel welcome there. So anyway, in the service today I helped in the dramatic readings. I was a theater major in college and have done quite a bit of ministry type dramatic stuff in the past. But I had not done it in YEARS and especially not in this church. It was the first time anyone there had even seen me up on the platform. So that was fun and growth-ish for me. We had a big cross at the front that 3 men held up and stared at for the entire service!! (i think they had the hardest job) We were all dressed in black and most of the songs we sang were accompanied by iWorship dvd's up on the screen. Those are so inspiring! We also had communion, spread out in parts during the service.
Just before I had to go up on stage to read the dramatic prayer parts, Dianna was beautifully singing Via Delorosa, while scenes from the Jesus movie presented Jesus walking the Via Delorosa, then being put on a cross. And just before I had to head up on stage, the little girl behind me got hit with the impact of those scenes from the movie, that she started sobbing, grievously. I found out later that she had just given her life to Christ the previous Wednesday! So I was fumbling up the steps, trying to choke back the lump in my throat.
At the end, pastor hubby asked people to come and pray at the cross if they wanted to (the 3 men had laid it down in front of the Lord's supper table) or to come talk to him about decisions they wanted to make if they needed to. The drama team lead the way to kneel and pray there.
So I was there praying, when I felt my 9 year old Maggie sidle up to me and laid her head on my lap. When I was finished, I went to take a seat and she stayed there. My sight was blocked from seeing her because of the piano's positioning. My sister leaned over when Charles started to end the prayer time and told me Maggie was still there and she was crying hard. Another lady (the pianist actually) had gone to sit by her. My sister told me that Maggie had really taken hard the scenes of The Passion that were played during a few of the readings or songs. So it really got her grieving. I had forgotten about those scenes…I had to put my eyes down during them so I wouldn’t be too choked up to say my lines. I told her afterward that we hadn't let her go see The Passion a couple years ago because it was so realistic and hard to see. But she told me she really wanted to see it this week, before Easter. I guess that will be our Friday thing. This will be a memorable/meaning-full Easter for her.
It is interesting how adults can prepare a moving service, carefully rehearsed and appointed, but what moves you the most is seeing someone else, especially a child, experience the gut-churning grief of realizing for the first time what Jesus actually went through....for us.
