bsmiles and sunny days

Everything this little girls draws has lots of people. Her life is full of people and noise and stuff and all the fun and drama that comes with that.  And speaking of big family life... Yesterday was Sunday. Sunday is always a big day for us because it's one of very few days of the week that we have to be ready to be somewhere in the morning. I was on top of the world when we left the house right on time. No one was yelling. No one was crying. Everyone was excited to go. Now, on lovely spring and fall mornings, our church sets up a canopy over the breakfast tables so that the congestion around the food is lessened. I love this because we tend to be in the way, pretty much everywhere we go, so I'm constantly herding my crew through the line so other people can get in. Before we even got out of the car, I noticed a little spot on my already wrinkled white linen blouse. I straightened it out and noticed another. There were a few more drops and a big group of spots on the hemline, ...

Today I took the kids to the Baptist church here in town for, potentially, our last Sunday. It made my heart sick. I grew up in the church that raised me. By that I mean the people there visited my mom in the hospital after my birth. They attended my birthday parties growing up. The kids that were in the nursery with me were also in youth group with me. It felt like home. To this day after attending churches for almost 20 years, I have yet to experience anything comparable. Fremont Calvary Temple was close, but that was a long time ago. It grieves me to think that my children won't have the same experience. They've not known a church family, not in the way that I did anyway.  The mentor chaplain warned us that we would have a difficult time fitting in at a church because of Dale's work. His schedule doesn't accommodate typical church attendance, so we have to go on our own. The kind of work he does goes unseen, and therefore it goes unacknowledged. It's not that he ...