It was a beautiful Sunday morning. I woke up happy, encouraged, and ready to start the day. Ben’s parents were in town. We had just spent a nice relaxing weekend together, and we were all excited to head to church. We got ready, ate breakfast, I fed Jaxon, and we got all the other miscellaneous tasks done before heading out the door, ON TIME! I even remembered my Bible and journal! I figured since Ben’s parents were here, I might be able to sit through a whole sermon since they wouldn’t mind tending to Jax IF he needed to be taken out. He is so not having the nursery right now. He starts crying when we walk in the doors of church. But I know it’s a phase that he will grow out of so we usually keep him with us and either Ben or I will take him out if he gets too antsy.

As predicted, he cried when we got into the lobby, so we just took him with us to the sanctuary. Worship was amazing as always, and Jaxon didn’t fuss a bit. I was hopeful he would be that calm and precious for most of the sermon. Not five minutes into our pastor speaking, he wanted to get down. I handed him to Ben’s mom so she could feed him a snack and keep him occupied for a bit longer.

I pulled out my Bible and journal and put the date and a quick title on my page. But I got no further, because right then, Jax started crying. He wanted me. Such a mama’s boy. I may have rolled my eyes, but I closed my Bible, scooped him up, and sat him on my lap. He reached for my pen, so I thought I would let him try to draw in the journal, maybe that would keep him quiet so I could keep listening to the pastor.

I’ll be honest, I was pretty annoyed at him when he reached for me a minute before. All I wanted was to be able to sit through a sermon and take notes for once. It’s hard to do that when we have a baby who won’t stay in the nursery. But as he started to scribble on the page where I had intended to write my own sermon notes, my eyes welled up with tears. I felt God was kindly teaching me a lesson as I sat in that sanctuary with my baby on my lap. “This matters,” is what I heard in my heart. This. Making an effort to come to church even on the days when it’s hard getting out the door. Sacrificing my own time of listening to nurture a child who just needs me a lot right now. Letting him know, even at this young of an age, that Sunday mornings are important-

spending time with other believers and worshiping the Father is important.

I could have ignored that calling on my heart and been annoyed or frustrated the rest of our time at church. Or even the rest of the day. Sometimes I get like that. But what God told me in the quietness of my heart really changed my perspective of Sunday mornings for us. Yes, they might look a bit chaotic sometimes. They might be stressful, and there will be mornings when I don’t get to take notes. But God doesn’t need those perfectly organized sermon notes. He needs us to continue showing our son that Jesus is our priority. And those scribbles on the page are a reminder to me that we are doing what matters.