blah, blah, blah, eeeeeeasy. Easy like Sunday moooooorning….

These are literally the only four words I know of this song and I get them stuck in my head every week. It feels like it was written strictly to spite me. (I’m so vain, I definitely think this song is about me.) This person CLEARLY does not understand my life. My friend Kat told me there were probably plenty of drugs involved in the writing, so I guess it makes sense that his Sunday morning felt easy enough.

The truth of my Sunday mornings is this:

We all turn into absolutely horrible humans between 8:30 and 11:10am every. single. week.

I’ve tried various strategies to fix this over the years—different morning routines, different schedules, different services, different preparations the night before—but to no avail. Sunday morning between waking and church is the worst. I keep doing it because assembling together is part of obedience and it is good and right and necessary, but it is, almost without exception, utter chaos and the most trying time of my week.

It always shines a huge spotlight on my inability to live and parent righteously, despite repeated cries for help. It’s like a rhythm. A weekly liturgy. Saturday is family day, but it ends in dread with the knowledge that Sunday’s coming and with it an unavoidable close-up of my own sin nature and insufficient character.

Andrew gets up and leaves before anyone else is up. The kids and I wake and mayhem ensues. Breakfast is spilled and fights break out and kids get hurt. This week, I stepped on a generous glop of cold strawberry jam on the carpet. At some point they’re all either screaming or crying at once. There are constant random prayers: “Jesus… what the hell is wrong with my people? I need help!” followed by lots and lots of trying really hard and ultimately some degree of losing my ever-loving mind all over my kids. There are bad words muttered under my breath and bite marks on my tongue to keep them from being shouted. (At no point are bad words more likely to simply be the right ones than Sunday mornings.) 

Eventually, we make it to church almost on time. Kids are deposited in appropriate rooms for childcare learning about Jesus, and I drag my broken and insufficient soul to the coffee bar where, if I’m lucky, there is still some caffeine available.

I meet so many friends on my way through with kind smiles asking “how are you today?” and all I can manage is a weary grimace and “I’m here.” I look around at these lovely souls—smiles, reasonably well-put-together outfits—and look down at me. I adjust my pants again. My abundant muffin top is attractively showing itself between my jeans that were flattering (four days of wear ago) and the shirt that was cute before breakfast happened.  I shrug. It’s 11:05am and I am simply out of energy to even care… I don’t need to hide from these folks. (Well, except that one… oh well.) It’s fine. They don’t notice or care what my jeans are doing. I grab a bulletin (“communicator” at our place) from yet another sweet friend at the sanctuary door and lumber into the sanctuary around the end of the first song, feeling entirely used up.

And then I hear the music. We’re singing of a God who is good, a Son who rescues, a Spirit who indwells, a love that pursues. My voice cracks (from disuse in this range, not tears) and I sink into the worship, fixing my eyes on Jesus. He knows I’m only dust and he doesn’t shy away from my brokenness. I remember that my lack of merit is precisely what makes the Gospel good news to me to begin with. If I deserved it, it’d hardly be news at all, let alone good news. A pastor opens the Word and I remember again the truth of who God is and how much hope I have.

So here I am every freaking Sunday, brokenness on display for a few hours leading up to church. I walk in a hot mess of “not enough” and “I hate everything” just to collide with the truth:

He is enough and He loves me still.

One of the things I often pray for my babies at bedtime is that they will see their need for Jesus and His love for them. Sunday morning accomplishes both in my heart. It also regularly gives me an opportunity to apologize to them for sins committed in the gap between my need and my recollection of His love. It’s space for the gospel to come into my house, and it’s built into every psychotic Sunday morning. I won’t say this liturgy is pleasant—these are the hardest hours of my week, every single week—but I’m thankful for it in spite of this.