Tiger Tale

Many years ago I sat week after week on a church pew with my perfectly-behaved daughter. Greg sat on the stand and I didn't need him. When a raucous child or "that family" started interrupting my worship, I sometimes thought to myself, “It's called a diaper bag, people.” Or, “Someone needs to have an FHE on reverence.”

President Ezra Taft Benson said, “Either we can choose to be humble or we can be compelled to be humble.” Obviously, I had it coming.

And…SCENE! (snap the clapperboard) Everett is born. Cue Melissa eating humble pie.

Chomp. Gulp. I’ve had a slice every Sunday for two years as I’ve worked up a sweat, strained my muscles, and scarcely heard a nugget of value in the chapel—and that has been with Greg on the other end of the pew working up his own sweat. The same family has never sat in front of us twice except the Walshes (who had six kids and say our sounds are “music to their ears”). Another perfectly-pressed and motionless couple refers to our boys as "The Two Tigers".

To compound my discomfort the tigers have been wild in my new scene, which means all the people who don’t know me yet are probably judging me through the same dirty lens I used on others. It is likely that many people want to pack me a diaper bag. All the others are willing to teach our FHE lesson on reverence.

Here's the irony:

All those years my life was easy and I had it together...I wasn't even trying. I just happened to birth my almost-OCD, self-entertaining, polite-to-a-tee daughter first. I hit the jackpot and mistakenly thought I had something to do with the odds.

But these days...THESE DAYS ARE KILLING ME. I have a Mary Poppins carpet bag bursting at the seams with creative (and silent) solutions for one solid hour of entertainment. I’ve had the boys practice sitting quietly, folding their arms, and only whispering on the antique church pew in our house. I’ve taught “Reverent Bugs” so many times I have it memorized. Hymns are on the iPod’s "SLEEPYTIME" playlist. Still, Sundays seem to equivocate with shooshing, separating, human straightjacketing, arched backs, muffled mouths, and glancing at the clock every 25 seconds. In short, I have never worked so hard at looking so bad.

Do you know what I learned in the trenches?

1. You can’t judge effort by what you see.
2. Mercy (which I define as “love given despite the obvious”) is the best gift anyone can throw to those who are low.

Update 5-26-19: It’s been more than a year since I wrote this and guess what? It didn’t last forever! I’m out of the trenches! I’m enjoying Sundays! My boys are paying attention to what we are trying to teach them. They are listening. They grow better each week. Heck, I think they’re on track to be poster children for Emily Post. Tigers, schmigers. They're angels. Don't give up, sweaty tiger mamas! This too shall pass. And if it doesn't, you're welcome to sit behind me and I'll pass you s'mores goldfish from our diaper bag.