it’s true that worship can happen anytime and anywhere people gather together in His name.
This evening when I got home from work, my little girl was feeling rather cranky (my wife and mother-in-law believe she’s colicky) and – as my wife had to be up way before I did, I volunteered to hold her and try to console her as best I could as my wife tried to get some rest.
After helping with a few things, I finally got dressed for bed and took my beautiful daughter in my arms and sat down on the bed with her, wondering how I could console in the inconsolable. I hugged her to me, belly-to-belly, trying to think of ways I could keep her calm so my wife – who is a very light sleeper and whom has probably awoken to the tapping of me writing this post (through one closed door in another room entirely) – could get the rest she needs (she’s a school bus driver).
As I sat there, I kept coming back to Bobby McFarin’s ‘Don’t Worry/Be Happy’ song, which got me thinking of Christ’s teaching on worry (and how we shouldn’t, I’m fairly certain Mr. McFarin’s song was in no small part influenced by Christ and this particular teaching), so I started talking to my daughter, letting her know she had nothing to worry about. Explaining to her how much she’s loved, and the more I talked the more I focused on G-d and His love for us, and while that seemed to have some affect on Ms. Sassypants’ mood (Ms. Sassypants is my nickname for Rebecca), she still wasn’t entirely in the mood for a chill evening. After exhausting what little I had to say on the subject of worry, trust, and love that I thought she might on some level understand, I broke out in to song. Worship is more like it. One of my favorite hymns, and my go-to for whenever I need to feel better, is Amazing Grace and so I started singing it, but I couldn’t remember all the lyrics (and my half-baked attempts only seemed to frustrate my daughter) so I got up, grabbed my phone, and did what any other reasonable parent would do: I googled the lyrics for the 4 original verses and was not disappointed. Of course, however, one cannot simply begin and end worship with just one song. I had to move on to It Is Well (With My Soul), Unfortunately I do not know the meter of that song so well and I had to retire my own attempts and rely on YouTube to supply me with something worthy of our private worship session (once again, I was not disappointed). We did one more song (Just a Little Talk With Jesus) done by a bass quartet (which, this video was a bit more comedic than worshipful, but I think still was nicely done and suited our purpose just fine).
Thank G-d for giving me this time with my daughter. I needed it as much as she did (and, of course, since I laid her down in her bassinet, she’s now cranky again, c’est la vie!)
