Moms, On Easter Morning:

Moms. I know many of you are gearing up to manage your offspring for Easter Service this Sunday. Will they behave? Will they cry at all the wrong moments? Are you worried? Don’t be.

If your child has ever booed the worship leader during a quiet pause between songs, I’ve got you covered. You are not alone.

Has your son ever belched like a truck driver when the preacher is taking a breath – before emphasizing a particularly poignant gospel connection – and created an almost supernatural reverberation throughout the auditorium? Don’t fret. It’s happened before.

Do your kids prefer to go to the bathroom – again, during the best moments of the sermon – and return to their seats via the front of the congregation, “buzzing the tower” of the pulpit and thereby distracting the preacher (who happens to be their father, and who so aptly uses the term “buzzing the tower” for this phenomenon)? Don’t feel like the odd parent out.

If you’ve ever had to take your child out the side door of the church and on to the street to lecture him, while the congregation looks on and can’t help but wonder what is transpiring outside, you are not blazing any new trails.

Have they yawned audibly during prayer time? Pitched a fit when they couldn’t drink the communion juice? Do they push their brother off his chair and into the aisle? Scribble on their sermon notes with a determined vigor? Is there break dancing during a somber hymn in the front row, and you don’t notice until the last verse? Hey, I’m not naming any names. I’m just saying, I know a certain family who has already been there, done all that, and way more.

This Easter, remember: we are all human. We all need a savior, including these precious, precocious, wonderful, and often loud children. Remember how eagerly our Savior received them? I’m sure those who spent time with Him wriggled and giggled. They belched, they whined, and they were, well…quirky. Why else did the other adults around Jesus protest their presence?

Crying baby? Hungry toddler? Boisterous tween? Well, but of course. The church will be fairly bursting with life, and we will all be there to celebrate the resurrection of our King.

Children love to celebrate. And they don’t do so quietly, do they? It’s an important Sunday. We want them to behave, because we want them to see and hear. But we must also remember that our children’s performance won’t actually hold a candle to the eternal weight of that day.

Christ was a substitute for us! Christ has risen! We are forgiven and free! So kiss those rosy cheeks and tell them the good news again, and again, and again.

And Moms, no matter how the church service goes for your family, call that day a win.