Dear Scowling Lady the Pew Over

Dear Madam, a.k.a. Scowling Lady in Church,

I know, I know.  They are loud.  They drop large hymnals, when they aren't ripping them.  They test the acoustics with loud "hi's!" while smiling brightly.  They crawl and walk along the pews, kneelers, and attempt to reach the aisles.  They sometimes succeed.  This can all be very distracting to your contemplative prayer, I am sure.

Please be assured that I am hyper-aware of the situation.  That, short of gagging them, I'm doing all I legally and humanely can to make sure you have a peaceful prayer experience.  Heavens, I'd like one myself.  There's no crying room or child care here... So for now, I'm trusting that God just wants to see me there, in church, with His children.

Yes, I said His.  I say this particularly when they are badly behaved, yes.  Because He invited them.  Please refer to Matthew 19:14.

Sincerely,
Disheveled Mom in Nearby Pew

P.S.  And there are reasons the back of her dress was wet that do not necessarily imply that she was without a diaper change for too long.  Or that she lacked one altogether.  I do not confirm nor deny that either of these situations have ever been the case, but for the sake of argument and your future consideration:

• She may have sat in a puddle
• Her sisters might have attacked her with water guns from behind
• She might just have gone swimming, and still been wearing a wet bathing suit
• We may have rescued her from a body of water just as she was hitting it.
• She may have been crawling down to our basement backwards, and we got her just in time (no really, it's better now though...:)
• She may have been standing near the very edge of a raincloud
• Or I may have handed her a bottle of water in the car that was so very nearly empty (I thought) and meant to supervise her better but got distracted trying to program the GPS system for my husband who was driving to a church we hadn't been to before in a neighborhood we weren't familiar with and then she said "I wet!" and I said "Oh dear!" and handed napkins to her sister who blotted her as best she could but then when we finally arrived at church seven minutes late and took her out we saw she was damp in the back but in the van it didn't look too bad so we went for it and walked to church and only when we got into the beautiful church in the upscale neighborhood with the very effective lighting did we realize how badly it looked and we were very embarrassed but hoped no one would notice and the car was parked a ways away and I didn't know if I had a change of clothes anyway.  Yeah, maybe that happened.  

"Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, 

for to such belongs the kingdom of Heaven.” Matthew 19:14