“The Magnificat”

One of the realities of this stage of my life is that church service is no longer a time just for communing with God and my brothers and sisters in Christ. It is more about training my children how to behave. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

Gone are the days when your eyes were actually closed during a prayer. No… one eye at least has to be open to make sure that your toddler is not coloring on someone’s Bible… or that your newborn hasn’t spit up all over everything.

And that’s ok. It is a stage of life. I truly believe that this is part of how I am serving and communing with God: I am raising my children in the Lord.

But then there are those moments that hit you out of the blue… where God comes to you in the midst of the distractions and communes with you. And I had one of those moments this past Sunday.

JR was holding Naomi and I was on “Gideon Patrol”. The “I Love Jim” notepad that we brought for him was already in 3 different parts with almost every page drawn on… and he was now asking for Cheerios.

We started singing “The Magnificat” and I started singing it unconsciously. G grabbed a whole handful of cereal and stuffed it in his mouth and Naomi started getting fussy.

I re-vamped my approach with the cereal and started handing it out piece by piece. And Naomi got louder. I stopped singing to reach for Naomi and tell JR to make sure to give G the cereal bit by bit.

As I brought Naomi into my arms the alto part started. She settled down as I looked in her eyes and started to sing:

The Lord has been mindful of his servant.

The Lord has been mindful of me.

I will be blessed forever, forever.

I have been blessed by the Lord.

I got choked up. I was testifying to my baby daughter about the faithfulness of my Lord. I prayed so long and hard for the husband that God gave me. And we had both prayed that we would be blessed with children…everything we’ve every needed, wanted, or needed to go through… God was blessing us at every step. Here I was, singing to my daughter about it.

I have been blessed by the Lord.