Spreading Some Easter Love

Oh, good heavens, I nearly forgot to tell you my Easter church story!

Our family, being the fully devoted and faithful clan we are, usually sits in the first available row at church, which is in this case the second row. Yesterday we were kicking off VBS and we had a display in the lobby, so I put our stuff and our children in "our" pew and went to the lobby to be sure we had a hostess out there. By the time I returned I found my mother had joined the boys and they had inexplicably moved themselves across the aisle leaving our stuff where I put it. They did not save room for us across the aisle, so we just sat with our stuff and lots of space around us. It was just like a Norman Rockwell painting, it was. James and I sitting there on Easter Sunday surrounded by the sort of flotsam that says, "We are saving these seats for very important people: please move along."

I like to flash my boys the American Sign Language sign for "I Love You" when I can't actually whisper it in their ears, so during the sermon I started trying to catch them looking over at me so I could flash them. They weren't really paying much attention to me, so I stared at them for a long time before Colin finally looked over. I gave him the old "I Love You" and he shyly gave it back to me. It was then that I realized he was sitting in the deaf section. The very (very) old man sitting behind him got my sign AND THOUGHT IT WAS FOR HIM! He nervously waved back at me, starting to give me the I Love You sign, but thinking better of it and just waving.

And just what was I to do then?

I just smiled and waved and made a decision to keep my eye on the preacher.