The Irony of the Situation

My child had to be removed from church for talking about Jesus....

Today we had a visiting musical group come to our church. The children had seen nothing like it in their short lives. The musicians were very talented. They played all sorts of interesting stringed instruments such as the mandolin (hand crafted by the guy who was playing it), violin, guitar, banjo, and even a bass. Ben and Anna did very well sitting and listening. However, at one point Anna looked over at me and said-in a quiet, demure voice-"Jesus". Uh, oh, we were in for trouble. This was not a statement or casual conversation about the preschool Sunday School lesson. This was a request to sing Anna's all time favorite church song, "Jesus Loves Me." Unfortunately for Anna, "Jesus Loves Me" was not on the play list. However, any one who has been around Anna in person knows that she can be very persistent. And Anna LOVES that song. So. She smiles at me and says, a little louder, "Jesus." I whisper back that we "aren't singing 'Jesus Loves Me' right now." Anna looked a little disappointed. "Jesus," she says, in a very put-out tone of voice. I continued to whisper explinations to her as to why we were not going to sing that particular song at the moment. Apparently I didn't get it. Anna starts yelling, "Jesus! Jesus! Jesmumph!" We muffled her final scream and toted her out of the sanctuary. Brad pointed out the irony of the situation. We took our child out of church for talking about Jesus. The happy ending of this story is that although the musicians did not have "Jesus Loves Me" in their instrumental repertoire, they did end up doing a special vocal rendition near the end of the program, "Just for the children." Hmmm, I bet no one could guess why...