Easy Like Sunday Morning?

Nearly every Sunday morning at the Brumley house involves chaos.  Actually, I think that’s an understatement.  It would probably be more accurate to say every Sunday morning involves chaos.

As a lover of Jesus, pastor’s wife and mom to three kids, Sundays are special. Sundays are church days.

Sundays are also hard.

H-A-R-D

Sometimes I giggle and roll my eyes thinking of the stupid title to that song, Easy Like Sunday Morning.

Seriously dude.  Have you ever tried to make it out the door with three kids dressed in Sunday attire…or whatever happens to be semi-clean that doesn’t need ironing AND make it to church by 7:30 so your pastor husband feels prepared?

Have you ever tried to feed those three kiddos without cereal or chocolate ending up on their shirts before you leave the house? And not that I mind taking a kid with stains on their clothes to church, but more of the fact that someone would know I gave in and let my kid have chocolate at 7:00am as a bribe for him to leave his superhero cape at home.  And now let’s just be real with each other.  On Sunday morning, breakfast doesn’t happen at the kitchen table.  The donut shop down the street knows us on a first name basis. The kids wake up on Sundays and do they say “JESUS DAY”?

No. No they do not.

The middle child calls it Donut Day. Yep. That’s right. Pastor’s kid refers to Sunday as donut day. I think that means we are winning at life.

And back to easy Sunday mornings.

We are there for like 5 hours!  

No naps. Sugar crash from the donuts. A choir of, “I’m hungry. He pushed me. Where’s daddy? Can I have candy? Can we go home yet? What’s for lunch?” I’m trying to hold on to all three, or at least have them within eye distance, while holding the twenty-three scrap pieces of paper that my children colored while in class.  Because do you know that if I throw away one paper, ONE PAPER, they will remember forever how I threw away their FAVORITE drawloring?

(Yes, my oldest combined coloring and drawing into her own word.  She eventually grew out of it. Not because I ever corrected her, but because I think made-up words are the cutest thing ever.)

But three kids in the middle of a breakdown on a now Sunday afternoon DOES NOT make for an easy Sunday morning.

So WHY do we do it?

Why do we eat donuts in a church workroom as a family instead of sleeping in or all the other things we could do with a free morning?  Why are crazy Sunday mornings not just something we do, but something we love?

Because life with Jesus looks different than easy. And we think Jesus is more than worth it. Not just on Sunday mornings, but every day of the week. 

One day I hope my children look back on Sunday mornings as a time we made sleep a bit of a sacrifice so mommy and daddy could serve during the 8:30 hour of worship.  I hope they remember their time smiling and greeting an older generation that is oh so faithful to be at church every week.  I know my heart will always cherish my little redhead who waves at everyone as he walks down the church halls.

I know on the way home between asking what’s for lunch and when they can watch TV, that we will also have little moments of talking about what they learned, who they played with, and listen to them sing sweet songs about Jesus.

And so I know these crazy Sunday mornings hold moments for every member of our family that remind us of God’s goodness in the middle of our chaos. And one of those reminders is that not just Sundays, but our entire lives should look different than easy.  Different than simple or put together.  Different than I planned or thought it might go. And on the occasion when I hear the song Easy Like Sunday Morning playing on the radio, I think to myself, their Sunday sounds very different than ours.

And that’s okay.

God never promised us easy. 

Given the choice of having easy or having God, I want God every time. And so I forfeit the easy to make room for the worth it.

Worth it to make gathering with other believers a priority and not an afterthought. Worth it to give up my comfort to help someone in need. Worth it to give of my time and not just my money. Worth it to give from my heart and not empty words.  Worth it to say yes to the widow, the orphan, the outcast, the down and out. And doing so isn’t going to look easy.  It isn’t going to sound like smooth, beautiful lyrics to a song. It’s likely to be messy and loud and painful and different. And to the world, even other Christians, it may look crazy.

We all have places in our lives where we go for the easy.  We hang out with friends who look like us. Social media to escape and pretend to be whoever we want to be.  Netflix to think of nothing at all. Plenty of places to go for the easy.  But where in your life do you need to make room for the worth it?

And so, at the Brumley house, we sing Crazy Like Sunday Mornings. It just has a better fit.  Wouldn’t you agree?