Routine!
My daughter, Bel, started Pre-K on Monday at Lewis & Clark. Usually, I dread the end of summer, but this year, I’ve been looking forward to it. This summer it seems like it has either been too hot to go outside or raining and never much in between. I only went to the beach for one day all summer! That is just wrong. I’m not looking forward to the cold of winter, but I will be happy for the temperature to drop some! Mostly though, I’ve been looking forward to the routine. We have a little bit of a routine in the summer – I still go to work every day, but the routine of Bel going to school really makes a difference in our lives. We get up earlier, so we go to bed earlier (hopefully). I pack her lunch, so it makes me think to pack mine as well. (I make so much healthier choices when I pack a lunch!) We get into a rhythm that just doesn’t happen in the summer. It’s just easier to get things done and feel more organized with a routine.
Soon I’ll be back into the school-year routine at church too – afterschool programs on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays begin in September. I am always so ready for the break when those programs end in the spring, but by September, I miss the kids and the routine!
The routine that has always been a part of my life, even in the summer, is Sunday morning. Every Sunday we get up and go to church. We go to worship and Sunday school every week. I grew up going to church on Sundays. When I was single and living by myself, I got up on Sundays and went to church. Of course, whenever I’ve worked in a church, I get up on Sunday morning and go to church! But I’m glad that Bel has that routine in her life. Even though she has spent a lot of time in church in her 4 ½ years, Sunday morning is different. I hope that as she gets older, it will continue to be a routine in her life. Susan Werner has a song called “Sunday Morning” in which she talks about her feeling that something is missing because she doesn’t go to church now like she did as a kid. She says:
sunday morning
there is someplace that I’m supposed to be
keeps returning
the feeling keeps coming over me
just like music
or like sunlight on a distant memory
sunday morning
sunday morning
Werner has her reasons for not going to church as an adult, and who knows – she might be going now. But as a mother, I want to make sure that the routine of worship and Sunday school on Sunday mornings is a part of Bel’s life. So if when she’s an adult and decides not to go, she might feel that there’s someplace that she’s supposed to be and maybe she’ll come back.
