scenes from a worship service

I took some time Sunday just to look around during the worship service. This is unusual for me. I generally try very hard to focus on anything BUT the people around me. People can be so distracting sometimes, completely interfering with my worship experience. (Did you catch the thinly veiled sarcasm there? I hope so. I am quite selfish, to be sure, but even my ego has limits - or so I would like to think). Just ahead of me these two wonderful older couples stood singing. They’ve been walking with the Lord for so many years yet there they stood, still worshiping God. A few seats over there was another ardent worshipper, singing her heart out, dancing, jumping, loving the Savior and shouting blessings to God. Just ahead of me, a young man took a seat behind his mother and began to pray for her. Then they embraced. She began to cry and hold him even tighter. Sitting beside me was Erica and her beloved, John. Too many memories flooded my mind - bible studies, long talks, all those emails. I’ve watched her grow up. Today I realized that we will not worship together again for a very long time. I turned to the right and I saw my parents, hands clasped together. I know what they have been through these past few years; that gesture was not meaningless to me.

The beauty of all these moments moved me nearly to tears. I am acquainted enough with the people in that room to know the hard times that some of them have been through. Some of them are still going through it, yet they praise the Father. They look expectantly to him. I felt in that service as though a window had suddenly flown open and through it I could see these people, not as they appeared, but as they truly are - the children of God. And in that moment, I sensed, if just for a moment, an inkling of the His deep, unending love for us all.