"First Communion." Caution - A Bit Deep

For those of you who are not particularly religious, you may want to skip this one.

Today we went to church again. As many of you know we have a very strong faith and belief in God. We firmly believe that Rebekah is alive today because of the prayers that so many of you have lifted up. And we are where we are because God has given us so much strength. We would not have been able to survive ANY of what we have been through in the last 3 years without God carrying us along.

But our faith in God notwithstanding, our church experiences have not been the best during the same time. Now don't get me wrong, MANY churches have come forward and helped in MANY MANY ways, but our fellowship experiences have been, well, saddening. It has actually been quite a few months since we have set foot into a church for a service. I only tell you this so that you have a background for today's experience.

God brought us to a church that we have not been to before. One here in our own small town and one that we have been "avoiding" for a while, looking for excuses not to go to, and in many ways trying hard to ingore God's calling. But in HIS infinite wisdom He used alot of people to orchestrate a lot of things so that we would be in this church this morning, this particular morning.

The girls wanted to go to church. They wanted to dress up in pretty dresses. And they were happy to be with mommy and daddy for the worship (music) time. Well at least Rebekah was as Sarah was a bit noisy and had to go back to the sound proof room with mommy. It has been a long time (many years) since I have held Rebekah in my arms during praise choruses and worship music. She is now very heavy to hold up for 3-4 songs but she and I both enjoyed it A LOT. I have missed it.

Immediately after worship time was communion. Rebekah sat on my lap and when the bread was passed around I took a piece and held it in my hand until the church took "the body" as a group. As I started to eat the bread Rebekah looked at me and asked "me too daddy?" I broke my piece and shared it with her. Then the cups were passed around and again we waited for the church to take "the blood" together. And again Rebekah and I shared the cup. Our belief is that communion is representative of Christ sharing his body and blood with us and not literal. In the same way I was able to today, for the first time, share Christ's body and blood with my little girl.

This was not like a catholic "first communion" where the child is making a decision on their own to accept Christ's "body" and I am not likening this to that. BUT this was the first time that I have shared Christ with her in this very intimate way. And it is something that is very special to me because all I could think about as it happened was to be grateful to God for letting her live long enough to have this moment with me. Many of us take for granted that our children will grow to the next stage of their lives, and then the next after that. In our case the fact that we could share Christ in this manner today is nothing less than Miraculous and that was impressed upon me quite heavily. I cried tears of joy through most of the service. Praise God for how He can, and does, make things happen to His glory.