Rule 19: You'll always want that one book

It doesn't matter if you brought a different book for each piece you are playing throughout the service.

It's going to happen. The pastor is going to say something in his sermon that very directly ties into a song for which you didn't bring music. A song you know you have in that one book.

You might drive back to your house between services to get it.
You might write the entire service off as a missed opportunity.
You might just pull out the hymnal and improvise on a wing and a prayer during the offertory.

There is no cure for wanting that one book.... (Unless you live across the street and can send a gopher to get it for you.)

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Why I don't like church

The elephant in the room... So I've written about this subject before . As it turns out, I could probably write an entire book about why church is so hard when your father dies. There are so many reasons. Pretty much everything about it is ruined. So we will start with the elephant in the room. Part of why church is hard is because interacting with my church family is really hard. Why? The elephant in the room. Church is awkward. Every interaction since he died (and even while he was sick) puts the burden on me. "How are you?" Do I bring it up? Do I keep bringing it up? Do I ignore the grief thing and just say I'm great? How do I answer this question? It's a catch 22. If I keep bringing up the grief, people are likely to grow distant. Grief is a hard burden to watch someone else go through. You can only go through so much. Heck, I can only go through so much. Only I don't have a choice in the matter... If I did, I'd take a break too. So, if...

Why I don't like church...

It's a family thing. Worship is a family thing. In the rest of my life I might be independent, but when I enter the church, I become part of a family. My dad was the rock, the spiritual head of that family. It doesn't matter if you're 4, 14, or 24, worshipping together as a family is a tremendous blessing from God. Having a father who is a strong leader for your family is exactly how God designed marriage and family. And he's not there. He's gone. And even though he reared me to be a strong Christian woman, I'm weaker without him. Because I've lost my spiritual head. I've lost an important role God gives us fathers to fill. A role that is normally replaced with a husband, and not an empty void. Beyond the immediate family thing, the church itself is a family of believers. It's a family thing for everyone. Losing part of that family changes the dynamic. Church friends knew us as a family. Relationships are built to a degree not between indiv...

The name on the grave marker

There's a common expression: "the final nail in the coffin." It means the end of something, right? To use another idiom, the final nail in the coffin is also "the last straw." Well a coworker aptly said that seeing the name on the grave marker is the true "final nail in the coffin." There are a lot of final nails in the coffin for grief. Watching your father take his last breath, seeing his body carted out of the house, seeing him lying in the coffin, seeing the coffin carried out of the hearse and to his final resting place are all "nails in the coffin." But nothing is quite the unexpected sucker punch to the gut that getting this photo emailed to you is. I'd change the idiom if I could, from "nail in the coffin" to "name on the gravestone." Seeing your father's name carved in stone- his gravestone - brings about a finality like nothing else. His body is no longer hidden away in the ground. His death...

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