I don’t know exactly when or how it started, but dressing in one’s “Sunday best” has been a thing for a least a couple centuries now. Finding your nicest clothes. Pulling out jewelry that you wouldn’t bother with during the week. Taking time to iron a shirt. Shoes with a higher heel or maybe polished til they shine. I imagine it began as a sort of sign to God. Only the finest for a Heavenly King on this day of worship. A day set apart.
This tradition has carried through to today. To me. Though, some Sundays I still show up looking haggard if getting my two kiddos ready first takes too long. But I do my best. My Sunday best.
Well lately, it’s felt more like my Sunday worst.
Yes, I still put on the dress and the earrings and the shoes and do my makeup more intentionally than usual.
But I’m in a season of life where Sundays leave my heart troubled and tired more often than not. My heart that used to long for Sunday and crave the 15 or so precious minutes of the Sacrament.
With a toddler and a baby, church looks different.
It’s snacks and toys and spit up.
It’s spending more time in the hallway than in a pew.
It’s a cranky toddler because nap time is at noon. And so is church.
It’s nursing my baby in a bathroom stall because the mothers room was full again.
It’s feeling alone because we moved in during the coldest months - the hardest time to meet people.
It’s craving to be spiritually fed, but leaving starving once again. Because your attention is divided in 3 other directions. And your heart and spirit are just… tired.
Today was another one of those days.
I walked home with tears on my face and an anxious mind.
But during the 7 or so minute walk, my thoughts did a full 180.
My first thought:
Is an entire morning of stressing to get ready and wrestling a toddler and forgetting to brush my teeth and trying to time baby naps and barley getting out the door on time just to stress even more for another 2 hours in public really worth it? Probably not.
My second thought:
We are a church that is so good at showing up in our Sunday best that it sometimes leaves no room for people to feel comfortable bringing their Sunday worst.
My third thought:
But isn’t that what we’re meant to do? Regardless of how we dress, aren’t we supposed to bring our aching souls? Our troubled minds? Our messy lives? Our broken hearts? Our contrite (Latin word meaning grind down or wear away) spirits?
So do me a favor.
The next time someone looks weary on Sunday; the next time they seem frustrated agitated, or flustered; the next time someone seems antisocial or sad; remember that church should be, above all, a hospital of sorts. Because who goes to the hospital?
People at their worst.
Sick.
Afflicted
Broken
Worn down.
In need.
Regardless of how put together they look on the outside.
But still they come. They come to the well with their empty pitcher. They come to have their wounds mended and made whole. They come with empty plates yearning for the bread of life. Even just a small, broken piece of it passed around on a tray.
Is it worth it? Sometimes I’m not so sure.
All I know is that when I have Sundays like today, I am reminded that as good as a physical church building can be and as nice as a church community is… Christ is still the living water.
When I’m busy nursing and miss the born testimonies, I can still hear Him.
When Sunday School seems to lack the spiritual feast I seek, I can still learn from Him.
When I know no one and no one knows me, I know Him. And He me.
When I am at my Sunday worst, He is my Sunday best.
P.S. Here is an incredibly beautiful song for your own troubled heart
