Day 84 of 100 intentional, reflective steps.

Go to a movie or go to church? This is not a moral or theological question. Its a question of balancing how much stimulus my brain can take. If I go to a movie the noise is so overstimulating that I feel like I need a long period of silence after, just to settle my nervous system down. Today, kind of a Christmas Eve tradition, the whole family is going to a movie and then to Christmas Eve service. If I go to the movie I absolutely will not be able to handle the people interaction and noises of church.  So I chose church because I wanted to sit with my whole family in a row at least once to say we were there together. I wanted to see their faces lit with candles and joy. And I did.

I have been to church 2 other times this year and didn’t make it through either service intact. It was not an exercise in spirituality but one of tolerance.  Could I tolerate that environment, the people or the emotionally charged fact that it wasn’t my church?

I made it. I tolerated. And I’m not anxious to do it again anytime soon. Someday I will be able to go to church and worship with the saints and it will be good. But today I tolerated the saints and that’s a mark in the “win” column for me!