I stood in the foyer at church, defeated, & emotionally exhausted. I’d already cried once, today. Having hopelessly abandoned all decorum, I absently gave Lydia my hands as she gleefully jumped from the floral -patterned couch to the carpet below. “1, 2, 3, jump!” she called, expressing one of her few, but favorite phrases, over & over. “Shhh,” I hushed half-heartedly, lest… nobody… hear. I thought about making her take her shoes off in order to be more… reverent? What is the proper protocol for jumping off furniture during church? I stared at the Minerva Teichert painting, Rescue of the Lost Lamb, above Lydia’s jumping couch, fully aware of the irony. Thirty feet away from me behind a pair of heavy doors I had been unable to open with two hands without Lydia running away in the opposite direction (true story), our congregation of several hundred people met together in worship. And out here I was, with the one. Jumping on the couch.
I’d already tried to make a moment out of it:
“See the sheepy, Lydie, what do sheepies say?” “See the sun?” And finally, hoping, “See Jesus?”
She didn’t care. Not even about the sheep & my animal noises. Disinterested, her eyes glanced over the painting, not really landing on anything. No pointing. No identification. No signs of interest. I didn’t have the energy to hold her up there any longer, physically or emotionally. I gave up.
“1, 2, 3, jump!”
Rather than listening to the meeting piped through the speakers, I found myself talking to the painting. “Is this worship? Really Lord? This? Jumping? Isn’t there a better way? I already get so much time with Lydia. Wouldn’t someone else profit from being with her? Or many people? What of inclusion? What is the point of… this??”
“1, 2, 3, jump! 1, 2, 3, jump!”
Again, again, again.
My thoughts wandered. And then, out of no where, Lydia turned around, touched the painting, & said one word:
“Jesus.”
I was stunned. And all I could do was whisper back affirmatively, “Jesus.”
She went back to jumping.
I often don’t understand things. I often don’t see the full picture. I am often surprised.
I don’t think Lydia was the lamb in the foyer being held, today.