THOUGHTS

April 7, 2020

reprint from April 7, 2013

Easter Sunday communion was served in the worship service, but I was teaching Toddler's Church. They may not have been ready for the cup and the bread, but at least they could answer why we celebrated Easter.  My eleven year old helped me that day missed communion.  When his pastor-daddy was cleaning up the sanctuary, he asked and was served.  After a full day with family, our boy slipped down the street to play with neighborhood friends who had not come to church as they sometimes did.  Hank was so excited telling them about taking communion that he came home and begged me to serve it to them too: communion at home on demand for the neighborhood kids?

In our first church, some little sisters, eight or nine years old or so, began coming from a house down our street.  Sometimes they came to visit our parsonage next door to the church, stealing my lipstick or playing with my toddler.  Then they began attending our services.  It was a foreign place compared to their normal living in a drug house.  One Sunday when communion was served, they sat beside me and barraged me with question.  Rather than denying them the opportunity, I talked them through it.  I was so nervous that they would spill the grape juice that I spilled mine.  I was able to whisper the meaning of Christ's broken body and spilled blood that was shed for our sin with an invitation to receive Him. 

It was one of the last services one of those little girls attended because she disappeared, was abducted, or worse.  The local authorities looked, but never did find her.  The main street of our little mountain  town in Weaverville was a highway.  Human trafficking?  I was never sorry for explaining Jesus to that poor child using the communion and sharing His life with them.

"Do this in remembrance of me."