Easy Like Sunday Morning

I'm going back to church this morning. I haven't been since Mother's Day. Yeah some of you say, well what's the big deal? But I was a every Sunday going woman...who would feel bad all day Sunday and part of Monday if I missed service. Last year I made the commitment to stay in church. I really felt like it was time. Last night, I was on the phone with my grandmother in Memphis and she said "I guess you just done gave up on church huh? You aint been all summer." I was stuck for words. Others had asked me the same question and I had flip answers like "I'm taking the summer off" or "Church can be expensive". I was dead quiet last night because when she asked me, the real answer popped right into my mind. And I said, "When I'm ready to talk about it, I will."

I think I'm ready...

Mother's Day.

You see Mother's Day I went to church. And my ex-husband was there with his wife and child. Yeah, I know...what's the big deal? Yeah we're cool...Like the Gwen Stefani song...but it was still a problem...Two reasons...That's my church...and He had the nerve to come there and not speak to me at all. Spoke to the twins. But not me. We don't argue, there's no strife between us. He just decided that day he wouldn't say a word to me. You are in my church, I'm sitting with two little girls who looked like you spit them out and you don't say Happy Mother's Day. That shit upset me. I was quite pissed. That shit wasn't cool...

Not to mention it's my church. Yeah, yeah...he can go anywhere he wants to go and I don't own any churches. But I was raised in that church. My grandmother took me there every Sunday until I was 16. Then we (my cousins and I) were given the choice of working on Sunday or going to church. But we were still required on special days and holidays. I got married in Jamaica, but I did take him to the church. He went twice. He always said he didn't believe in God (My momma told me to run from him when he told her that. She was very scared). He never liked church at all. So yeah, I kinda feel like that's my church.

Well later that night, he was hospitalized. At first they said double pneumonia, then it was a heart infraction. I strangely felt happy, like it was something he deserved for treating me badly, almost like karma. Then I felt horrible for feeling that way. Like am I that evil to think something like that? And what about the twins? They would really miss their dad. So every Sunday since, I wondered if maybe I had something to with it. Now I know I didn't. What he chose to do that day had either nothing to do with me, or everything to do with me. But either way, I can't let that stop me from enjoying the services by my childhood pastor. (When he said "If loving the Lord is wrong, I don't want to be right", I was about eight and laughed out loud right in the middle of service). And he's moving to Atlanta, so they won't be popping up anymore. I guess the path has cleared. I've reconciled things mentally...so I'm going to get my praise on.