Faith After Babies: Believing in more…

Easter. (Already?) ‘Tis the season to sit on the floor and chomp on Jelly Bellys all day with your daughters. Or dish up experiences on how to build a bird’s nest cake so that your family can think you’re more fabulous than the Easter Bunny. (How’s that for a fab mom moment?)

But if you’re Christian: Happy Holy Week. Aside from being on a major sugar high, I’ve been at church this week. Three times exactly. ‘Tis the reason for the season, ya know? (Oh yeah, that Jesus guy…) My girls got their feet washed and everything — something that Armenian churches do in honor of when Jesus did it. Our church does a special ceremony for kids and, I know it’s totally inappropriate for me to admit this, but I was cracking up. TOO. CUTE. TOO. SPECIAL. (To see all the kids doing it… not just mine…)

For me, faith has always been really, really personal. That’s why I don’t write much about it. (This was a BIG deal that I even posted these photos, folks.) I do my thing, others do their thing. But because it’s Holy Week, I’ll tell you some tales about faith. Especially where my faith after babies is concerned (aha! there’s that F-A-B thing again)….

When I was a little girl, I used to get in trouble in church. BIG TROUBLE. My mom was the organist at our Armenian (Christian) church growing up (still is), so us kids had no other choice to tagalong with her to early morning services before our Sunday School officially started… and we’d stand in the first pew, right in front of the organ bench, and LAUGH. Loudly.

Rude. Brats.

A little old lady even yelled at my sister and I (when I was about 10) for making too much noise and giggling during the holiest prayer of the service. I remember my mom watching the scene play out (while she was actually playing the organ, on the bench) staring us down, beyond pi$$ed and embarrassed. She’d shoot us looks of death and violently continue playing her music. I remember thinking her head was going to fly off her body and explode right then and there she looked so mad.

And now I’m on the mom-side of things. In church with my girls. Continuing our traditions. LadyP sitting next me, LilMiss on my lap.

Hurry up and get dressed we’re going to be late! You can’t lay down in the pews! Be careful turning the pages of that Bible… it’s holy and we can’t rip it! No you can’t look at my phone in church!!! Give your sister back her candle, everyone gets ONE! Sometimes I think my head feels like it might fly off on Sundays. Some little old ladies might even tell you that I’ve had my own moments of giving looks of death in church to my little angels.

Going to church has always been a big part of my life. My grandparents (all four of them first generation born Americans… their parents were immigrants from Armenia) lent money and manual labor and built a few of the major Armenian churches in the Central Valley (where I was born and raised). Everybody in my family has been baptized, married and buried in the church. I was an active part of the Sunday School and youth groups. Our priests (called Der Hayrs) were consistent guests at my graduation parties and big family events because my family was always close with them. I sang in the choir many times (even though I fought my mom about doing it because I didn’t like the idea of being the only ‘young’ person in the choir when I could’ve been with my friends at Sunday School). Going to church kept me connected with my Armenian heritage. (Did you know Armenia was the very first nation to adopt Christianity?) Church was church. It was a constant force and always there. Done. Check the box. I didn’t know any different.

“Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old, he will not depart from it…” Proverbs 22:6

I guess I’m now old? Because I can’t seem to depart from how I was trained up. Funny how that worked.

Now – as a mom – church is much bigger. Church means something. The prayers I say in my head feel different now. I worry about our world… and I worry about the (lack of) faith in our world. I blame my worry on my two very loud little miracles.

As a parent, I wonder how these two loud little miracles are going to cope with this big bad world. I will teach them, their teachers and mentors will teach them, they will figure certain things out on their own. But I want my two loud little miracles to be raised with the same strength of spirit and same connection to faith and spirituality that I was raised with (despite my obnoxious giggling in the pews). Cover it from all sides, I guess.

Motherhood has deepened my personal faith. Motherhood has made me conscious and committed to raising kids who identify with faith. Motherhood has made me more respectful of parents who make the Sunday effort – through hectic tantrums about getting dressed, standing still and quiet in the pews and more – against all messages against organized religion that we hear and see in our world every single day.

Faith is not a bad thing. Religion is not a bad thing. Bad people can turn faith and religion rotten, not the other way around.

My faith (which happens to be closely intertwined with my Armenian culture) is what keeps me going… keeps me believing in good… keeps me centered when I’m confused. I want my girls to learn this as a life skill. I NEED my girls to learn this as a life skill. Building faith takes time, energy, commitment, assurance, diligence and perseverance. Nobody said taking a 3 and 4 year old to Sunday School (by yourself) is easy. But I will keep fighting the good fight on Sunday mornings because the benefits outweigh the inconvenience… and because it’s special to me… and because it’s important for my girls’ well-rounded development as human beings on this earth. (And because I happen to love the new friends I’ve made at my Sunday School.)

And I because I BELIEVE. I happen to believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I don’t understand the concept of living life without faith. I’d feel lost. I don’t ever want my girls to feel lost.

“Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old, he will not depart from it…” Proverbs 22:6

People need faith. Families need faith. Kids need faith. Dads need faith. Moms need faith (maybe we even need the most faith). Some kind of faith. Any kind of faith. Faith in something. Believing in something much bigger is good. Because without something bigger, what’s the point?