Church

We went to church on Saturday night, at Bethlehem Baptist where we use to belong. Akila was begging to go to the church where she was dedicated so decided to give it a try. There is no children's church during the service, so the kids stay with us the entire 1 1/2 hours. In the past, this has not worked well with Akila. To be honest, we were nervous.

It went pretty well. For some reason, Akila was very obsessed with Pastor Piper, which man he was, where he was sitting, what he was going to say, etc. After the service, she went up front to see what was going on. They invite people up to be prayed with, or to speak with a Pastor or elder. Akila wanted to talk to Pastor Piper and I couldn't talk her out of it. There was a long line. Pastor Kenny was also up front and I told Akila how when she was a baby, we went to his house all the time for small group. She decided she wanted to talk with him.

She was telling him how she has Turner Syndrome, has a growth problem, had her eyes dilated (which was more than 6 months ago), and she would have went on and on if I had let her. It was nice to talk with Kenny. We then left and went to Perkins where kids eat free on Saturday nights, and everyone was hungry!

Shortly after we arrived, we realized what a bad idea it was. Akila was in overdrive, as hyper as I have seen her in a long time; and she knew it. She couldn't sit still, wanted to be up and dancing around, was being very loud. And then something put her over the edge. She saw that at a table not too far from us, Pastor Piper was there and eating dinner with some other church members. You would have thought the Jonah's Brothers were in the restaurant. She went nuts. She wanted to go talk to him, she couldn't believe he was there, and she kept on repeating that over and over and over.

I took her for a walk, tried to distract her until the food finally came. The food came, she ate a bit, and Michael couldn't stand it anymore and brought her out to the car. The other kids and I finished up quickly and we left. Michael and I realized that we had made a dumb choice in going out to eat. Akila had gotten up early, at 4:30 in the morning, and had awakened Imani as well. I think she just couldn't hold it together anymore. I am just thankful that she made it through church. I pray that I make it through the 5 day weekend we are approaching. It is sure to be a long one.