3 hours is a LONG time to be at church.
i sat in on a missionary discussion this week...the husband's cousin in taking the missionary discussions and i decided to listen in.
woah...dejavu of a whole year of my life! i had so many missionary lessons i could probably teach some of them! :/
the husbands cousin has come to church the past few sundays and only stayed for the first hour...well in the lesson i sort of, well actually completely blurted out to his cousin, "you should come with me to relief society!" (relief society is the 3rd hour of church on sunday. all the women get together and have their own class, and all the men get together to have their own class. it's awesome!)
anyway... a) awkward, did i really just blurt that out?! and b) what if she doesnt want to come and i just totally pressured her?!
then i got to thinking...if i didn't have a testimony of church (which i gained after going consistently), 3 hours would seem like a ridiculous amount of church!
on second thought, 3 hours is a long time...no matter who you are!
ok, so even though its a long time, and yes i get really hungry, and yes i daze off sometimes because maaaaybe i should have gone to bed earlier the night before... church is amazing.
i learn so much at church it is ridiculous and i know from my years of life without going to church that it is OH-SO-IMPORTANT to be spiritually fed.
also, we (meaning i) must remember that it is a blessing to be able to even attend church. many people in this world are oppressed, they are forced into religions they don't believe, or forbidden to go to church.
attending church is a remarkable blessing that i have in this day and age...it is one that should not be taken for granted.
i would stay any amount of hours at church if it meant the difference between going to church or not at all.
Yes, it IS a long time. Although, I grew up in the church so I didn't realize it was so long until friends outside the church would gasp when I would tell them we went for 3 hours.
ReplyDeleteYou made some really good points though. I love when I have those a-ha moments and realize just how blessed we are to be so consistently spiritually fed. When I have those attitude adjustments I'm able to realize the difference it makes to be replenished each week. And then I love it again.