My Little Presbyterian

We've been to a lot of different churches the past decade while we try to find the best fit for us, and I've noticed that each brand has their own key words, or points of emphasis. My husband graduated from a conservative Presbyterian seminary, and we noticed right away that they were big on emphasizing grace. We were not brought up in a church whose emphasis was grace (we were more "law" kind of folks), so it was very refreshing. We've tried to incorporate it into our lives as much as we can and teach our kids about it. We even named one of our children after the concept.

Tonight Big Sissy had her Christmas program. It was very cute, and somehow Little Sissy slipped into the mix of children and got to sing along with them. I'm sure the teachers were wondering why they didn't remember her, but she knew all the songs from listening to the CD over and over and over and over in our van the past few weeks. We thought it was kind of funny so we didn't make her get down. (It was informal, moving through the Christmas Journey with small groups of children.) By the time it was done and our children had consumed more than a reasonable amount of sugar at the end, it was late and everyone needed to get home to bed. At one point, after waiting for what seemed like forever for Big Sissy to get her seat belt buckled, Daddy told her if she didn't hurry up she was going to "lose" her new camel and star that she just got at the program (paper things glued on craft sticks).

She sighed and said, "Dad, can I get a little grace? I'm working on it."

I had to turn my face toward the window and hold my breath so I didn't laugh out loud. She's a good Presbyterian already.