Why I don't read Sunday School papers

  

All of the churches I have attended in my life have handed out what we call Sunday School papers. They are weekly paper with stories and such in them. They have different ones for different age groups, including adults.  I used to read them every week, then I started slacking off on reading them until I just quit totally, and stopped taking them. I ended up throwing them away when I got home anyway.

  Our head usher at church stands near the door on Sunday nights and hands out bulletins and Sunday School papers to people who were not in the morning service. He spotted me as soon as I hung my coat up this evening and honed in on me like Michelle Obama honing in on something deep fried. He handed me a bulletin first, then tried to hand me our monthly church paper, which I had already looked at, then he tried to hand me a Sunday School paper. He didn't want to take "no" for an answer, and asked me why I didn't want one. When people ask me questions, I tend to answer them, and my answer seemed to offend him.

  My reply: "well, the stories are all pretty much the same, and everything always works out for everyone, and life isn't like that, even for Christians"
  Him, sounding rather offended: "Well maybe you should write some yourself then."
  Me: "Maybe I should. I could do just as well."

   I love Christian fiction. I read it to be entertained, and I like happy endings. As I tell my best friend when he points out life isn't like that, "If I want real life, I'll read a biography. I want happy endings. That's why it is called fiction." And might I add, I have received more help and encouragement from Christian fiction than Sunday School papers. Although fictional, some of the stories deal with issues that help me. But it is still fiction.

  That said, I don't want fiction in my Sunday school papers. In real life, you don't always keep your job after refusing to work Sundays. Sometimes you can't even get a job unless you do. In real life, not even Christian marriages are all roses and candlelight dinners. In real life, your neighbors may still hate your guts.

  There is the occasional true story about missionaries or real people that isn't all sunshine and rainbows, but from reading Sunday School papers for so many years, I feel they present an unrealistic picture of what being a Christian is like.

  God doesn't always answer our prayers. Oh, I have heard the old "sometimes He says yes, sometimes He says no, sometimes He says wait." Well, sometimes He seems completely silent, and you have to keep serving and trusting Him anyway.

  Sometimes life doesn't go at all like we want or plan, no matter how good of a Christian we are. Ask Joni Eareckson Tada, who has been paralyzed from the neck down since 1978. Ask Nick Vujicic, who was born with no arms or legs, yet reaches more people for Christ than anyone in my circle of friends. The Sunday School papers would have them healed and whole.

  I have been working every Sunday morning since June. I hate missing every Sunday morning, especially Sunday School. If I were in those papers, I would miraculously get out of working Sundays..... but that isn't happening. I am praying, and am at the point I am praying for God to help me find a job elsewhere that I don't have to work many, or no Sundays. Will it happen? If it is God's will. But this is real life, not the Sunday School papers.

  Life is messy, even the Christian life. I am afraid too often we give the idea that it is going to be like the Sunday School papers, and we try to live like that. We are afraid to speak up and admit we are struggling, that we have doubts and fears, that even though we are serving God, life feels like it is falling apart. We are afraid if we let people know that everything isn't perfect in our life, people will view us differently. And maybe they will, but who cares?

 God does not guarantee us happiness or success. Following Him may mean inconveniences in our lives, possibly persecution. Everything isn't going to go right for us. But we have to trust Him anyway. Serve Him in spite of it, and trust that if He doesn't remove the problem, that He will take is through it. That, is the real Christian life.