He was with me.

Our church is going from two services to one for the summer. Because of this change, the kids will have different teachers every week until fall. In preparation for this, I had been talking to the little girls every day last week about how church will be different on Sunday. I told them how they would come upstairs and sing songs with us first, and then go down to their classes. Every time we talked about it, Francesca would ask me if we were going to sing "Holy is the Lord". (She LOVES that song, it is one we play frequently around here.) Since we sing a lot of different songs, the odds were definitely not in her favor for that to be one of the three or four we sing on the day she wanted it. I gave her the old "Hmm. Maybe. We'll see" and hoped that we would. She just wanted it so bad.
Fast forward to church this past Sunday. We take all three girls up with us and find our seat. It's more crowded than usual since we're all in one service, including all the kids who are usually downstairs. The girls are excited and chatting up anyone who is in earshot. (Francesca even grabbed a bible, opened it and held it next to the woman's head in front of us saying "Here. You need a bible" until the woman heard her and turned around and talked to her. Thankfully it was a really sweet woman who didn't mind being pestered by my chatty four year old.)
After a few minutes it's time to sing. As the first song begins I've got Katie standing on the bench next to me so she can see the screen, and Francesca on my other side, singing along (Kind of. It's not her fault though. The words she can read include things like rat, bat, sat. You don't find a lot of those in worship songs.) and wiggling and dancing around. After all this build up can you guess what the second song was? Yep. It was Francesca's song!! You should have seen her! It was one of those moments I wish I had captured on film, to relive over and over. She was so excited! She sang every single word. She danced. She threw both of those sweet little arms up in the air and just praised God! On my other side was Katie, singing as loud as she could with both of her arms up in the air! (Sam was in the balcony with her friends, she was the only thing missing) I wish I could describe to you the pure joy I felt in those moments. To see my babies singing with such abandon. To be so happy praising God. I couldn't contain myself. I stood there singing and looking back and forth at both of them with tears in my eyes and the biggest, silliest smile I've ever had at church. What are the odds, really, that the song she wanted would be in the lineup on the day she wanted it there? I know in my heart my Lord was giving me a small glimpse of Himself that day. He was giving me a gift, filling me with such indescribable joy it just warmed my soul. It's so amazing being given those rare moments to reconnect with Him like that. To feel that closeness with Him...it's definitely worth waiting through the lows. "Holy is the Lord, God almighty. The earth is filled with His glory". Amen!