Let Us Stand, No “Sit” for Prayer My youngest brother Phil was born June 10, 1957 and was just a babe in arms when I attended a Sunday evening “Zone Rally” at the little Pilgrim Holiness Church in New Madison, Ohio. A Zone Rally was the gathering of local churches within a certain mile radius for a revival-type service. They usually used a good foot-stomping preacher for these occasions which were well attended in those days and our little church on Jefferson Street was filled to capacity. My best friend at that time, Eddie, whose grandmother was one of the leading lay persons, attended this service with me. Upon arriving for service we surveyed the congregation quickly and saw immediately where we wanted to sit. We gladly slid into the last seat on the left side of the church which happened to be a bench that was brought up from the basement for the overflow crowd. When my mother arrived she took my younger brothers and sisters and sat up near the front of the church on the right side. As is usual with boys at that age, Eddie and I were soon enjoying the service immensely by flirting with the girls sitting in front of us. Mom happened to glance back during the congregational singing and assessed the situation immediately. Now, my mother would be the last person to create a disturbance of any kind or call attention to herself in public; always the model of decorum. But she got up from where she was sitting and carrying my younger brother Phillip, made her way back through the crowd in order to sit near us and put a stop to this tom-foolery! She somewhat dramatically plopped down on the other end of the bench we were sitting on and by her well-aimed stare I was able to rehearse silently the dressing down I was going to get once we got home after service. This abruptly ended our interest in the girls in front of us and Eddie and I quickly gave earnest, if not exaggerated, attention to what was taking place on the platform. Boy was we suddenly very spiritual! About this time the preacher announced we should stand for prayer and, of course, wanting to play the role of the gracious and obedient son, Eddie and I jumped up in unison and you could tell by our concentration we were really interested in praying. Mom of course, couldn’t get up as quickly as we did which caused our end of the bench to fly up in the air and she slid off on the floor! Sitting right straight up with Phillip in her arms! The bench followed this act with a bombastic bang as it crashed back to the floor! I’ll never forget the look on mom’s face; she was able to see in her own mind just how ridiculous she looked sitting on the floor in church with a baby in her arms and everyone standing up around her trying their best to hold it all together. And then the truth came flooding into everyone’s mind as well as mom’s; how are we going get this woman up off the floor! There were several men in the back of the church (minsters as I recall) who appeared to me to be overly-concentrated in their praying with one hand covering their face trying hard to pretend they hadn’t seen a thing. You could tell they were praying for a miracle, anything to keep from having to deal with the situation on the floor right in front of them. Well, God be praised! Assistance was forthcoming, although I haven’t a clue now how it was accomplished. By the time the prayer ended mom was comfortably seated on the bench once again and the service continued uninterrupted; and Eddie and I gave our undivided attention right up to the benediction. Mom obviously had time during the service to go over this embarrassing situation in her mind, probably more than once, and I knew mom; she couldn’t wait to get outside so she could throw her head back and let out a howl of laughter that had been charging up inside her! She was always one to see the humorous side of life, even if it was at her own expense.
Posted on: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 22:23:58 +0000
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