Going to Church Solo

Yesterday both my girls were sick. Runny noses, hacking coughs, generally feeling miserable. My calling at church is to teach sunday school to the 12-14 year olds, which kinda requires my attendance for the teaching to happen. Marcus' calling doesn't HAVE to have him doing things on Sunday. We decided that I would go to church and Marcus would stay home and run the ship solo.
Olivia put up a fight about wanting to go "bye-bye's to church with MOMMY!!". She LOVES going to church, which does make things a little less stressful because she has a ball in nursery. Singing songs, playing, learning about Jesus. They have never had to bring her to me early, and she throws a fit when we try to get her out at the end of church because she wants to stay in there forever.
What a difference it made to be able to stay seated during Sacrament meeting, not roaming the halls trying to rock Konks to sleep. It was Fast and Testimony Sunday and the people who did get up to bear their testimonies about the gospel and how it has change their lives was so inspiring. Such heartfelt declarations of the love they have for their Heavenly Father. It was so wonderful. My spiritual cup was running over at the end of that meeting.
Then my class ended up being just as perfect as Sacrament meeting. Sometimes it is hard to teach a lesson to them without it sounding too corny, but this lesson produced a lot of discussion. It was all about the power of personal prayer, the ways that Jesus taught us to pray and what things we should be praying about. A young gal even opened up about something personal things that she has been going through, with all of us providing ideas and uplifting words of encouragement to her.
I love being at church together as a family. I know we are blessed for going each Sunday no matter how hard it is to get us all out the door on time (with our sanity still intact), but on this rare occasion it was really nice to go all by myself!