Church

On Saturday nite Ax and I picked up my niece and nephew to spend the night with us. Aaron is 6 and Lauren is 5. We had a good time Saturday night and took them to get in the hot tub at Ax's parents house.
Sunday morning could've been better, to say the least. I made breakfast and asked if anyone wanted to go to church with me. Lauren said no, and of course Ax said no. Aaron said he guessed he would. I think the poor kid felt bad for me. Bless his heart.
Well, when Aaron said yes, Lauren said she'd go too. Well, all that evidently made Ax mad. He began a tirade about how I was just "tricking" the kids. That I would take them home after church and Aaron wouldn't get to play anymore video games with Ax. Ax was basically yelling at me. I told him to stop yelling at me. He said that this was his house and that he'd yell if he wanted.
Well, that pissed me right off with a quickness. I told him that this was my house too and he would not yell at me. All while this was going on I was disgusted that this dialogue was happening in front of Aaron and Lauren.
We rarely argue like this so why did we have to when we had precious little people with us??? Ax was just being a total jerk. I got up from the table and basically stomped to the bathroom to take a shower and get AWAY from him.
I got ready and it was almost time to leave. About that time Ax decides to come and talk to me about it all and kind of apologize. I know and sincerely believe that he would not have been nearly remorseful if I hadn't started crying. It's just that he'd upset me so much with his awful "tricking" comment.
Background: I know that Ax is biased against church because of his Mother's fanatic loyalty to her Jehovah's Witness cult. Ax has told me heart wrenching stories about how she'd put the church before her family in a second. He told me that once, as a child, he was sick with the chicken pox or some such childhood illness, and she left him to go to church. It has obviously bothered him quite a bit because he recalled it to me in regards to how he feels about going to church. Shame on her for doing that to him and her family. Shame on her for poisoning him towards attending church. On the other hand Ax has been so extensively warned by his father about subscribing to any particular denomination that Ax refuses to say he is a "member" of our church. Which is the only church he has attended in the last four years, essentially our entire relationship.
My own background with church is more than healthy if I do say so myself. I only want to go for 1 and 1/2 hours a week!! I grew up attending church about 3 hours a week, consisting of Sunday School and Regular Sunday service. Occasionally I attended 5 hours a week if I went on a Sunday night or Wednesday night service. Church is like a re-charge for both my spiritual and emotional batteries. Not only that but I do believe whole heartedly in the 10 commandments. And obviously if you are on the train for 9 of them then you've got to get that one about the Sabbath. I mean come on. I know that I have been humbled by having God answer my prayers. It has shaken my tree to know that He hears me. He knows if I am giving of my time to worship and praise. If I want miracles and blessings it's the absolute least and falls very short of what I should be giving to go to church for a measly hour and a 1/2 a week. I also pray outside of that however I feel that it's important to make an effort for God. To visit His house and praise Him with others. If I can get up and go to work five days a week for something as fleeting as money then I can get up one day a week for the Almighty God who has given me the breath of life. May he forgive me for not giving Him more when I know he undoubtedly deserves it. I fall short in so many ways. I will fight tooth and nail to go church for what little time I've set aside. I am thankful for my right to worship and praise God, what a fool I'd be not to exercise that right.

So needless to say, I cried and told Ax that he had no right to say those things to me. I also told him that I know for a fact that he wants God's miracles and blessings in his life and that there is no excuse for him not giving slightly more than one measly hour of his life in praise to God. Ax said that he believes God is everywhere so he can praise anywhere. I said that God is where two or more are gathered in His name.
Matthew 18:20 For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”
When we want to see a person we go to that person's house, so isn't there logic in going to God's house to worship and praise???
So anyway, I cried and Ax, of course, got some conscience suddenly and decided to get ready for church. I know that he didn't intend to say he'd go to church with me, otherwise he'd have come in to talk to me sooner and had more time to get ready. But I wanted him to go anyway, even if we were late, just for the principal of it. But we weren't that late, and I'm really glad we made it.

A big downfall is that when I came out of the bedroom to get Aaron and Lauren ready, they could see that I'd been crying. I thought that I had dried it up enough but obviously not. We got a call later that evening from my dad because Aaron had told them that he'd heard Aunt Jenni crying and then she came out wiping her eyes. When my dad called I told him a very short version of what happened. He put Aaron on the phone and I told him that Uncle Ax had just made me mad but everything was okay.

Poor kid. I had wanted our house to be a haven from the insanity of the rest of my family. I feel really guilty over letting my temper inflame the situation in front of them. However part of the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of my spouse. I sincerely hope we never, ever have a repeat of anything similar in front of the children.