Some people don’t wear love as a title.
They wear it on their sleeves, rolled up and frayed on the edges.
And if you don’t pay attention you might miss – miss the love worn on those frayed edges.

It was one of those seasons of life that truly, we were simply floating. Three kids under four. Married just five years. Days blurred together, with night shifts and early morning classes and first steps and toothless smiles.

One of those seasons that you showed up to church and left not knowing what the subject of a sermon was.
 
But. Some people preach better sermons with their lives than are often spoken from a pulpit.
We didn’t know it, but a few of the elders at our church had been praying for babies before we moved to the area – praying for the kind of life and noise that fills the back pews. And I guess, we were the answer to their prayers.

What we truly didn’t know was that they were the answer to prayers we didn’t know how to pray yet.
 
One of the elders would sit on the back pew and before long the babies would melt on his round belly. It didn’t bother him if they smudged his glasses or drooled on his shirt or pulled his beard.
It was obvious, Mr. Jim wasn’t there to listen to the sermon.

He was there to do what the church does, love. His pastoring wasn’t some deep biblical truth presented eloquently from a pulpit. It wasn’t even the back-room Bible class deep theological discussion.

It was the way he would pursue us, his flock. It was the way the babies would fall asleep on his arms in the back pew on Wednesday nights. It was the way he’d ask about the doctor’s appointment, or the test, or if the car was out of the shop. It was the way the toddlers would run to him, giggling. And the way that he’d giggle back at them even right in the middle of worship.

It was a different kind of worship – the kind that you would get a glimpse of every once in a while, when you’d come back from the hallway with a restless child to see…while the rest of the church was worshipping up front, there were different praises being sung in the back pew against the wall.

Not the kind you’d hear with human ears.

              
And I didn’t know it then. But now, that I actually get to sit during sermons and take notes, I think of Mr. Jim.

He wasn’t just holding babies, noticing needs and filling gaps. I wonder how long he sat at the feet of the Master Shepherd to know how to shepherd.

How to know the flock and love the flock.   
              
Some people don’t wear love as a title.
They wear it on the little fingerprints on their glasses.  

And sometimes if you’re paying attention— you’ll find it waiting for you in the back pew.