Are your children more reverent than you?

It’s strange: I had no idea when I began writing full-time that I’d do so little of it.

Whether for signings, corporate speaking engagements, church firesides, school assemblies or some hearty stew of all-of-the-above, I'm often on the road.

Unfortunately, I'm often on the road on Sundays. As much as I love traveling and the people I meet, there's nothing like attending church with your own family. It’s not surprising that I usually miss my wife and children more on Sundays than on any other day of the week.

On a recent Sunday I was on the road to speak at an evening fireside. I arrived that afternoon just in time to check into my hotel, find a nearby chapel on the Internet and navigate my way there for a 1 p.m. service.

I walked in just before church began and scanned for someplace to sit. I spotted a young couple alone on a pew with plenty of room for several more people. "May I join you?" I asked.

The couple, presumably husband and wife, looked at one another awkwardly before the man said, gazing across the chapel at the door I just entered, "Actually, we're waiting for someone."

“No problem at all.” I smiled and took one step forward to the next pew where an older couple sat, again with plenty of room for a guest or two.

"Is anyone sitting here?"

"Just you," the woman said and she patted the pew with her hand.

I sat and introduced myself. She was kind and gracious and even let me take her hymnbook when she saw I did not have one.

Moments later I noticed another couple had come and joined the husband and wife behind me. We heard them greet one another and I wondered if this was a weekly occurrence for them, a chance to sit together and enjoy worshipping with friends. The moment made me miss my own good friends at home.

As the meeting unfolded, the whispers and the giggles — once muted — became something quite irreverent. At one point the two women were laughing uncontrollably until one of them, thankfully, stood and left the chapel. Her friend remained and laughed herself to tears with her head buried in her lap.

I thought of how many children might have noticed these adults. I pictured a frustrated mother three rows back shushing her rambunctious child, "Please stop talking."

The child might have pointed and answered, "But mommy, those people are talking.”