Hallelu, hallelu, hallelu, hallelujah…

I don't know if I'll be able to make it through this post. 

The story I'm about to share happened a few nights ago, and I still cannot gather myself when I think of it. 

I keep laughing until tears stream down my face…and for a fairly pregnant woman, this promotes other near disasters… but mainly the laughing until I can't breathe. 

But I'm going to attempt it anyway, and I hope it translates into writing.

To begin: 

Brent and I were raised very similarly, something we are both thankful for quite often. For us, this meant that we both grew up in the church. We both did the Vacation Bible School scene, the church camp scene, the play-in-the-sanctuary-while-your-parents-are-in-a-meeting scene, the hunt-for-the-communion-juice-during-church-luncheons scene… you name it. 

So when my sister sent me this link to a funny article titled "20 signs you grew up a church kid," I wasn't surprised when I met all the criteria [except Awanas, because we didn't have that where I grew up or you best be believin' I would have been there, folks!]. That night when Brent came home, I wanted to read the list to him to see if he, too, could relate to pretty much everything. 

No surprise, he could. Which then prompted a conversation about a song mentioned in the list. The song was "Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelujah…" [And all my other church- kid people are shouting back, "Praise ye the Lord!"] We talked about how we always were sitting in chairs or on the floor, and one side of the room was assigned the "Hallelus" and the other side the "Praise ye the Lords", and you had to shout it as loud as possible. It was sort of like the "We've got spirit, yes we do…" for church kids. [If you're not familiar with the song: HERE]. 

At this point in our conversation, though, Brent looks at me and says, very sincerely, "Why did we sing that? It doesn't even make sense?" 

I was confused. Bewildered, if you will.  "Well, we don't really talk like that any more, but …yeah…."

At this point he's riled up, like they've brainwashed me too. "It's not even a WORD!"

"What isn't?" I ask, now just completely perplexed by his raving about a children's song. "Praise? Or Ye? Or…"

He immediately cuts in. "OHHHHHHHHH!! Praise… YE! Praise… YE. I thought we were saying 'PRAIJEE' and I'm like, 'What are we even SAYING!!?'" 

Through my laughter, I make sure I understand: "So all along you just thought you were singing jibberish and went along with it?" 

"Yes!" He is adamant. "The other side of the room would be singing, Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelujah, and I would JUMP up from my chair and YELL as loudly and proudly as I could, PRAIJII THE LORD!" 

At that point… I couldn't… I just… I couldn't… it was all too funny… 

I'm picturing this kid: 

jumping up with all the excitement in the world to belt out a word he doesn't even think is a word. 

What's funnier yet… for 28 years he NEVER questioned it! It was like, to him, "Praijii the Lord" was just one of the understood, yet unspoken, mistakes the church made years ago that no one ever thought to correct. Like some guy somewhere wrote the song and then later, realizing that "Praijii" actually wasn't a word, never took the time to correct it because the kids were all having too much fun shouting this jibberish back and forth at one another. 

I was still in my fit of laughter, picturing little-Brent's excitement while shouting, when Brent says, "28 years old! Ya learn something new everyday, huh? That does make a lot more sense now!" 

Oh man. I love that guy. 

And just for fun: