Oh church why must you make me feel stuff

I don't know if it is me by nature but something about being in church is so powerful to me. As a teenager and child growing up in church I always felt like church was an extension of home because the church I was raised in had a church family that was so loving, supportive and accepting. It felt so natural to me. After I left for college I couldn't find a place that felt like my church family at home in Seaton. I love the music. I love when the person playing the piano stops and giggles "oops, let’s try that again!" as they start over and the congregation smiles at the realness and human condition of it all. I love it when someone in the congregation pipes up when the minister is reading or singing something we don't have in our bulletin. I love the laughter at the silly parts, the "AMENS" at the great parts, the enjoyment of the children, (no matter what they do), during the children's sermon. I remember the mothers' with the reddest faces had the cutest kids. I guess they didn't see it that way. Now as a mother with my kids in the front of the church, I understand the heat of the blood as it crosses my face when my boys "are real". I wish they made me laugh as much as they make everyone else laugh in those moments. I love the aged faces, and especially the ones that look and sound like my Grandma and Grandpa. There is a man that looks like Grandpa in my new church. He chuckles likes he did. He talks to everyone like he did. I just want to run up and hug him. Maybe he keeps mints in his pocket just like Grandpa did in church :-) For now Arline is my main mint supplier during church.
The new church is the closest I have ever felt to the church back home. At the end of the service the minister always asks for anyone who feels moved to do so can come to the front of the church and share their desire to join this church family or simply share how God has moved them in their lives. It says in the bulletin that you can change your church membership by letter and the church family will welcome you in at this part. Someday I want to do that. Deep down I long for the past though and feel as if I would be abandoning the little church in Seaton Illinois that changed my life and always stood by my side. I know many of those people are gone even though the church still remains. Some of them are still there today though. I guess the best part of family is when they watch you turn into who you are going to be, hug you and send you on your way. If I ever did walk to the front of this church and transfer my membership I'm afraid I might bawl like a baby in front of everyone. I feel like I am beginning to find a place of belonging again and I long for Sunday each week. I already know what I will say when I do it though, "Thank you for helping me find my way home. Thank you for being what I have been looking for. Thank you for being the place I will raise my children, so that they may have the wonderful experience of growing up in a church family as loving, supporting and accepting as I did at Seaton Center Presbyterian Church in little Seaton, IL." I can't do it until I can say that without crying.