For a few summers early in my motherhood journey I was blessed to be a part of a couple of book studies that were facilitated by a wonderful friend/mentor, Julie. She has four grown sons and several grandchildren that are her shining glory. She took us newer moms under her wing and brought us together to learn from her and from one another. What a time of growing and learning it was. Over the course of those summers we read Creative Correction by Lisa Whelchel, Boundaries by Townsend and Cloud, and Created to be His Helpmeet by Debi Pearl. Each had its own lessons to teach us and I still refer back to what I learned during those studies.
But phases of life change and sometimes circles of friends change... and its been quite awhile since our last study. There has been nothing to fill that space. I have been longing for something to happen and I will admit there have been times when I have wanted to blame my church because my needs were not being met. But one day I realized that what I was missing was not a program, or even a book study itself but the companionship and the camaraderie that I felt when I was a part of a group that connected. I have been lacking consistent encouragement from other mothers.
Rather than continue to play the blame game I decided to make things happen. I had been seeing posts and emails from SarahMae about her new book coming out ( Desperate - Hope for the Mom who Needs to Breathe) and immediately connected with the premise of the book. I facebooked a few other moms telling them about Desperate and my desire to have a book study. I was not sure what to expect. Sometimes my ideas fly and others they fall flat. But I was not alone in my need to connect and while scheduling is always interesting we settled on a day/time/place and began meeting together to fellowship and discuss the book.
Its not the usual crowd. We have a couple girls from church, one new girl, my neighbor and one girl who was a part of the some of the summer books studies I shared about earlier. But we all have younger kiddos (and lots of them). If we all brought all our kids we'd have eighteen! Unfortunately this has been a terrible winter for colds and flu so there was hardly a week when everyone could actually be there at the same time. Regardless of attendance we always seemed to get some good conversations and discussion going (albeit a little side tracked once in awhile).
Always concentrate on how far you have come, rather than how far you have left to go. The difference in how easy it seems will amaze you. - Heidi Johnson.
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