*Another quick thing to note, this whole topic was born because of the blog (in)courage and last year the writers at (in)courage hosted what they called the (in)RL {In Real Life} conference where women all over the world met together in each other's homes one day for a virtual conference. I was so impressed with the topic of community and our need for it that I purchased the DVD and Study guide from that conference and began studying more about the topic. (in)courage is hosting ANOTHER (in)RL conference this year on April 27th, so if you'd like more information about it, please click over to their blog here and find out more.*
Good
Morning! My name is Kathy and I have been married to my husband Bob for
16 years, we have two beautiful daughters – Hope is 11 and Joy is about to
turn 10. And I am BLESSED to be here and to be part of this COMMUNITY of MOMS.
But it wasn’t always that way for me. I moved here when my husband and I got
married, 16 years ago. But I was coming from a place of wonderful Christian
community since I had been attending Bible College for the previous few years.
In Bible College I lived in the dorms with a hundred other like-minded
Christian girlfriends and we bonded day and night and built amazing friendships
and connections. But then I married and we moved here, where my
husband had lived all his life and had built his own community of family and
friends – but I had no one. Well, not exactly no one, I had my in laws and I
had a job where I met people and made friends – but it was NOTHING like the
Christian community that I had come from just the year before and at first it was very
lonely.
Now don’t
get me wrong, my husband is my best friend and we certainly enjoyed our
marriage and our time together and like I said, I DID make some great friends at my
job. But when it came to Christian girlfriends I was struggling. We came here
to this church, but as you can tell it’s a big church. It was hard to find my place and
make connections in those early years of marriage!
When I got
pregnant with my first daughter, about 4 years into our marriage, I finally connected
with a couple of other Moms who were also pregnant and due around the same time
as me. After my daughter was born, I quit working to be home with her and I
began to attend Ladies Bible study and MOMS and have playdates with other Moms
and their babies and I FINALLY began to feel that sense of Christian community
that had been lacking for several years. Does that mean I’ve never been lonely
again? No way, in fact I find that even in this season of life, where I am
blessed with MANY wonderful Christian friends, I STILL go through seasons of loneliness.
So this
morning I want to talk about this concept of community and how we as
Christians, as Moms, as women can find the connections and community that our
hearts so often desire.
{We watched a portion of the video from the (in)RL conference.}
{We watched a portion of the video from the (in)RL conference.}
Let’s talk
about your thoughts on community – what’s the first thing you think of when you
hear the word ‘community’? {the women shared some ideas}
The
dictionary defines community as: a group of people who reside in a specific
locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical
heritage; a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common
characteristics or interests.
So what are
some of the communities you are a part of?? {several women shared}
{Neighborhood,
church, Bible study, MOMS, school, family, friends, homeschooling, sports team,
etc}
Sometimes
even though we may be ‘connected’ with several different types of communities,
we can still feel overwhelmingly lonely, right?
How often
have you felt like the Mom who is just stuck in the house, raising your kids,
cleaning your house, doing the daily things you need to do – yet so desperately
thinking ‘gosh, if I could just go grab a coffee with a girlfriend today, with
NO KIDS, how wonderful that would be, how refreshed I would feel as a mom!’ I
just want to encourage you that we’ve ALL been there! I know we all adore our
children and see them as a blessing from God, but it’s OK to want a break and
to desire a little time away every once in a while!
So what
holds us back? What are the obstacles that get in the way of us having deep,
meaningful friendships and not just having the friendships but making the time
to foster those relationships?? {again, the women shared their thoughts}
1 Corinthians
12:12 says ‘The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though
all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.’
This verse illustrates the unity of believers,
though we are all very diverse and have different backgrounds or Spiritual
gifts – we are created to work together as one body, just as an arm is
incomplete without the rest of the body. The Lord created us
for community; His desire is to see us work together as one body. He didn’t
create us to be alone; He created us to need each other!
When was the
last time you joined another group of women {or just one other woman} to do
something together? What was it? How did you feel afterwards? {several ladies shared}
IT FEELS
GOOD! I LOVE the time I get to spend with my girlfriends and I come away from
those times feeling refreshed and happy and full of joy.
Have you
ever thought about reaching out and seeing if a few other women would like to
join you in doing something you all enjoy? It could be as simple as grabbing a
cup of coffee, or doing some exercise together, or cooking together or doing a
hobby like scrapbooking … You might be surprised if you took the initial step
to reach out, that you might just find a couple or even a LOT of other women
who would love to join you!
If this is
something you’ve had on your heart but were always too afraid to step out in
faith and do, start praying about it today! Pray that the Lord will bring that
friend into your life. Pray that YOU can be the kind of friend someone else
might need today. Holley Gerth says, ‘Prayer connects us, it’s the shortest
distance between two or more hearts.’ Pray for friends and pray for the friends
you DO have. Some days I get a text from one of my friends with just a quick
‘would you please pray for me today?!’ plea and I always try to reply right
away so she knows I’ve got her covered – then stop what I’m doing and pray for
her right away. And I love that I have a few friends who will do the same for
me. It’s so important to lift one another up before the Lord!
Let’s
talk for a bit about the excuses, the reasons why it won’t or doesn’t work out
for us. 
I showed this photo on the screen {it's from a couple weeks ago at a local Starbucks and is my friend Pamela's picture}
I want you
to see this photo of these lovely ladies … you will recognize many of them from
our MOMS group and a few may be unfamiliar … I didn’t get to go to this
gathering because I had something else going on that day – but this was just an
informal thing that Pamela put together where she basically made an
open invitation for anyone to join them at Starbucks this day. I just LOVE the
diversity of this group – we have young moms, older moms, single ladies, women
with little children, women with adult children, women who homeschool, women
who send their kids to public school and on and on it goes! But what I love
most, is the fact that each of these ladies got up that morning and didn’t make
excuses for why they couldn’t go … perhaps they didn’t know any of the other
women that would be there, perhaps Shirley or Jane may have thought, ‘aw, my
kids are grown, how will I fit in this group?’ or Maria may have thought ‘well
I’m not married and I don’t have kids so surely I won’t fit in’ … or maybe
Jessica thought about backing out because she was the only one who had to bring
her little one along – but guess what? Not one of these ladies used those
excuses! They showed up and were blessed! And I know I said I wasn’t there, so
how could I possibly know they were blessed? Because Matthew 18:20 says ‘For
where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them.’ When we
show up, when we reach out, when we build a community of Christian women, we
are BLESSED! The Lord delights in these kinds of gatherings! We find
connections with women we might never have thought we’d be friends with! All it
takes is a small step of faith!!
A
few years ago I had to take one of these huge leaps of faith. I was supposed to
go to a Christian Camp for a women’s retreat with some of my friends from church – but
as the week of the retreat rolled around my daughter Hope was VERY sick {and
turned out to have pneumonia} so I had to cancel and stay home. This came at a
time when I desperately needed the connections and time with other women and
just a chance to ‘get away’ for a weekend and I was sorely disappointed when I
couldn’t go. But my Mom ended up offering to pay my way so that I could go to a
different ladies retreat which was a month later at another Christian camp. The
only hitch
was I’d be going alone. My mom would be there on property, but she’d be working
in the kitchen and staying in the staff housing and I would go as a regular
conference attendee and share a room with women I didn’t know. I’ll be honest,
I almost said no. And the week leading up to the retreat I was filled with
anxious thoughts and thinking I might just back out! But I made myself go and
it was hard. I felt silly and uncomfortable at first because I didn’t know who
to talk to or what to say. I didn’t know who to sit with at dinner or in chapel
or how I would feel sharing a room with 6 strangers. But that night as the ladies
and I settled ourselves in our room we found out that we had ALL come by
ourselves. The camp had wisely placed us all together since we had all come as
‘singles’. And what a relief to know we were all feeling just a bit out of
sorts for the same reasons. We ended up sitting together at every meal,
worshipping together at every chapel session, playing late night board games in
our room and forming a great bond over the course of the weekend. It didn’t
matter that we had come from all different walks of life, it only mattered that
God had brought us together and by stepping out of our comfort zone we had
opened ourselves up to community.
Jen Schmidt
says ‘Sometimes we use our busyness and our crazy schedules to say we don’t
have time for community.’ I feel like this is where I’m at in this season of
life. My kids have many activities in addition to school and church, we have
family obligations and church or ministry obligations and quite honestly it
just feels like life is BUSY most of the time. Sometimes it IS hard to schedule
‘girl time’ with my friends. Sometimes it takes many, many emails or texts
going back and forth in order to find a date that works for everyone. But I
also know that even little emails or phone calls or encouraging texts from my
friends can really boost me up when I’m feeling lonely. One of the ways I
connect with my friends during busy sports seasons is by chatting during the
girl’s practices. During soccer season my daughter would have a an hour and a
half practice so since my friend’s daughter was on the same team my friend and
I would walk laps around the fields and talk while the kids practiced. It was a
great way to get exercise AND fellowship time! {or while the kids are at Awana
night we might go out to grab a bite to eat while they are at Awana for 2 hours} Sometimes you just have to get creative with ways to get together and
make time for your friendships!
So … I want
to encourage you to step out of your comfort zone, open up your suitcase, as the woman shared in the video, be
willing to share your ‘stuff’ – the good, the bad and the ugly! We all have
tough things, we all have baggage, we all have struggles. By opening yourself
up and allowing yourself to be vulnerable you just never know what can happen
and it could be the start of a very beautiful friendship!
Also, I want
to let you know about a few ways you can connect before you leave this room
today. Pamela has planned another ladies get together for NEXT Friday
– if you would like to come and join us PLEASE be sure you
stop and talk to her at the end and get the information. Also, in April, the
makers of the blog (in)courage are having another (in)RL meet up day and I am
going to host it in my home. That day they will be showing more videos on live
streaming and we plan to have food and fellowship time. If you are interested
in this please come see me after and I will take your email information so I
can get you connected with this. We’ve also placed some papers and pens on the
tables today because we want you ladies to take down each other’s phone numbers
or email addresses – we want you to connect outside of this room when you go
out from here today. We LOVE this community of MOMS here, but if you leave here today and still feel lonely and disconnected then we have failed in our mission of building community.
Now here is the video for the (in)RL conference for this year ... if you live locally to me you are MORE than welcome to join us, please contact me!
