Grown-ups scare me.

I've been a stay at home mom since last February and I LOVE it!  I love that I get to watch my kids grow.  I love being the one to pick up Thing 1 from school each day.  I love feeding Bugsy lunch.  I love watching Stinky grow a tiny (BIG!) personality.  I love love love being at home!

Around last September, however, I began to long for certain parts of my old "working mom" lifestyle.  I missed friends, to be exact.  I still do.  I realized that almost all of my "friendships" were linked to a life I no longer lived...the workforce.  And unfortunately, due somewhat to my own choosing and somewhat to theirs, the ties didn't survive my leap into stay-at-home-mommyhood.

I'd been so busy being mom to a newborn baby, a toddler, and a preschooler that I hadn't noticed the void.  But then Thing 1 started school and I started babysitting and I stopped leaving the house.  It's hard leaving the house when you have 5-6 kids every day.  The "easiest" places to go without 6 kids are stores, where you spend money...and the easiest places to go with 6 kids are expensive!  So we started a routine of simply being at home.  It was a workable routine, or so I thought.

Around September I started getting ansty.  I started noticing that I was pretty much alone (aside from my husband, who's a great help) and I DON'T like to be alone!  I began to ponder what should be done about this situation.  I started to see other people's posts on facebook; things like, "We had a great time at MOPS today!" or "I love my mommy small group!" or "We're off to our playgroup!"  Every time I saw one of these posts I got a little sadder.  Imagine what it would be like to have a support group!  Wow!  I sure missed that.

I began to formulate a plan.  It started simple: we needed a women's ministry, an active, up-to-date women's ministry, at our church.  And someone needed to lead it!  So I started researching.  MOPS looks to be a fabulous group, but it's way too expensive for me, so I am sure it would be for some others as well.  There were tons of other "mommy" curricula out there, but none fit what I felt we needed.  I decided I needed to figure out what we needed!  (Or, actually, I needed to figure out what I needed.)

The more I thought, the more I realized that what I really need, more than anything else, is FRIENDS!  I need people who will love me for who I am.

I need people to go on "girls' nights" with.  (Yep, more from facebook.)  I need someone who will call me if I don't show up for church to find out why I wasn't there.  (This is rare, but I DO have 3 kids, and they DO get sick on occasion.)  I need someone who will be there to hold my hand, literally or figuratively, when I have to do something scary, like hand a baby over for surgery.  I need someone who will surprise me with a note or a call or an email or anything out of the blue because they were thinking of me.  I need someone that wants to hang out and do things that interest me!  I need someone that will listen and care when I talk about my kids for hours on end because, let's face it, they're pretty much at the center of my life right now and I have a lot to say about them!  I NEED FRIENDS!

About the only place I go regularly is church.  What this means is that, ideally, my friendships will come from church.  It means that I might have to *gasp* see "those" peope outside of the 4 walls of the church building.  I might have to see them some other day besides Sunday!  So I started to research curricula that were based on developing relationships.  I fell in love with the idea of girlfriends unlimited by Group. 

It was exactly what I was looking for!  The mission of girlfriends unlimited is to BEFRIEND women and give them a place to BELONG so they will come to BELIEVE in Jesus and BECOME more like him!  This was perfect! 

And then I realized that I would have to be in charge and that TERRIFIED me.  You see, I'm good at being in front of a room full of 4 year olds.  REALLY good.  But grown-up?  Grown-ups scare me.  Grown-ups talk behind your back and laugh at you and throw things if they don't like what you have to say.  Grown-ups are mean!  Grown-ups have bigger attitudes and bigger influences!  Grown-ups are my PEERS!

I bit the bullet, had the curriculum ordered, and got started.  We've had a kick-off party and a Christmas party, and this month we're kicking off G! groups.  We're well on our way to a very vital ministry! 

Perhaps just as importantly, the women in my church are on the way to establishing REAL, honest, vital friendships!  That's the part I'm most excited about.  I can't wait!