Jesus was in my mom group.

One of the greatest joys of 2017 was the mom group I joined.

I was added to the Facebook group in the fall of 2016 while I was still pregnant with Molly by a casual friend from church. Molly was due in February and the group was for mothers in the city due in March or April. I was due in February, but the group was small and in its early stages then, so they pushed the date back to include February. 

The group wasn't super active in the early days, or maybe I just wasn't very attentive to it. This was my second pregnancy and I had a decent grasp on what was going on. The group tried to get together once or twice in late 2016, but I wasn't very interested. Some of the parents had other children, but most of them were a bit older than Parker and our weekends were kind of our family time anyway. I commented on the page once in a while, but most of the people were total strangers to me, and I had enough going on at home to not really feel the need to get involved.

By the time Molly was born in January, making her the old lady of the group, I was committed enough to the group to not feel the need to leave and find a local January group. The next baby was born  in February, then the momentum grew and, by the end of April, there were over 50 us in the group. 

Once the baby boom was well underway the play dates started. When you have a newborn, a playdate is an excuse for a mom to get together with other moms. Playing is optional, particularly because newborns are glorified paper weights, and it's more about the desperate need for social interaction. Moms with other kids would bring them and they'd play while the moms and babies sat around and visited. 

When Parker was a baby we went to a weekly group at the Y. It was lovely, a huge sanity saver, and how I met other moms. It wasn't something I could attend with toddler Parker and baby Molly, though. Enter the mom group.

My maternity leaves were so different from each other. With Parker, I loved the downtime we had, and how easy it was to stay home and do our own thing. I loved our weekly visit to the Y, but didn't feel the need to do much more. With Molly, I needed to do far more to fill the time because it wasn't just me and a sweet little newborn anymore. I had a toddler to entertain as well. Parker's not a high needs kid, but being home with toddler Parker all day was very different than being home with baby Parker.

I hosted my first play date in April. I've always enjoyed hosting, and I found it so much easier to stay home with the kids than take them to someone else's house, a community centre or a park. Parks in Regina in April weren't exactly the nicest places to go anyway. 

I took the plunge and invited the group of (mostly) strangers to my house to come hang out. Many of the moms had not met each other in person before, and only one of them actually knew me. My living room was covered in bucket seats, moms, and babies. I loved it.

I love hosting. It can be draining depending on the occasion, but hosting those moms and their kids in my home felt like my calling. Whereas I had spent my year with Parker selfishly hoarding my time to myself, I suddenly loved having my mornings with those women. 

It started off slow, because I didn't want to make it weird. I hated getting my kids out of the house, so I assumed other people would, too. I later learned I'm a bit of an anomaly. It was so much easier to make sure the Keurig was on and put muffins in the oven than to wrestle my kids in clothes and car seats. Eventually it picked up speed and, instead of waiting for someone to suggest a play date and waiting to offer to host if no one else did, I just started making invitations to the group and whoever showed up was welcome.

Our group was amazing. I sometimes had people over once or twice a week. Sometimes someone else would host. Regardless the location, I saw them almost every week. There were around 20 active members in the group that I met at various play dates around the city. 

I have always felt incredibly insecure about myself. Growing up, I never thought people liked me. I struggled with bitterness for years. So many years. It wasn't until Molly was a baby that that bitterness finally started to seep away and my tendency to be judgemental started to wane. I started actively loving people and accepting them for who they were. 

We were a mixed group, coming from all sorts of different backgrounds, but being around that group changed how I approached the world.

There is no room for judgement in a group like that. Everyone was so different but fighting for the same goal (keep the little children alive and well) that it was hard not to feel united. I'm not saying I haven't struggled to come to terms with some of my friends' choices, but I could love them through it. Instead of feeling the need to snark about them behind their backs I chose not to. I let it slide. I focused on loving them instead.

If this is making me sound holier than thou, bear with me. I didn't always succeed. Sometimes, but surprisingly infrequently with my judgy track record, I did think nasty things. But more often that not I tried to just love them where they were at and be honest. 

I didn't have the great time with that group of moms because of myself. That was Jesus. 100%. 

There is no way that I, as an anxious train wreck of a person with two kids that weren't the picnic I'd been hoping for, could have hosted such a successful run of play dates without Jesus. He was 100% there for it all. I have no doubt in my mind.

He ran the Keurig. He baked the muffins. He sat on the floor and wiped the collective spit up of half a dozen babies off the carpet. He made sure there was no room for judgement and shame and insecurity and He wrapped those play dates up in so much love.

People seemed to genuinely enjoy coming to my house. They'd not so subtly suggest that I should host again. I couldn't believe it.

I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that those play dates were my job while I was home with my kids. It didn't feel like work. It was so easy it almost felt selfish. No one cared that my floors weren't clean or that I'd just wiped the bathroom counter off with a baby wipe right before they came over. They were there for the friends and community and muffins.

Our house wasn't huge, but it was the perfect size for those play dates. Some days there were 23 people including moms and kids in my living room or basement. It was cozy.

All my insecurities were thrown against the wall when we announced that we were moving back to Victoria. I couldn't believe the love that flowed out from people that had been total strangers nine months earlier. When we moved from Victoria to Regina, leaving lifelong friends, I didn't feel the amount of love I did leaving that mom group. I hadn't realized how much people valued those play dates, either.

Something happens when Jesus gets involved and takes the reins. I didn't used to feel likeable, but suddenly I was. I had helped cultivate something special without even meaning to. I took that awkward step out there of inviting strangers into my home, and in the process met some very dear friends, grew up (finally), and Jesus took over the rest. And it was surprising and it was good.