I will be hosting a wonderful series of guest posts about Pausing Life for a Moment. Each guest poster will have their own take on what that phrase means to them. I am so excited that they will be sharing their thoughts and lives with you. Each has had an impact on this blog in one way or another. I will be sharing a little bit about how they have changed my life and the life of the blog above their posts each week.
Before they share their thoughts, I thought I would start the series off with mine.
Last week was my turn to host playgroup. I haven’t hosted in several months. There are eleven moms in playgroup now. It is usually several months until there is a need to volunteer your house for a group time.
Each week we RSVP on a discussion board as to whether we will be able to make playgroup that week. It can really vary from week to week as to how many moms and toddlers you have at your house.
On Sunday night I checked to see how many people had RSVPed that they were planning to come to playgroup. Seven moms had indicated that they were coming and three hadn’t decided whether they were coming or not. Monday morning at eight o’clock the same numbers appeared on the discussion board.
I started to panic about the amount of food I had prepared for the moms. Each week the host provides a snack for the moms. The children all bring a bag lunch filled with foods their moms know they will eat. I had a pot of vegetarian chili simmering and had planned to make cornbread. This just didn’t see like enough for 7-10 moms.
I quickly vacuumed the living room floor one last time and fled to the grocery store down the street. Literally it took me five minutes to get there from my house. JDaniel was happy to jump in the car and go to the store. He loves the free cookies they give away in the bakery.
Once the cookie had been obtained, I quickly grabbed a package of slice and bake cookies, some raw veggies, a container of dip, and two bags of tortilla chips. I was in and out of the store in less than fifteen minutes.
When I got home, I still had thirty minutes before the moms could start arriving. Moms of toddlers or the moms of toddlers in our group tend to be at least twenty minutes late.
I glanced at the answering machine as I dumped the tortilla chips in a bowl. It showed that there was a new message that had been left. After throwing the empty chip bag in the trash, I pushed the listen button on the machine. It was a message from one of the moms. “Some of us have decided to go to a park today. It really looks like it is going to be pretty. If no one shows up at your house and you want to meet us that would be great.”
I hit the button again and relistened to the message. It didn’t seem to make sense. Why were people going to a park instead of coming to my house? I checked the discussion board for the playgroup again to see if it held any answers to my question. There wasn’t an answer. There was just clarification as to how many moms I now had coming to my house. The number of moms now RSVPing yes was five. There was also the invite for all the moms to meet at the park as an alternative.
At first I was livid! Why had I just rushed off to the store? If I had stayed home and received the phone call I would have know I had more than enough for the moms coming.
When the other moms started to arrive, they questioned what was happening to. Why were they being asked to choose where to spend their morning instead of just going to playgroup at one location?
As we started to play upstairs in JDaniel’s room and try to give all our children lunch at the same time, my house suddenly felt a little crowded. What would I have done with all those moms and five other children?
I stopped and paused life for moment. I looked at situation unfolding in my house. The decision made by some of the moms to go to the park had been a blessing. God had sent the right number of moms and children to my house. I needed set my ego aside and realize this wasn’t about me. It was about moms getting to break cornbread together and watch our children learn to play together. It was about getting to enjoy each of the moms that had come and get to interact with each child. I never would have been able to do that with thirteen more people at my house.
I didn’t write this post to have any of you comment that the park initiating mom was horribly insensitive. This isn’t a poor JDaniel4’s Mom post. This isn’t a post written have you think I am now mad at these moms for choosing to be somewhere else. I am not mad instead I am grateful. This is post written to share with you what I learned when I paused life for a moment and looked at it through His eyes.
I like His view much better.
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