Moms in the Making: Stars in the Night
A year ago today I went to a stranger’s house for a support group kind of on a whim. It was 3 days after Malachi’s first birthday and I’d written a birthday blog remembering him. My dad read said blog and on March 27 sent me this email saying how proud he was of me and my writing and that there was this group that meets at his and mom’s church called Moms in the Making, a faith-based fertility support group. He told me how it was founded in Dallas by Caroline Harries and that they have them in other locations around the country, that he was going to find out if they had one near me. In no time at all, he’d gotten back to me with the Facebook page, a local group that meets in Springfield, and the name of the local leader, Melissa Forster. Within 24 hours, I’d gone to Facebook, introduced myself, Caroline pointed me to Melissa, and Melissa invited me to the group that just so happened to be rescheduled to meet the next day, March 29. I said yes, but all of it really was without processing what I was going to. I hadn’t researched Moms in the Making. To be honest, I’d never considered myself battling infertility, though I’d seen a fertility specialist. In my mind, due to PCOS, it was taking us much longer than planned to start our family and part of that “taking a long time” included the loss of Malachi. “Infertility” wasn’t really in my vocabulary. Ironically, after being in group counseling myself as a client and group counseling as a graduate school course, I’d never considered there would be a support group for women who were struggling to get pregnant. None of these thoughts crossed my mind in those 24 hours, I just went… after our dog, Winston, had a poop explosion that Mason and I had to clean up, making me a wee bit late for my first meeting.
Meeting 1. I got the hang of the formatting… Melissa introduced herself shared a brief version of her fertility journey and the other girl did the same. I followed suit and shared my story. At the time, all the Moms in the Making groups were reading In Due Time, Caroline’s book, so I listened as they reviewed it. We shared praise reports, prayer requests, and a scripture verse that has paralleled with the prayer request. I remember sharing that I was in the middle of my 2WW (2 week wait), the 2 weeks between ovulation and the expected period, waiting to see if we were pregnant or not. We prayed for each other, closed, and went our separate ways. I remember feeling so seen in Melissa’s living room. We’d been so alone walking through losing Malachi, so I remember feeling not alone that night.
About a week and a half later, we found out we were pregnant! We were blown away and filled with all sorts of emotions from joy to surprise to awe to nervousness… to me not knowing how to tell these other women with stories of trying much longer than I that I was pregnant. AND telling them in 3 days at our next meeting. But I had nothing to fear! It was my turn to share my update… and Melissa’s response was excitement and joy for a woman she’d met as a stranger in her home 2 weeks prior. But that didn’t matter. The heart of Moms in the Making is to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15), with no contingency on where you are in your fertility journey in comparison, but with the deep expectancy that God will do it again (Psalm 126:5-6 MSG) and again and again in each girls’ life. Where I anticipated having to stifle my excitement, instead they shared in my joy.
To be honest, though I got the joyful response I did, a couple months later into our pregnancy, I wasn’t sure if I should keep going to Moms in the Making. After all, we weren’t trying anymore. We were pregnant. Though I’d had these underlying fears, I didn’t expect what ultimately happened, Zadok being born too early. In the last year, continuing to attend Moms in the Making twice a month has been one of the best yeses I couldn’t have known.
God always provides stars in the darkest of nights… if you choose to see them and accept them. Lissa started as the leader of this group and became one of the brightest stars on some of the darkest nights, one of my dearest friends. God used Moms in the Making to fill my dark nights with stars, when my sky seemed pretty sparse before. They were water when I was parched. Women from all over the country and world that had never met me sent cards and prayers and flowers and baskets arrived at my door when my heart was broken. Each star beamed Father’s love and comfort and presence and hope.
This is actually feels like the strangest blog post. The flow feels weird, honestly. But I think that’s because putting into words how thankful I am for Moms in the Making and for the stranger whose home I walked into that night is beyond cohesive words. I struggle to be able to even imagine if I would have chosen to quit going, to disconnect. What enduring the darkest night of our lives would have looked like without these women that knew, that could relate, that could speak truth when it was hard to read it but I could listen. What joys would be missing if I hadn’t made the friends I have and the truths that would’ve come a different way had I not attended the Moms in the Making Conference… the Eden Retreat I don’t think I ever would have attended, as I never would have gotten connected to Lauren Bourne and I Am Fruitful.
Friends, Caroline’s yes founded Moms in the Making so that Lissa’s yes could make her a leader of a Moms in the Making group in Springfield. My yes moved me to Springfield and my Dad’s yes to led me to Moms in the Making. And there are so many yeses in between! Seriously! I left out so many! Your yes isn’t just to be obedient. Your obedience, your yes, also shifts atmospheres and fights battles on behalf of others. Your yes brings freedom and hope and light and stars to someone’s dark night. We were created to worship God with our lives, our whole beings, in spirit and in truth, and when we do that our lives are changed and others’ lives are changed. The Power of Your Yes is a whole nother (cause I’m southern and ‘whole nother’ is a thing) blog post that’s been in the works for several months, but the truth is someone is counting on your obedience. Someone is counting on you to say yes to God, to whatever He is asking of you, to making that move, to starting that group, to inviting that person, to raising your voice, to trusting Him, to adopting, to fostering, to starting that business, to taking that job you don’t think is going to provide enough money, to taking that job that you don’t think you’re good enough of qualified for, to position you. Your yes positions you to be used by God in some pretty powerful ways in the lives of others, in ways you may never see the full fruit but can be confident your yes and obedience produces life. So as you adventure on, my friends, remember your obedience isn’t just for you. God may choose you to be a bright star in someone else’s dark night… and He’ll choose someone to be a bright star in yours.
“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”
Romans 12:15 ESV“And now, God, do it again—
bring rains to our drought-stricken lives
So those who planted their crops in despair
will shout hurrahs at the harvest,
So those who went off with heavy hearts
will come home laughing, with armloads of blessing.“
Psalm 126:4-6 MSG