MOPS is Not a Support Group

I always know when I am in the company of someone without little children. For one, they can begin and finish their sentences with the right inflections and appropriate decibel levels for adult conversation. Nothing like, "You know, I just think that for someone like you - NO! NO! PUT THAT DOWN NOW. NOW!!! ALL RIGHT, TIME OUT! For someone like you, NO! SIT STILL. For you... someone... what was I saying?" For another, they sit still for long periods of time and actually hold your gaze while talking to you.  I've realized that lately I get uncomfortable when I focus on one thing for too long, which has helped me break my television habit, but it does make people think I am uninterested, or worse, uninteresting.  

I just came back from a play date with three other MOPS - all Mothers Of Preschoolers. Exactly what did we do? Well, we had coffee, snacked on whatever we could remember to bring while packing our children into the car, we herded the children around, cheered at their little accomplishments of being able to walk a foot or two, or sharing their toys with each other or just being kind and creative. Quickly, we shared dinner ideas, gave advice about using a crock pot, encouraged each other to exercise, aired our grievances (mostly about ourselves), expressed joy at our children's small accomplishments and then left. No tears were shed, except by the children who were cranky and tired after playing so hard.

Yesterday, at the cash register of a grocery store, I told a woman who had a three year old to look up a MOPS group she might want to attend. What is it? she asked. I said it was a ministry. Then I said it was a support group. I ended by saying, "I have made some of my best friends there."

At this point, I really don't know how to describe what MOPS is and what it is we do there. And yet, it is my lifeline. I know what mothering was like without it and I never want to do that again. If you don't have family or friends living close to you, mothering is extremely lonely and difficult. But I hesitate to call MOPS a support group because we tend to think of women sitting around in a circle and crying. Yes, we do that sometimes. I am also loathe to call it a ministry because it sounds like we preach the gospel there. Yes, we do that, too. But I cannot call it a play group either, although, yes, our children do play there - as we do - and make deep, abiding friendships.

I tend to think of MOPS rather as the presence of the Living God Himself. It is so permeated by Him and so full of His very real, gritty love that I have to come to it, for sustenance, for support, for nourishment. And each time I come to it, I am reminded that there are other moms, just like me, who struggle with this calling of motherhood. These are not picture book moms with perfect families. They are real, living, breathing moms who feel the conviction of raising good children in a fallen world, moms who yell at their children when they don't mean to or want to but are pulled in too many directions, moms who would appreciate more time to read their Bibles but realize that diapers need changing and laundry must be done, moms who would readily throw themselves in front of cars to save their children. Moms, even in their brokenness, who strive to be like Jesus, whether they realize it or not.

So, no, MOPS is not a support group. And I will probably never be able to speak a sentence in the right tone for adult conversation for years to come. But what I have now in MOPS is a bigger blessing than hushed conversations.