Well, I did it. I went to the Beth Moore book study yesterday, and I have YOU to thank.

Let me explain. It was really gloomy outside yesterday – raining sheets. I just didn’t feel like getting all the kids dressed and loaded up. My two-year-old had preschool, but the others are home for fall break. They of course stayed up too late the night before and didn’t want to get up.

Here are a few choice phrases I heard from their bedrooms: “We don’t want to go to a BABY nursery! That’s boring! Why do we have to get up early when we don’t have school? That church has only a preschool for BABIES! It’s raining outside…”

So my high hopes began to wear. I had to bathe my two-year-old because he had school pictures and his hair was poking up everywhere. Got everybody fed breakfast, but…the time had flown, and we were running late. Then I noticed I needed to rebraid the girls’ hair. The baby spit up. Five more minutes passed, and I began to lose my resolve to go. So, I sighed and decided, once again, it was too hard to get out of the house on time, and so I should just forget it.

Then a little voice said, “What about your blog readers? You told them you were going.”

So, the voice and I had a little discussion about how you really only exist in my mind – but guess what? I lost. So we loaded up, and I arrived at the church 20 minutes late. By the time I got everyone in the right classroom, I was 30 minutes late. When I opened the door to the meeting room, I knocked over a trash can that someone had put in the door to keep it cracked so moms could hear their babies.

So much for a quiet entrance. The video had already started. But within 30 seconds, several ladies smiled at me, someone gave me a workbook, and someone else pulled me up a chair. A girl next to my seat leaned over and showed me how to fill in the answers I’d missed. “We just started,” she whispered. “You didn’t really miss anything.”

So, wow. I was there. I haven’t heard Beth Moore speak since my first son was born, way back when we were in a different city and I wasn’t so busy with life and endless housework and having five babies in a row.

The first minute I looked up at the video, Beth stared straight at ME and said, “If God is moving you to a leadership position, the first thing you’re going to need is a deeper faith.” Oh! How did she know? I’m not really a leader yet, but in my little pretend blog world I have imaginary readers who want to hear what I have to say!

Then I thought, well I’m a mom, so I AM a leader. And you are too if you’re a mom, dad, grandmom, granddad, aunt, uncle, whatever. If you’re older than ANYone, you’re in a position of leadership! We all have a huge responsibility before us to help raise the next generation!

Well, all I can say is that Beth Moore’s teaching was powerful, and I was about to cry the whole time. (I did some and hope nobody saw me.) What is WRONG with me? Well, I do know…but that’s a topic I’ll talk about next week. This study is great for moms. I don’t know about you, but I have trouble with my mind wandering. One minute I’m concentrating; the next minute, I’m thinking of my grocery list, then I remember something I need to return to Home Depot, then I wonder if my cell phone is turned off (and I check and realize I must have left it in the car, then I worry maybe I lost it) and then I remember this deadline I’ve got coming up and…pretty soon I’ve zoned out.

With Beth Moore, you can’t do that. There are blanks to fill in. I’m just so hungry for this rich teaching! Honestly, I’ve struggled to get enough spiritual feeding since having kids. On Sundays, I’ve done this and that…kept the nursery, taught 2-and 3-year-olds. Nursed babies and missed sermons. So I’ve had to fuel my faith mostly at home, reading 90 million books and listening to sermons on the radio. Now I’m loving Beth’s intense teaching, which is perfect for women like me.

On my wrist, I’m wearing a lovely, royal blue plastic bracelet, symbolizing my commitment to grow in my faith over the next 18 weeks. Even though this is only a 9-week study, our group leaders have decided to lengthen the time since most of us are preschool moms…so we’ll watch the video one week, then discuss it the following week. And we’ll spread the homework lessons out over a two-week period too. That means I’ll be part of this group until at least February or March.

We also had a time to share prayer requests. Wow – these women are going through some major things. A soldier’s death overseas, someone’s friend died of suicide, job changes and moving, building houses, selling homes, health problems, and relationship issues. I guess Beth Moore knows all this when she’s writing her books.

So, I feel the urge to say to you, my dear mom reader whoever you may be:

Please don’t give up. Whatever you have going on in your life right now — it will get better. If you’re a mom of a young child, NOBODY can understand you like another mom with young kids. Even those women who raised wonderful children to adulthood. They forget what it’s like to endure the sleepless nights and the worries and inadequate feelings and weird hormones and the sheer exhaustion of getting out the door in the morning.

Anyway, thanks for reading. And for holding me accountable at least in my own thoughts. God bless you, whoever you are.