Friendship MOPS

Hello Freedom, it's nice to meet you!

Ahh, a new year of MOPS has begun! Yay! Welcome everyone! I hope the first meeting was as refreshing for you as it was for me! It was so nice to be surrounded by friendly faces, hot coffee, and hot food! Okay, I have seriously ended every sentence so far with an exclamation point. I am just THAT excited about this MOPS year! On Tuesday we watched a video on this year's theme, Free Indeed. Here are a few things that stood out to me:

• We will let love be the loudest voice.
• Your scars are a roadmap to another woman's freedom.
• We will go first in order to set other captives free.
• We will proclaim that fear, worry, anxiety, and comparison will not win.
• We are committed to fly and this is the year we stretch our wings.
• Take to the skies and be free indeed.

For me, this theme couldn't have come at a better time. God's timing is perfect. I imagine that's the case for most, if not all of us. Don't we all need freedom from something? I've been held captive by my own thoughts of not being good enough as a wife, mother, friend, sister, or as a person, fearing that I woudn't know what to say in a conversation, or that no one would like me (the list goes on). In reality, that is so not true. Believing these lies about myself only kept me in my cage. Now that I'm accepting myself, opening up, and being vulnerable, I'm experiencing freedom for the first time; and well, it's freeing. I've started to see that sharing what we've gone through or are going through can make way for meaningful relationships. Of course I'm still human and I still get weighted down sometimes, but God is faithful and gives me the strength to lift my head up and walk on. I also have this amazing community of Mamas who are so encouraging. We have each other. We are not alone. We all have hurts and struggles. Sharing ours can not only be good for us; it can benefit those who hear it. It could give someone else the courage to do the same.

I came across these verses a couple months ago that made me think of MOPS, and was going to post them, but haven't yet. So here they are now (:

1 Thessalonians 5:11 NIV

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

Proverbs 12:25 NIV

Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up.

Can't wait for our next meeting!

-Heidi M.