Little Women

This past Friday night, our home was filled with a bunch of young women - full of excitement to be together - for the sole purpose of eating popcorn?  No.  Putting on makeup?  No.  Doing each other's hair?  No.  Amazingly, they met to worship, sing, study and pray for one another.  It was amazing.  Everything in me wanted to be leading it, pushing my agendas, telling them what they should do, how they should pray, what they should sing, what passages they should study, but I held myself back.  This was my daughter's deal.  She had everything under control and seemed to be managing just fine.

After her experience at the Worldview Camp, she came back from her mountain top and immediately crashed to the valley.  I knew that was going to happen and had warned her.  She looked around her and felt so alone as no one, it seemed, had the same convictions as her, the desire to seek God, to share their faith, to sing, to worship.  I encouraged her that there were others, she just needed to find them.  As we talked more, we realized a lot of her girlfriends from our community of friends did have similar convictions, they just didn't live that close.  Once again, I encouraged her to start something.  I've always done that - if I don't see it happening and I want it to happen, then I start it up!  It's way better than moping about something not going on.  We figured once a month was a good place to start and we would host for now.  She got excited and quickly put an email together to her friends far and wide making sure it also went to the parents' email.  She received great responses and started to plan and look forward to the first Friday night. 

Fortunately, for her, we were hosting another family for dinner that night, so we were kept busy by that and couldn't interfere too much.  It started pretty much right on time, 7 pm.  Some girls had already stayed for dinner.  As soon as everyone was there the piano started to be played, then the singing began.  I'm not talking quiet, embarrassed singing by a few shy girls, I'm talking loud, robust singing, with harmonies being belted out and the girls singing their hearts out unabashedly.  They sang like they were the only ones in the house.  I'm sure it could have gone on for hours.  Then a time of quiet.  My daughter had prepared a devotional on how to practise a quiet mind.  This generation is constantly bombarded by media, music, noise.  How do you hear God or even have a relationship with Him if you don't know how to quiet your mind?  I thought it was a great topic to discuss. 

Then a few parents began to show up to pick up their daughters.  It was 9 pm.  They hadn't prayed yet apparently.  They quickly formed a circle on the floor and talked about all their requests - all very legitimate, real, serious requests.  They started with praise and adoration.  They'd seen it modelled by some of the speakers they've come to love and respect and something in them made them know, that's where you should begin - praising God first.  More is caught than taught it seems.  I snuck a peak in to the room through the glass door - eyes all closed, petitioning to the Lord.  It was amazing.

Now there were a few more parents, the other family had left with their small children.  I was getting tired.  Loved having these beautiful girls here, but it was time to leave!  Good luck with that.  How can you get a group of women together and not have Oreo Cookie Brownies?  So, I told them to stuff their faces and say goodbye!  Not a chance.  They stuffed their faces alright, but no leaving.  By this point the sugar has kicked in and they were all outside lying on the grass looking up at the stars, laughing, enjoying one another's company.  No one was leaving for sure now!

The parents started to get in cars, start engines.....now the girls are looking for shoes which they all conveniently misplaced.  It was an hour long good bye.  I'm all about loving them getting together, don't get me wrong, but I'm also all about getting to bed!  It was a funny ending to a beautiful night.

The next day I had to be up and out the door for the track meet.  My daughter and I hadn't really debriefed since the night before.  She had so much to say!  She was so excited about how it had all gone.  I've already been asked if they could meet more than once a month.  Unfortunately they all live so far away from one another that it doesn't make sense, but maybe as they all get older and learn to drive it'll turn into a more regular get-together.

After a wonderful night like that, I start to picture the weddings - you can easily see each one of the women standing up beside one another as sisters-in-Christ.  Peer influences are one of our top concerns as parents.  We were warned once by an older man, not necessarily a Christian man, just a man we met who was selling us the piano we own.  He saw that we had a lot of young children at the time and his words to us were so interesting, and I paraphrase as I can't remember his exact words, but it went something like this, "If I could change anything, I would have been more careful with who their friends were (speaking of his kids)."  He warned us over and over to pick our childrens' friends carefully.  These young ladies are those types of girls who long for more than what the world has to offer.  We're excited to see them developing Christian friendships that will be lifelong.

All I have to do now is figure out how to get the goodbye time shortened and then I'm good!  I jest, of course, it's a wonderful problem, trying to figure out a way to end a meaningful time is hard.  You could tell, they just didn't want the evening to end.  What's an extra hour in the big picture?  As parents, we always have alterior motives, too, when we host these types of events....young ladies in the house, future spouse potential wandering around, always be discussed, considered, evaluated by everyone, not just RM and me, but our boys, who are growing up before our eyes.  They know one day they want to be married.  We don't say much.  We just present opportunties and one day, who knows when, their eyes will be opened and perhaps it'll be from this group that they choose from.  Great marriages don't happen by chance.  We believe parental involvement is key, so we play a role from the time they are two!

I look forward to seeing how God will bless this group of  little women.