Soup for an Exhausted Mom

The day we pulled up to that tan brick building, I was exhausted. By the way, I’m not talking about the one in the picture!

After a seven-hour drive.

It was August.

Hot.

Humid.

We got out of the car, and I walked down half a flight of stairs.

No, actually I didn’t walk.

Those days, I waddled.

Did I mention I was eight months pregnant? 

Josh opened the door and I walked into what seemed like a hole in the ground. Our two girls would soon be bouncing off the walls, and the new home would be filled with a red couch, an Ikea chair and a bunch of other furniture people had given us.  

I was exhausted, and it wasn’t just about the drive.

“Would I be able to build new friendships?”

I was exhausted after five difficult, lonely years in Kosovo. We had just moved from my hometown in Albania and were now in Bannockburn, Illinois. I was exhausted and I was afraid:

Would I be able to build new friendships in a new place where I didn’t know anyone?

Would I be able to raise three kids while Josh was working and going to school?

I walked into what would become our new home and just cried.

Within days after we arrived, there was a knock at the door. Our 5-year-old daughter Sarah ran to open it. I waddled over to see two women standing there.

“Hi, I’m Laura,” said a woman with short curly brown hair about my age.

She smiled. “Welcome to the neighborhood!”

Laura and Chris, the other woman with her, brought soup and cookies. They both seemed so happy to meet me.

Exhausted & Loved

A few weeks later, after the birth of our son Ben, Laura got in touch with me, “I’d like to invite you to the MOPS group at our church.”

I felt nervous again. Nervous and tired. Tired from being up in the middle of the night with Ben. Tired of making new friends. So many people had been kind to us, but it still took a lot of me. I wondered how I would fit in with the other women in the MOPS group.

But I said “yes.”

A few days later, I entered a beautiful white-brick church building, the sort of church I had seen in movies or on cards. The place was buzzing with women. Someone came up and welcomed me. Another woman bent down on one knee to talk with our daughter Joanna, who was three.

“You’re here for MOPS, we can take your son. I just need you to complete the registration,” a third woman said handing me a form to put down my name and number.

Moments later, I didn’t have my hands on a stroller. Joanna was being entertained by someone else. Wow! I was free for the first time in weeks. Then I saw Laura.

“Hey there,” she called, “let’s go and have coffee!” Laura and I talked and laughed. She had two twins and another child. She told me how MOPS had been a lifeline for her while her husband had been hospitalized for months.

“Just as exhausted as I was”

I was surprised at how well I fit in with the other moms. Many of the moms seemed just as exhausted as I was–some completely at the end of their rope. Then, the meeting started. I heard an encouraging message about how important the role of a mother is. I felt both loved in the condition that I was and equipped—exhausted as I was—to be the mom that our kids needed.

The Invitation that Changed my Life

Fast forward to about a year later when my husband and I became part of a church restart at Christ Church Highland Park. I loved playing the violin with the worship band. The church was warm and welcoming. There were familiar faces like my friend Della from Mississippi. The teaching was great. Our kids were happy. Everything was going along fine.

Then one day, Jennifer turned my life upside down. 

Jennifer, a blond-haired woman who was single at that time, was the women’s ministry coordinator there. When she spoke, she had a clear, thoughtful and kind voice. She looked me in the eye, “I would like to ask you to consider being one of the leaders for MOPS at Christ Church Highland Park.” 

“What??? Me?,” I thought as the warning sirens went off in my mind. “How can I do this?”

Perhaps she could read some hesitation on my face. “Bona, I see in you a compassionate heart,” she continued. “You have what it takes to love moms.” I told her that I would at least talk it over with Josh.

“I had so many doubts”

But I had so many doubts in my mind.

You see, I was an outsider there. I had just moved from Albania to the North Shores of Chicago. The other women had grown up in the US. I had grown up in a communist regime. I was from a poor country, and I was attending church in one of the richest places in America. Many of the women there had all sorts of degrees. And Me? My first chance to enter university had been interrupted by a civil war in 1997. The second time I had a chance, we were in the US, and I gave up multiple scholarships so that we could pursue a dream of serving others in Kosovo. 

Perhaps, most important, I still felt bankrupt emotionally.

I assumed that many of the women there had grown up receiving affirmation from their parents who told them over and over again “We believe in you” and “You can achieve your dreams.” It was true that a few of them had difficult stories like me. But I thought that by growing up in America with great churches like Christ Church, they at least had the opportunity to be seen, to be heard, and to be affirmed.

But me? Everywhere I turned, people had been pushing me down my entire life and treating me as if I didn’t matter–from my mom and dad to my teachers to other students to those in the community.

“Would I have friends within the MOPS group?”

Oh, and did I mention that English wasn’t my first language?

A LOT of questions and doubts filled my mind:

Would I have friends within the MOPS group?

Not just people that accepted me as the leader but who wanted to be my friend.

How would I fit in socially in the group setting?

Would I be able to serve in the same capacity as when I had in Albania or Kosovo? Or would English limit me?

What would happen when I would make mistakes in English?

Would I seem weird to the other women there?

Would I meet the expectations that Jennifer and other women had for me as a leader?

After wrestling with these questions, I talked to my husband Josh

We were sitting next to each other in our Toyota Sienna, a gift to our family from Abey and Eunice, some friends of ours. Somewhere along the highway on the five-hour car ride on the way to Michigan, I turned to Josh. I told him about Jennifer’s invitation and everything on my mind. By that time, something had happened in my heart and I was wondering if this might be a moment for me to step into something new. “So what do you think?” I asked Josh.

“I have no doubt you can do it,” Josh said, “But I …” Josh continued to explain that after hearing all my concerns and reflecting on how helpful the last year had been–when I wasn’t in a ministry role but rather was being cared for by others–he felt concerned about me becoming overwhelmed again.

Sarah, Joanna and Ben were sitting behind us. Sarah was still awake and had been listening to us talk. On a whim, I turned to her and said, “Sarah, what do you think, should mommy lead MOPS?”

“Nope,” she said without missing a beat. Then she paused. Josh and I thought she was reconsidering her response. “I mean… NAH!” She laughed.

We all laughed together.

I asked Josh if we could at least just pray about it. We did. In the end, we had peace and I accepted the role.

And to my delight, my friend Della accepted the role too. So I started co-leading MOPS Christ Church Highland Park with a friend!