Bible Study Fellowship circa 2014
Here we fast forward to about a year ago. I have married my
best friend and we have a toddler son. I’m a stay at home mom and extreme
introvert still but I knew I didn’t want my son to have the same social
problems I had. I was searching for a way to get him around other kids but we
didn’t have the extra cash for him to go to a preschool yet. At this point he
is around two and a half and has had little interaction with other children. My
sister in law posted on Facebook about something she was involved in called
Bible Study Fellowship and she used these magic words “free childcare”. Usually
I would totally avoid going to a new place full of new people but motherhood
had definitely changed me somewhat and I decided I needed to suck it up and do
this for my son. At least my sister in law was going to be there. So we went
and signed up.
I was very self conscious. I felt like as soon as I walked
in everyone would have me pegged as a fraud. I didn’t attend church and I
figured it would be glaringly obvious. I also expected to be looked down upon,
to be an outsider like I’d always been. For the sake of my son I pushed these
fears aside and pressed on. I was scared to death but for the first time had
the strength to get past it and step outside of my box.
(I was still so blind to where this new strength was coming
from)
It was after only the first week of class that I learned my
sister in law had to drop out due to time constraints. I was committed though
and chose to not back out. It took a few weeks of once a week classes for our
son to not cry every time I left him. He quickly adapted with the help of his
wonderful teachers and soon began to excitedly look forward to going to
“school”. There was a real, positive change in him. There were changes
happening in me as well.
I figured I’d sit in my group and keep my mouth shut. Do my
work and try to not be noticed. Instead I actually felt compelled to start
participating and sharing. It was very much out of character for me. The more I
shared the more I felt at ease and I started to realize that no one there was
judging me or laughing at me. These women didn’t act superior. They had their
own problems and insecurities as well. They were real. We were each just on
different parts of our journeys. I started to feel like I was a part of
something. I started to feel something foreign, an actual sense of belonging.
This was only made even more apparent to me when I decided to come clean and
tell my group why I started coming.
“I confess that I only started coming here because I was
told there was free childcare. I thought it was only for my son and not for me.
I have come to realize it has been for me too. I feel like such a fraud.”
This confession was not met with annoyance or condemnation.
There were smiles and gentle laughter and one soft spoken woman about my age
responded with “We are all frauds.”
I was slowly finding my home.
-When Jesus heard this, he told them,
"Healthy people don't need a doctor--sick people do. I have come to call
not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are
sinners." Mark 2:17
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