On kindness.

I've spent a lot of thought the past several months thinking about the things that are important to me and how I feel about what others think of me. One thing that is important to me is being seen as a kind and thoughtful person. Taking that extra step to do something nice when I can. Someone I know from church adopted a baby - I brought them a homemade dinner. A friend's dog was tragically hit by a car and killed - I sent them a sympathy card. Doing little things that give life meaning and purpose and helps others too.

It's also important to me to stand up for things that I see are wrong. The moms group that I used to be a part of had started becoming cliquey. There have been some smaller groups that have formed from the larger group - a totally normal thing to happen. One of the groups stopped coming to the larger group and instead meets on their own. Another group started meeting as a small bible study one morning a week but also continued coming to the larger group. This would be fine except that they only sit with each other and pretty much only talk to each other. It only takes a few visits to the larger group to see how obvious and exclusive this smaller group is. Why do 30 something year old women need to act like high schoolers? I guess the mean girls from high school grow up...and they're still mean girls. As an elder in our church, I started feeling stressed out about going to the moms group. I worried about how it would look if someone new visited the group, saw cliques forming and decided the group wasn't for them, only to look on the church website and see my picture associated with the church leadership and recognize my face from the moms group. I think within a church in particular, people should try to be more inclusive and rise above cliquey behavior. I have several friends I made from the moms group, but some weeks I would hardly talk to my friends knowing I could call them later to chat, instead I would make sure I sat near a new person and talked to people I didn't know as well - and let me tell you, as an introvert this did not come easy to me. I found myself leaving each week feeling more annoyed with the clique and feeling stressed about whether I was friendly/welcoming enough to others. I finally reached a point where something had to give.

I brought up the issue with the group leader in the early fall, and the impression I got from her was that she realized it was a problem but she wasn't willing to step in and confront the group about their behavior. I later found out the group leader is fairly close with some of the gals from the most obvious clique, so no wonder she didn't want to confront them. I quit going to the group - mainly because I had the baby and needed that one morning a week to have one on one time with the baby while the older kids are at preschool, but also because I lost my trust and faith in the leader of the group and I don't want to be part of group that allows/accepts cliques to form. I'm not sure how word got back to the clique, but I'm certain that it did because none of those gals will talk to me or smile at me when I see them at church. I don't really care, it may not be popular to stand up and say they are acting un-christ-like, but I'd do it again.

I spent the fall feeling a sense of loss of no longer being a part of the moms group (as it was something that was very important to me for 4 years, and I was involved in leadership tasks for a few of those years). I went back and forth between grieving the loss of that group, and feeling a sense of having outgrown the group and knowing it was time for me to move on. One thing that has really helped has been my involvement with two intergenerational women's groups this year. One is a Bible study, and the other is an evening mentoring group. Both groups have shown me the kind of support, Christian fellowship, and encouragement I was missing from the old group. I feel like I get a lot more out of the relationships I have formed with women from different life stages who deeply care about what is happening in each others lives, and offer such great wisdom and interesting life stories.