We Need Each Other: Chapter 10 {Momnipotent Book Club}

Welcome to the Momnipotent Book Club! We're reading Danielle Bean’s new book, Momnipotent: The Not-So-Perfect Woman's Guide to Catholic Motherhood.

When I think about motherhood and reflect on how in the world I have survived, I can think of three main reasons: God, and his grace; my husband, my support beam and rock; and my friends and family, my needle and thread.

God has called each of us to this vocation and life as mothers. It is a beautiful life filled with everlasting joys; yet, it is also an incredibly challenging life as well. There are days when we wonder how we ever thought we could do this mommy thing in the first place, especially when we find out how very different the reality of motherhood is compared to whatever fantasy we had created in our minds about it.

However, even through our struggles, God's grace is always available for us and He administers it to us daily through the people around us. For me, my husband has been my most constant source of this grace in our lives together as husband and wife and as parents. We are partners, supporting each other, planning strategies and plans for how to raise our children, and carrying each other when the other just.can't.go.any.further.

Next to my husband, God's grace comes to me on a daily basis through the people of "my village" - my friends and family. I have come to realize that the friends and family God has blessed us with are our very dearest treasures. Like the title of this last chapter reads I now know that, without a doubt, "We NEED Each Other."

Friendship and a supporting community is not a luxury - it is a basic essential need that all humans have. As water hydrates and food nourishes our physical bodies, the people around us, support us, bring us companionship, and strengthen our spirits.

Like a needle and thread, our friends and family pull us along gently guiding us and encouraging us to continue on, not to quit. Eventually, we will be able to take a step back and see the progress we have made and delight at the beautiful masterpiece God is making through us.

As God calls us and uses us to bring about His Good through our families, some days will go smoothly but we will also run into snags, knots, and sometimes the thread will drop out of the needle completely. It is during these times when He comes to us through our friends to pull us through, unwind those knots and smooth out the snags.

We Need Each Other: Fact.

We Need Each Other - to feel strong, to feel beautiful, appreciated.

We Need Each Other - to feel like we are good mothers (or at least that we are trying the best we can).

We Need Each Other - for ideas, inspiration, and motivation for how to navigate the path of motherhood.

We Need Each Other- to feel like we are not alone in our struggles, our failures, our weaknesses.

We Need Each Other - to continue on together, down this sometimes scary path of motherhood - but to then discover together that there is indeed a beautiful and warm light at the end of each parenting "tunnel".

We Need Each Other 

- to lift us up when we are down, to bring us down a few notches when we let ourselves feel too high and mighty.

- to give us a little poke and prod when we are unsure and to cheer us on when we feel like throwing in the towel.

- to come over and clean our houses and hold our babies when we lift that white flag up above our heads and know we cannot go one step further without sleep and a shower.

With our friends, we laugh together over our silly mistakes, the things our kids say and do, and all the crazy and humorous situations our children force us into.

We cry together over sorrows, health woes and illnesses,tragedies, and loses.

We listen to each other's struggles with discipline, defiance and strong-willed personalities (much like our own).

We rejoice together in the joys of pregnancies, babies and children, celebrations of accomplishments and milestones.

We hold each other's hands along the way, even if only through a treasured phone call in the middle of a hectic day, random letters and notes of encouragement surprising us in our mailboxes, or reaching out to each other through our digital screens with words of strength.

As we cling to these last few pages of our Momnipotent books, not quite ready turn that last page and close the book, I'll close with Danielle's moving reminder and call to seek out and be that friend we all need for each other.

Women have a special capacity for fostering feminine strengths in one another. Only together can we fully recognize and rejoice in our momnipotence - our power and strength to change the world through our feminine genius, our universal motherhood. Together we women can affirm and build up our God-given feminine gifts of sensitivity, gentleness, and nurturing love. Together, we women become more perfectly the gift to the world that God made us to be.

To Ponder, Reflect, and Discuss:

1. Where do you find the greatest strength and support in your day-to-day life as a mom?
2. Do you have a group of moms in your community you can call on for support and encouragement?
3. How can you bring the gift of friendship to other mothers, especially those who are new and or lonely?

Feel free to comment on your own thoughts from this week's reading, your impressions and reflections, and/or your answers to these questions.

This marks the end of our book club. Thanks for being part of it! Be sure to enter to win the complete Momnipotent program in our giveaway this week!

For information about this Book Club, visit the Momnipotent Book Club page.

Copyright 2014 Erika Marie