This is a Mistake....Just Roll With It!
Wow! Last week was a whirlwind for my family! We had two birthday's, Trey and my middle son JP, we had our typical soccer games, soccer practices, dance and acting lessons, and the list goes on and on as I am sure many of your list do too! However, I personally had a solid win last week! One I would love to share with you! Do you guys remember me talking to you about no resolutions this year? Only Wins! If you do not or you did not see it, you can read all about at this link https://worthyheart.com/blog/2018/1/3/hows-that-working-for-ya
This past week, I did something that really pushed me out of my comfort zone. Like really pushed me. I was asked to lead a small group for a women's retreat at our church. First thing you got to know is I am not in any small groups at our church and when Hannah sent an email a month ago asking I seriously thought to myself, "This is a mistake. There are like 5 Amy Berry's in this zip code alone! All of which go to this church! One of which works at the church! This is a mistake! I was raised Catholic! This is a mistake! I don't know Scripture! This is a mistake!" Of course I panicked and of coursed I asked Trey, "What do I do? Do I say, Hannah, are you sure you got the right Amy Berry?" Of course Trey said a resounding, "NO! This will be an amazing opportunity for you." So I just shrugged my shoulders and thought ok. Probably is a mistake, but I will roll with this. I am trying to get closer to the Lord, I am trying to grow in my faith, I will do this! So I said yes and I said yes with enthusiasm and wrote it about it on my blog! You can catch that here: https://worthyheart.com/blog/2018/1/21/sister-up
The honest truth behind writing that post was to get at least one friend to come with me. Which did not happen! Ha, but, I knew it would be a stretch, because it is almost an entire weekend, but, I did that because I was scared. I did not want to go into a women's retreat alone! Especially with 200 plus strangers and all of them women. Yall that honestly sounded SCARY to me! I don't know why, but it did. Women scare me in groups. That is the truth. Sometimes, they can be so fun and so empowering and other times they can be so mean and degrading so I was scared and I wrote the post thinking if I have one friend, I can do this. Well, that did not work out for me. The good news is, in writing that post I realized that women need each other and I needed this retreat, so I did not chicken out.
I had to read my post a few times to remind myself how empowering we women can be, but I did it and I did it with enthusiasm and fear and I walked away from this weekend so full and so nourished and so loved. I learned so much about me, about others, about the bible, about Jesus's love for me, about coping, about empathy, about raw honesty, about women in numbers, about sisters in christ, about what hatred can do to tear sisters apart, about how communion is just a tiny taste of a crumb of what the banquet will be like, about forgiveness of yourself, about boundaries if you are in bad relationships, yall even about how women of the 70's could not even get a credit card in their own name! Say what!!!!!! I mean I learned and I learned some more and some more and some more and I grew! Boy did I grow!
Me and my AMAZING small group!
I had the most amazing small group! They were so kind and loving and patient! We had 9 women, each of us from a different backgrounds, different generations, and most importantly different stories! I learned as women we all have a story and most of our stories have pain. I watched as we slowly opened up about our story and who we were and an amazing beautiful thing happen with my group. Jesus filled our room and we all became connected. We all looked at each other and felt love, we saw the face of God in each of us. We all were sitting there with either fresh open wounds or wounds from the past and Jesus held our group in his arms and the love that surrounded us was something I cannot even begin to describe. I am in tears writing about it now.
Yall! Every woman has a story! And it is amazing when you really stop to listen to someone's story, I mean really stop to listen, what miracles come from it. Every Woman has a story and that story is important. Your story is important! Who are your sisters? Who can you turn to? Who can you get down and dirty with and show your ugliest side? Your fears, your hurts, your disappointments? Who? If you have no one, again I would love to softly and quietly whisper, find a church you are comfortable in. This can take time and work, but the joys and love that come from this will be amazing. Trust me. Get out of your comfort zone and do like I did. Just roll with it.
One last funny: Remember at the begininng of this post when I said I really thought Hannah made a mistake....well, I am 100 percent convinced she did because my name tag was on the floor by me and one of my group members, who is VERY involved at the church, picked it up and said, "OH Amy lost her name tag, I have to get this to her." Yall she was looking at me saying it not knowing my last name was Berry! I chuckled and said that was me and there are like 5 other Amy Berry's and we went on.....you know what that was.....that was a wink from God saying "Well done Amy, you did it and you got this and watch the miracles happen this weekend!" And boy did they!
xo,
Amy
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