How Living in Community Helps All of Us Flourish

Every Wednesday is “Go Mama Workout Day” at my house. It’s my favorite day of the week. It’s the day I don’t shower. I hang out in my workout clothes and wear a messy braid all day. I invite women and their kids from my community to join me.

I started this almost seven years ago now. My husband, who was a personal trainer, was invited to speak at our MOPS group. He talked to the mamas about nutrition and fitness and led them in a workout. After his talk, I found myself in several conversations with mamas who were longing for accountability. They wanted to work out but lacked the confidence to walk into a gym or just needed a safe space to make fitness fun.

The Go Mama Workout was born.

Through the years, we have averaged 7-10 mamas every week with as many 20 kids running wild in the yard or sitting in Bumbo chairs watching their mamas sweat it out. What started as a handful of moms from my MOPS group working out has grown into a rich community of friends.

Now we start out each week in my living room for a time of sharing and prayer. This part is almost more important to me than the workout itself. We laugh. We cry. We share prayer requests. We change blowout diapers. We eat. We speak fitness and life goals out loud. We are inevitably interrupted a dozen times by kids needing snacks or fighting or wanting to breastfeed. It’s beautiful; it’s messy.

I love that I get to see the younger girls romping around the backyard wearing those sun dresses and sparkly shoes that my girls used to wear. I love when my friend Esther shows up with goodies from her garden or Janelle brings extras from her pantry.

Our Swap & Shop event for our moms group was also born out of my love for living in community. I wanted to create an event where we could share resources within our MOPS group. We purge our closets for the purpose of paring down and decluttering our own lives, but also to bless another mom with something new.

On Swap & Shop night, we all bring our used clothes, shoes, jewelry and kids' clothes and swap. It's so much fun to see moms going home with new treasures - and without having to spend a bunch of moolah!

I have been that mom who didn’t have money for new clothes. I have been that mom with only rice and beans in the pantry. I have been that mom with sick kids and no health insurance. I have been that mom grieving the death of my beloved husband. And all those times this MOPS community has come through for me.

We share resources; we share knowledge; and we share inspiration. My MOPS friends have inspired me to try Zumba, to stick with breastfeeding, to take care of myself. One mom put her culinary skills to use to bake my wedding cake a few months ago. Another mama friend spoke about embracing our children’s personality types and gave me skills to parent my littles better. A mentor-friend a few years ago inspired me to keep on keeping on with her story of being a working mom while still loving on her three kids.

I believe God designed each one of us for community. He himself embodies community. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - three in one - our model of community working seamlessly. He has designed us to live in relationship, to work out our insecurities and use our gifts in the context of authentic community. Living in community is messy and hard, but it is also rich with opportunity to taste His glory.

I realized that living in community this way has grown me, challenged me, encouraged me and pushed me. These women have watered and cultivated the soil of my life and caused me to flourish through the years.

My challenge to you today is to be intentional about cultivating your own community. Gather some women. Open your home. Invite someone to the park or strike up a conversation with someone who has kids your age. Brainstorm ways you can share your resources and encourage someone else in your circle.

I am a better mama, wife, woman, friend, mentor, speaker, creative writer, business woman because of the women in my life. In a world where comparison and cattiness so often drives a wedge between female relationships, I am grateful for this diverse community of women that walk the journey of life with me. We are flourishing together.

Dorina Gilmore-Young is mama to 3 girls and thrilled to be a wife to her new hubby, Shawn. She is a published author, blogger and the Coordinator of the Bridge MOPS group in Fresno.

Noticing Goodness in the Gifts Around Me

I opened my door on that blustery February morning and there it was – a book tied with a pale blue ribbon. I could see the now iconic cover with the picture of a robin’s nest holding two blue eggs. I traced the title script, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp. My heart-friend had placed this gift on my porch. She told me it was a book I must read. In the days and months and years to follow, this little book became a map, a manual, a manifesto, leading me through a new life of daring gratitude in the face of adversity. In short, this book made a lasting impression.

After reading the first chapter of One Thousand Gifts, tears welled up. I knew this was exactly what I needed for this season of life. Maybe even for the rest of my life. In One Thousand Gifts, my friend Ann uses the original Greek word “eucharisteo” from the Bible to light her path to healing, to teach her language lesson. Eucharisteo means “thanksgiving.” This word knits together two other Greek words: Charis = grace and Chara = joy.

“Eucharisteo – thanksgiving – always precedes the miracle,” writes Ann. These words, this thesis, this enlightenment-made-mantra now penetrates me daily. I can’t stop thinking about it, seeing it everywhere in the Bible, experiencing it in my footsteps. Jesus thanks God before he turns five loaves and two fish into a feast for thousands. Twelve baskets of leftovers sing of the miracle.

Through her poetic prose and personal story, Ann unfolds a theology of gratitude. She dared me (and now millions of others) to start writing down gifts – the daily graces in my life that are pure love notes from God. “How do you count on life when the hopes don’t add up?” she boldly asks. And then she taught me to “count blessings and discover who can be counted on” (151).

During that first read, I was in a season of waiting. Our family was embarking on a new calling - moving to Haiti after the massive earthquake of 2010 to serve with a non-profit my husband was leading called Christian Friendship Ministries. In the waiting, I clung to Ann’s words and we crammed in Haitian Kreyol language lessons. We anticipated leaving our beloved community and starting a new life in the developing world. While I waited, I counted gifts. When our house wouldn’t sell after months and the roof leaked through the rainy season, I counted gifts. I created a list in my journal, shared it with friends, and began to post it on my blog and Facebook as an act of public, wild gratitude to my God. My attitude and heart tasted redemption.

During those months of counting, I learned to adjust my lens. Whereas before I might have followed my human instinct to complain, put on a hat of cynism, even a robe of jealousy, now there were grooves of habit prompting me to pray and see each moment as a gift. I learned that it doesn't help to just put a positive spin on the hard parts of life. We need to dig through the soil, unearth the painful shards of glass and see the beauty in that traveled journey. I learned to trust Him with my fears, my plans, my future.

In May 2014, when my husband was diagnosed with stage four melanoma cancer, I pulled out the book again with trembling hands and reread the lines I had highlighted, the pages I had dog-eared. This was my fourth reading and much of the book was already tattooed on my heart. God had faithfully prepared me for that devastating season of losing my love, the daddy of my three daughters. I already had learned the transforming wonder of counting gifts. I already had made it a habit to turn my face toward the Son with my list of gratitude in the midst of the suffocating darkness.

Ann’s words soothed me in my suffering: “The good news is that all those living the land of the shadow of death have been birthed into new life, that the transfiguration of a suffering world has already begun. That suffering nourishes grace, and pain and joy are arteries of the same heart – and mourning and dancing are but movements in His unfinished symphony of beauty” (100). She pointed me back to hope and His goodness.

If you are in a season of waiting, a season of loss, a season of wondering why there is so much suffering in our world, I challenge you to start a gift list. If you feel like you are just mucking through the everyday tasks of being a mother or a job that makes your shoulders pull tight with the weight of stress, I dare you to pause and notice the goodness around you.

                Dorina Gilmore-Young is a published author, blogger and public speaker. She is a mama to three active girls and serves as the Coordinator for The Bridge MOPS group.