BEST NIGHT EVER!

Ok, I may say that a lot. But seriously, we just had a ton of fun.

But let’s back up, and let me tell you how my evening started.

Oh man, what am I doing? Tonight is going to suck. Why do I keep doing this? I don’t want to do this.

Just hours, no minutes before Girls’ Club was to start,  I started having a mini panic attack.

I didn’t know how many girls were coming. I wasn’t sure how I was going to entertain them. I had planned on having Operation Marshmallow come out, but I had no idea what they had planned on doing, or saying. How long were they going to keep the girls attention? And what’s with the marshmallows?

When Mike was sitting in the truck, waiting for the the boys to get in to take to their dad’s after girls had already started arriving, I’m standing outside the truck door, “Take me with you. Don’t make me stay here alone with them.” (Cue background screams, laughs, giggles, singing, and yelling, coming from inside my house.)  “Honey, what was I thinking?”

No sympathy. No sympathy I tell you! “Get in there, Kim. This is your thing.”

*Sign*

Honestly, this is what happens before EVERY Girls’ Club night.

With the girls playing in my daughter’s bedroom, or sitting at the kitchen table eating pizza, I sat on the sofa, praying.

“Lord, this is all you. I opened the house up. I invited our guests. But I have no idea how this evening is going to go. So please show up and do something inspiring. Something that will make me want to do this again.”

The ladies from Operation Marshmallow arrived 20 minutes early.

Oh great, now I have to talk to them while we wait for every one to arrive. What am I going to say? I’m going to have to appear to look like I’m just SO EXCITED for the night, and I’m really not.

I’m  scared out of my mind!

Much to my relief, they brought in boxes, and boxes, and boxes of stuff. Whoa, maybe they will be able to keep the girls attention for longer than a minute.

And oh my gosh…nice, such nice and easy ladies to talk to. I’m not kidding! By the time they left I wanted to ask them if I could be their Facebook friends. I even invited them to come to Crossroads Books and Coffee this Wednesday to learn how to make sleeping mats for the homeless! Oh, and I sincerely hope they come.

Well, as the night unfolded, Julie and Dorothy talked to the girls about men and women who have been deployed overseas and how to imagine living in a land without Walmart, Walgreens, and Fry’s Food & Drugs. What if you had to go to a strange land without any convenient stores and you could only take one box with you? What would you put in it?

It was decided, my daughter would die. And she couldn’t understand why would someone would go somewhere where you couldn’t wear a dress. (See what I have to work with here?)

Julie and Dorothy were professionals with working with the girls. Such patience. And they totally understood the expiration date of a 9 year old’s attention span.

We made a care box for a solider. We learned what to put in them, and what not. We even learned what the the whole marshmallow thing was about!

 

Afterwards, my daughter got everyone set up at the kitchen table to make structures out of mini marshmallows and toothpicks, while I continued to chat and get to know our guests.

God did show up tonight and inspired. It is beautiful how he works. I am so honored to be apart of it. Life is so much more than me.

Tonight two groups of people were brought together, that truly need one another and yet, may never have met if God didn’t twist my arm, and make me do “this” every other week. Ok, I confess, he doesn’t twist my arm, but it starts off no less painful.

These little girls got to learn how they can make a difference in someone’s life. And not just anyone’s life, but a real hero’s life. They’re important. They’re needed. They can DO something that will, maybe not change the world, but definitely help someone who really could use and surely deserves encouragement.

Well, the night was a total success. I can’t speak for the girls, but I know I came out a better person than when it started.

Thank you Jesus for giving me this opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and see you work through the eyes of a child. Every time you do, it pulls down one more layer of wall I’ve built to protect myself. I become more trusting, more confident, more in love…with you. Thank you.