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Genevieve Story
August 31, 2023 •
We had the opportunity to sit down the Genevieve and hear about the life changing experience she’s had through our MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) community. Genevieve has been married to Kevin since 2016, and they came to Northshore through the invitation of a mentor in 2017.
She got pregnant and changed jobs to remote work during the pandemic–this led to really feeling alone. The loneliness increased as a mom who works, and she wondered to herself if there were any other Christian working moms and how they got to know each other. She said, “I think I felt like all the other moms must be home with their kids and I’m the one doing it wrong by working.” She even felt like there were passive messages from the Church that there wasn’t support for people like her.
As she started talking about this with others, someone recommended trying MOPS and she was super hesitant because she had the impression that it might just be a place where people complained about their kids—she said, “I didn’t want to be a part of a group that did that because it’s such a part of our culture these days”. But then I found out they were starting an evening MOPS group, specifically to support working moms, so I figured I didn’t have any other complaints. As she started attending, she realized she was in this group of women who have come from a long day of working and are just trying to figure this motherhood thing out. Beyond just the MOPS gatherings, there’s the community that’s being forged through friendships—everything down to seeing people she knows in the lobby on Sundays or who are there for her as her kids are sick. She said, “They are just in the mothering trenches with me and know what it’s like. Community has also meant that I get to do some of the things I dreamed of learning to do, like hosting others in our home. I’ve realized you don’t have to have everything perfect but can just let things be messy and we can still sit together and get to know each other. As I think about MOPS as a place to join a group, I think the biggest value has been the invitation for realness that I haven’t found in other places.”
Genevieve’s story also has something to say about how mothering and her view of God collide: “I don’t have to fit a mold as a mom, but also as a daughter of the Father. And that has been just a piece that I’ve leaned into a lot more in this last year. [God tells me] ‘You don’t have to be that perfect image and I love you just as much and abundantly.’ I feel like I finally learned in MOPS to get out of that isolation and that I don’t have to fit the mold to join a group.