Soup and Books

I'm going to start hosting a book club at my house. I'm calling it "Soup and Books." About a dozen moms from my homeschool group are interested in coming, so they're ordering the first book to read with me this month: Cindy Rollins's Mere Motherhood.  

We're meeting at the end of January, February, and March, reading one book each month together. Then I'm skipping four months, because the late spring- summer is impossibly busy for me, but we'll meet again for a few months in the fall as school starts up again before the holiday season starts again and we need another break. I think this schedule is brilliant, by the way. We'll start the new year and the new school year together, but then we'll give each other breaks when we start to need them. We're eating homemade soup and discussing one whole book each meeting. 

I've already read a little more than half this book, much of it on the plane and in the airport traveling to and from seeing my mom in SC. I was actually crying before I got off the first page of the author's note! It's so good! 

That said, five years ago, this book would have fallen totally flat for me. I was still much deluded back then about all the hard truths of which she speaks so wisely and gently. I was still in my "I can perform so well that it won't matter that I'm only human and a fallen being at that in a fallen world" and also my "I can mother so well it won't matter that my kids are sinners" phase. But after the past few years of life and motherhood and sickness and failure and disappointments and reality checks, I get what she's saying now. A sword has pierced my own soul, too. 

It's been a blessing to read someone else's story about the good, bad, true, ugly, sinful, and beautiful things about life and motherhood. I'm so excited that so many other friends want to do this, too! I have been praying about a book club for years, but the timing finally feels right.