The Chain of Optimism

Having had so many family members leave the Church and seeing firsthand the consequences of doing my will and not God’s will motivate me to blaze a different trail for my kids. And K4J (Kid 4 Jesus), a virtue program for kids aged 3 through 8th grade, fit my hand like a glove and was the security blanket I was looking for to help my kids have rock solid relationships with Jesus and the Church.

All of my kids joined the K4J club when they turned three. But when the lady leading the group backed out at the last minute with no replacement in sight, the future of our parish K4J Club looked bleak. After unsuccessfully trying to help find a new leader, I agreed to step in, temporarily of course, until they could find someone else. Despite being extremely busy with other service commitments and not having a clue what to do to have a K4J Club, I forged ahead.

I will spare you the details, but my imbalance and lack of knowledge about the apostolate made the first year as the leader grueling.

While God blessed us with a small core of families interested in K4J, it was always a struggle to get more families involved. No matter which fancy marketing and promotion approaches I took, despite being a college graduate with a degree in marketing, I could not overcome the litany of objections and the apathy. Families were too busy, had too many activities, didn’t want to take two hours on a Sunday a month for the K4J Mission, didn’t want to spend the money…and the list goes on.

Had I allowed myself to wallow, I would have easily fallen into a poverty mindset that I discussed last time.

But our God is a God of abundance. And before I fell into any kind of despair, he sent a lifeboat. And in that boat was a K4J mom named Carrie in Minneapolis, who was a ray of light, of validation, guidance, and abundance.

Tune into my next blog to see what God had in mind.

Catholic Women’s Guide to Healthy Relationships Tip: Don’t give in to despair–abundance is just around the corner.