I have a mentor.
And lots of women I look up to.I am so grateful.I have been praying and wanting this for years in the absence of my last two mentors moving away.And now God has provided three key women that are involved and desire to be in my life in different capacities. I asked for one, I got three. God always takes care of us. Sometimes I think only I want that type of relationship. But they have reinforced the truth I so easily forget that mentoring and discipleship is a two way street. It’s about relationship. And the thing that floors me is they are just as excited and interested in me as I am in them. They are longing to for a young woman in their lives as I am longing for older women.
There is an excitement with new relationships, new worlds opening up, a new set of life experiences, their stories, all to be shared and learned from.And I’ve been praying specifically for this and God blows me away. Because of my personality and how I’m wired, I’ve desired women in my life again who are “movers and shakers.”
I think somewhere along the way I started believing the lie that once I get married my personal ministry and things I love doing would come to an end. That I would spend all my waking hours serving my husband and supporting the ministry work he is doing.
That I would be completely lost and take on his life.
And that does NOT get me the least bit excited about marriage.
Yes, I will learn to die to myself and I believe marriage is going to be great for me to learn how to fully love and serve someone else, but I am meeting women who are calming all my fears.They are leading large women’s ministries at thriving churches in town. They are starting companies, starting children’s homes, starting missions organizations, teaching college students. They are wives, they are mothers, they are workers, they are loving others, they are out there making a difference and transforming the world around them. They are not in the shadows.They serve their husbands but not to the detriment of who God has made them and called them to be.
This is so beautiful to see.These are women that I have been praying for that I look at and am like, I want to be you in 10 years. Or 20 years. Or 30 years.
And they’re real. I can’t put them on a pedestal because they are honest with who they are and their real life struggles.It is beautiful and it is freeing.
I feel like these last few months I’ve been entering “womanhood.”I’ve gone to my first “women’s ministry” things and am a part of “women groups.”I’m not the kid, but an active part. I have a place in their lives just as they do in mine.
I somehow thought I would have nothing to offer. But they all love having someone younger around who loves God and has a "fresh perspective." I feel the same about them.
Sometimes it’s amazing how the Lord works. Again and again we see this is scripture and we see it in our own lives. We ask God for things and he far surpasses our requests. Today Granny Pam of Granny’s House spoke at a women’s group I go to. She talked about how important a mentor is in a child’s life and during her slideshow a picture of her husband and a young boy studying a map came on the screen. She said the funny thing is when they were putting the slideshow together and when they took the picture they were not thinking this, but landed on how fitting that picture was.
A mentor has a map, she said, and serves as a guide in that child’s life. Life is a maze and a mentor helps the child guide through the twists and turns without bumping into wall after wall. Mentoring is like studying a map together.
I missed that. I grieved and longed for that so much in the last couple of years, of having an older woman in my life to help me navigate through the forest when all I can see is the bark on the trees five inches from my face.I have had older men and father figures still serving in this role, but there is nothing like connecting with the heart of a woman.
God is faithful.I am so grateful. Even when I will think he has forgotten, two years later, he brings fulfillment.
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