My Mentees and Me

One bonus of getting older is that you are allowed to forget things. I may have blogged every bit of this in the past, but I've forgotten, so I get to do it again!

I almost said in my one-minute testimony today that I was mentoring the girls on the praise team, but I was afraid that would sound like I'm oh-so spiritual. Actually, it's very easy to become a mentor. You just pursue the people you want to mentor until they say "ok!"

Lisa was my first official mentee, although that word doesn't do justice to all the roles we play in each other's lives, but she was the first one to actually call me her mentor. That was my first glimpse of what God had planned for my "second calling" (retirement).

Then when Spring and I were at the worship institute the first time, on the last night I felt led to exhort her and she asked me to pray for her. That moment I knew (because I was SHOCKED, which is usually how I know it's from the Holy Spirit) that when I said yes, I was making a serious commitment to be lived out over time. Mark had (quite prophetically) told her earlier that she was going to be a worship leader (like him), and I felt honored that God had in that moment appointed me to walk beside her.

I had loved Laura since she was in my Circle of Friends small group, and I wanted to include her, too. I'm pretty big on rituals, so I got the three of them together for lunch at the Marina near New Year's Eve 2006 and gave them a daily Bible to read with me in 2007 and a promise to pray for them.

Then I met Stephanie in Mark's office one night. I don't think I had ever seen the girl in my life, but my heart knew her. I recognized her because she was ME a long time ago, just starting out in the Spirit-led life. I loved her at sight. On her baptism day I was back there to hand her the towel, and she went home with the Bible and a letter of commitment.

I wanted Ashley in the group, too, but I really hadn't had the opportunity to be around her much, so I just prayed about it, and when I heard she was going to the worship institute with us this summer, I knew God was ordaining the opportunity I'd been waiting for. I gave her the Bible on July 4, and the next night we stayed out on the balcony talking until 1 a.m. I was so blessed that night to discover what a kindred spirit she was, a delightful young woman of God, and open to the Holy Spirit. You never know when it comes to Baptists. (Oops, did I say that out loud?)

Being a mentor isn't always easy. You can't always say pleasant things. This is one of the first things I told them: You all have a passion for Christ, you’re all worship leaders, you all have husbands with needs to be met, and you all have daughters to raise up to be godly young women in an ungodly world. And because of your influence in all of those roles, I’m afraid you are all going to be specific targets of Satan.

Well, THAT should have been enough to run them off, but to their credit, they stayed. I also told them: I don’t know a lot about mentoring, but I DID read this and it spoke to me. “God is calling us women in the second half of life to be encouragers and teachers to younger women. Maybe it means he wants us to just provide a place and time to meet. Perhaps he will call us to start a Bible study. Whatever the case, all he asks of us is an open heart. Often it’s just the willingness to put your arm around a younger woman and tell her that she’s going to make it through this phase of life.”

I said I wish we COULD meet regularly for a Bible study, but it would probably be impossible with everyone’s schedules. I said I COULD tell them they're going to make it through all the stress and busyness and responsibility they have!

I challenged them to make this scripture their goal:
“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you. Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t be so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.” (Rom. 12:1-2 MSG)

I said, I want to encourage you to live fully in the season you are in. I want you to learn from my mistakes, to choose carefully what you will do, which at times may mean doing less and doing it well. I want you to understand that there’s plenty of time left after your kids are grown. You don’t have to do it all; you just have to focus on what really counts.

And I said it’s really hard to fix your attention on God unless you’re in the Word daily, so I want to encourage you to read through the Bible with us, too. There will be times when you can’t carve out the time, but perhaps most of the time you can. Of course, you’ll never HAVE time—you’ll have to MAKE time. I will pray that God will show you how and when!

I told them I’ve done this for many years, and it has meant everything to me. So many times God has taken me through things at the exact time that he knew I would be reading in a place where the words would give me direction. I guarantee that God will speak a personal “for the moment” word to you when you need it, too, if you are in the Word regularly.

(That happened quite dramatically, by the way. We were reading about David’s great sin with Bathsheba right before we found out about the moral failure of LaMar, the leader of the worship institute, and had even exchanged some emails about David and the dangers of leadership! It really helped prepare us!)

I also told them: The foundation of my second calling is prayer. Please call or email me whenever you have a specific need, and I will intercede in prayer for you. I’m not very good at praying around the world (or praying for people I don’t know), but if I know YOU have a specific need, the Holy Spirit will lead me to carry that in my heart and pray for it unceasingly. Sometimes they give me prayer needs, other times I just keep my ears and eyes open and pray as the Holy Spirit leads.

It's a cool gig God has given me! In fact, I think it's as much my calling to support them as it is their calling to lead worship. Many years ago God told me never to seek to become a leader myself, but always seek to serve my leaders. By the way, Mark also mentors them, but I do it in the Titus 2:4-5 way, which is as an older woman teaching younger women to do good, to love their husbands and children, etc.

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I'd love to add a few more paragraphs here and tell you about my unusual relationship with Mark, too, but I don't think he'd appreciate being included in this particular post! As with Lisa, he and I have many roles in each other's lives and a covenant on my part that runs very long and very deep.

You just really never know the plans God has until he surprises you with them! I couldn't have thought this thing up in a million years!

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C.S. Lewis once wrote a book titled, "Surprised By Joy." So am I, Jack, so am I.