Calling All Mentors: That's You! - Encouragement Café - June 11

Calling All Mentors – That’s You!

Café Menu for Wednesday, June 11

Today’s Special is: When You Don’t Feel Qualified to Mentor

Carefully prepared just for you by your friend, Brenda Rodgers

Main Ingredient:

One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.

Psalm 145:4 ESV

Entrée:

Many women in their 20’s meet their future husband, date, get married, and even start a family. My 20’s looked much different, however. Even though my desire was marriage and children, I spent every one of those ten years as a single woman. They were long years filled with uncertainty and insecurity. So much that now, even at 37, I’m still recovering from them.

As I think back to those years and ask myself what I wish was different (besides the obvious – having a husband!), I wish there had been an older woman walking beside me and speaking truth to me. I wish I had had a mentor.

Every season of a woman’s life - whether it be the teenager years, the college years, years as a single woman, years in the trenches as a mom of young children, years with teenage children, or even years in the later season of life – brings with it new challenges and fears that can be overwhelming.

Who else to speak God’s truth into these seasons but a woman who’s already walked the same road?

Out of my experience of prolonged singleness, God called me to mentor other single women. However, as I prayed about what He was asking me to do, one thought kept creeping into my mind – I’m no longer single, therefore I’m no longer qualified. It was my greatest fear that because I wasn’t in the same season of life as the women I’d be mentoring, they would not receive my words. They would think I was out-of-touch.

To help me through this fear, I reminded myself what my life might have looked like had I had a mentor during my season of singleness.

Would I have used that precious time growing more in my relationship with the Lord?

Would I have made fewer mistakes and now have fewer regrets?

Would I have lived with such anxiety?

I am not called to mentor every single woman. Not every single woman is going to relate to my story or hear my words. But I am called to mentor the ones God has put in my path. Those are the ones He qualifies me to serve.

Whatever your fear about mentoring – whether it’s that you think your past is too bad or your story is too uneventful or you’re afraid you won’t have the words to say – remember that God qualifies the called. He doesn’t call the qualified.

Take Out:

Don’t wait to feel qualified to become a mentor. Instead, follow God’s leading by mentoring the women He has placed in your life right now. Then look for ways that He seeks to qualify you.  

Dessert:

Jesus, I come to You today with a willing heart and open hands. Even though I don’t feel qualified, will You please give me the courage to step out in faith and serve the women You’ve put in my heart and mind to mentor? Prevent me from allowing fear to stop me from declaring Your mighty acts in my life. Lead me to ways in which I can grow and learn and become a more effective mentor. Please qualify me to do the work You’ve called me to do. Thank You, Jesus, for Your wisdom and the opportunity to serve You in this way.

MoretoBe.com – a wonderful website with tons of resources to mentor young women

Impact My Life: Biblical Mentoring Simplified – an eBook about biblical mentoring

© 2014 by Brenda Rodgers. All rights reserved.

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