September 25

A couple of days ago my husband John and I had the privilege of spending the day with 13 post-college men and women who have come for a year as interns at our church. During our discussion time John asked each of them to share about someone, other than a parent, who had had a positive impact on their life and why. One girl shared movingly about the influence of a fifth grade teacher. Two of the guys talked about an older man who met with them regularly to study the Bible with them, encourage them, and pray for them. Another gal talked about the impact of a woman who often had her to dinner with her family. Simply being with a happy, chaotic family spoke volumes to her.  Listening to them, I was once again reminded of the power of a mentor.

As a part of our program, each of these young adults will be meeting with a small group of either middle or high school students. They will each be given an older same-sex adult as their personal mentor. In the past 15 years of our program the friendships between each intern and their mentor has been one of the favorite parts of their year.

Mentors. An intimidating word? It shouldn’t be. A mentor is simply an older friend who loves the Lord and is willing to pour into a younger person. No, she’s not perfect. She still doesn’t have it altogether. But she has perspective simply because she’s older and she’s available to befriend a younger person.

I’ve often thought that each of us needs to become a sandwich woman- a woman who has a friend ahead of her in life as the top bread, us as the peanut butter and then a younger woman we are caring for as the bottom piece of bread. In this empty nest season we are more likely to have the time to reach out to younger women. And they want it! One of the biggest requests we have in our church is from the younger generation for mentors.

Ask God to show you a young woman to befriend. Invite her for coffee. Listen to her story. Pray for her. And invite an older woman for coffee. Ask her to share with you some of her life lessons. You will be blessed by both relationships!