Plant a mentee, watch her grow

May 16, 2012 By

As the weather warms and growing seasons take root, are you planting anything?  If you want plump, juicy tomatoes, now is the time to plant. If you want bunches of cilantro for guacamole, now is the time to sprinkle seeds. If you want to have a mom with her ear turned to the Lord, now is the time to plant a mentee and watch her grow.

While soil is soft and sunshine frequent, lovers of all things veggie carefully dig and plant and water. Summer is the perfect time to nurture a mentoring relationship that will take root, sprout new patterns, and bear fruit. If you long to be that mentee whose life is the rich soil that will host a harvest, this could be your summer!

The Mom Initiative team has a heart for mentoring. When we say we’re “moms on a mission to mentor other moms,” we really are!  We believe mentoring must be personal, but many young moms and longing for a mentor to “discover them” and start to work their soil. They would love to be mentored by a loving, wise, imperfect, Jesus-trusting, encouraging, dependable mentor. So how to you become the mentee? How do you go from hoping for influence to harvest in your life?

Months ago my friend Karen offered a group for young moms based on Jill Savage’s book Professionalizing Motherhood. It’s been about 25 years since she juggled sippy cups and wrangled two boy toddlers, but her heart has not forgotten the challenges young moms feel. She’s lovingly led groups for moms using books like Shepherding a Child’s Heart, 5 Conversations to Have with Your Son, and Love and Respect. This spring, though she never had daughters of her own, Karen planned for “her girls” to get together and make prayer journals to help in their mothering. They’re looking forward to getting together this summer to keep the fellowship going … and do some “on site” intervention with things like laundry and meal planning. She has planted truth and encouragement into the lives of her mentees, and she’s watching them grow.

To find a mentor

  • Pray and tell the Lord how much you long to learn from and be encouraged by a mentor. Ask your Father, girl!
  • Go to where the mentors are!  “Karen’s girls” found her at a Bible study group. Where do you find godly women?
  • Talk to older women. If you only talk to moms in the “diaper crowd,” you’ll find a friend, but not a mentor. Talk to the “graying hairs.”
  • Open up, but don’t be self-centered. Let her get to know you, and get to know her.
  • Invite her in to your life.

Some women honestly feel like they have few options. The Mom Team understands that, so that’s one reason we’re here. Our dream is to be able to connect women longing to have seeds sown in their lives with women eager to plant. Do you know we have an ASK MOM button so you can schedule a chat with one of our mentoring team?

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. James 3:17-18

Once you find someone who lives by God’s truth, loves moms, and sows peace, it’s time to ask questions!

Ask questions to take you from hoping to harvesting

  • Hey, would you come have lunch with me one day and give me some tips for how you’d organize my pantry?   It needs help!
  • I can’t get a grip on my freezer; would you like to come over for coffee and tell me how you manage yours?
  • Would you come picnic with me and the kids, tell me what you see, and give me some ideas for what I could do to stop the whining?
  • Would you have time to meet me at the Chick-fil-A play land a few times this summer and  keep me accountable for my devos?
  • Is there a household project I could help you with? I’d love to pick your brain about discipline while we clean.
  • Would you be willing to read a book with me this summer, so we could meet and chat about it and pray together?

If you want to reap a harvest as a mom, now is a great time to plant.

If you’ve got seeds in your hand, plant a mentee and watch her grow!

If you’re longing to be fruitful,  pray .. go .. talk .. open up .. invite!

This could be your summer to grow!

 

 

 

 

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Filed Under: Articles & Resources, Articles, Ideas & Resources, Friendships, Julie Sanders, Mentees, Mentors Tagged With: , , , , 2 Comments

Making Mentoring Personal

May 7, 2012 By

Mentoring only makes a difference if it gets personal.  The way most of us live life today insulates us from getting very personal. In fact, there are more ways than ever to create the profile that we want the world around us to see.  A status update and profile picture present the “me” we choose to show our family and girlfriends. If all else fails, we can add highlights, polish, Spanx, or Photoshop to carefully craft our avatar (That’s the little picture that represents “you” online). But a mentor gets past all that.  A mentor gets personal.

The arrival of young Mary at the home of elderly Elizabeth gives us a real-life view of a mentor relationship blossoming. Groundwork must have already been laid, since we’re told that right after her visit from God’s messenger, “Mary arose and went with haste” (Luke 1:39) to the home of her older relative. Elizabeth had clearly cultivated the kind of comfort level with her young kin that inspired Mary to want to be together in their miraculous, shared season of pregnancy.

Elizabeth could have been jealous at Mary’s coveted role of carrying the long awaited Savior. She could have been tangled in frustration that her husband Zechariah was silent. She could have even complained about how hard pregnancy is when you’re “old” compared to Mary’s youthful plight.  But there’s no record of selfish pre-occupation. Read the whole story here, but you’ll find that Elizabeth received Mary with blessing and affirmation. The two would spend months together in Elizabeth’s home, preparing their hearts as their bodies changed. A mentor has the power to build up.

This unique mentoring relationship served to ready these two mothers-to-be for the special calling each had received from God. As Mary prepared to bear, raise, and grieve the Son of God, her Heavenly Father used an earthly mentor to build her up. Each woman benefits from the spirit-minded friendship of another woman. God uses mentors to walk alongside us as we bring our roles as wives and mothers into alignment with His plan.  And that gets really personal.

The mentoring friendship of Elizabeth and Mary:

  • Mentoring is practical – it needs to take place where we do life, including in our home.  Here is where we can model, be accountable, and see the “real us” behind the profile picture.
  • Mentoring is personal – it needs to deal with our relationships, husbands and children. Imagine how much Mary learned about marriage as she watched Elizabeth relate to her silent (his own fault) husband Zechariah.
  • Mentoring is purposeful – it needs to flow out of and back to our walk with God. From the beginning of her visit, Mary heard encouragement laced with God’s truth from her mentor (Luke 1: 45).

If you want to be a mentor who makes a difference in the life of your sweet friend, you have to get personal. Peel back the status update and look deep. Don’t be afraid to get practical in her home and your home. Get personal with your own relationships and hers. And as Elizabeth shows us, always start and go back to God’s truth.

If you want a mentor to make a difference in your life, take off the polish, comb back your roots, and open the door of your heart and home. Don’t be afraid to share the truth, shed tears, or show your trouble spots.  Get personal with your mentor.

7 Ways to Make Mentoring More Personal

  1. Meet in your kitchen or bedroom
  2. Have dinner at one of your homes with your families
  3. Celebrate a holiday together
  4. Go on a vacation together
  5. Help each other clean house
  6. Do childcare for each other
  7. Grocery shop together

Mentoring makes a beautiful difference, because mentoring is personal.

If you’re looking for a mentor in your life, one way to start is by clicking “Ask a M.O.M.” here at the Mom Initiative. We would love to open the doors of our hearts and our online home to you!

 

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Filed Under: Articles & Resources, Articles, Ideas & Resources, Friendships, Julie Sanders Tagged With: , , , 10 Comments

I Will Carry You

April 3, 2012 By

Lightning pain coursed through my abdomen. I was nearing my 5th abdominal surgery in four years. Like the pinball in a pinball machine, I bounced from doctor to doctor trying to find the answer to my mystery illness. Some mornings, the only thing I could pray was “Jesus help me” as I doubled over on the floor.

“Was I dying?”

“Did I have a hidden cancer they couldn’t find?”

“What was wrong with me?”

It was a parched, lonely season, one of unrelenting isolation. I so desperately needed a friend who understood my pain. I remember a day when I was emotionally breaking under the weight of my fears. Flooded with “what if’s,” a tear created a thin road through my make-up as I tried to blink back my desperation. I reached out to someone about my hurt, but the door slammed shut. I left the conversation more physically and emotionally broken than when it had begun. I couldn’t believe how easily, someone that had been my friend for years, had dismissed my brokenness. The wound was deep and I wasn’t sure if the friendship would ever be the same.

After ten years of walking this road, I’ve learned to give grace more easily in my friendships. I spent years holding on to a few conversations that didn’t meet my expectations, while I withheld grace from those I felt abandoned me in my time of need. When we are in need, it is human nature to reach out to a friend or family member, and I encourage you to do so. However, God showed me that every relational disappointment I encountered was his way of saying:

 “Your burden is too big for you. It’s also too big for your friends, but in no way is it too big for Me. I will carry you.” 

In Mark 2, we meet a group of men that physically carry and lower their friend through the roof of someone’s home in order to get him to Jesus. These men were carriers. These friends literally took on the weight of their friends’ illness and ushered him to the feet of Christ.

The truth is, we fondly remember those that carry us through tragedy, those friends that help us when we cannot help ourselves. Yet, I have learned that it is unfair to always place God-sized burdens on those we care about. I pray that God continually transforms me into the carrying type of friend, but also a woman who gives grace freely in friendships. There are times when we must lift up our friends when our friends cannot lift a finger, but also seasons in which God must do the heavy lifting for us.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

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She Calls Me Friend

February 3, 2012 By

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“Come on in and have a seat. Let me pour you a cup of this! Let’s chat.”

What woman doesn’t enjoy those words; either from another woman that she just met or one that’s been a friend for a while?

How many of us long for such an exchange?

THAT is friendship at its best. That is what enriches our souls as women.

I know that God is my ultimate source of unconditional comfort, but He also put in us a desire for companionship here on earth.

It seems at times that it’s the most difficult to find and cultivate those face to face, do-life-together kind of friendships.

I remember a time not too long ago that my husband flat out told me that it was time for me to find a best friend. I thought that HE was my best friend. He clarified, while calming me down, that I needed a woman speaking encouragement into my life, as well as someone that I could pour into.

True. So true!

From the time that I started writing on my blog, I gained a wealth of friends; women that are great and I’d spend a day with any of them…but that wasn’t an option.

My husband saw my lack and need for a more personal female influence. I opened myself up and prayed that God would send such a woman.

He did!

I met her at one of our boy’s basketball practices. The thing about her that caught my eye was the book that she was reading that I’d once read. Instant connection!

“Okay, Lord…is this my cue?” One thing that you should know about me is that my personality type screams “play it safe and be quiet.”

I had to make the first step! I’d already told God and my husband that I would!

I’m glad that I did! What came from that one moment was many hours of chats, Bible study, book reading and coffee sessions in the near future. She quickly became a best friend.

I’m not saying that every woman that we meet we’ll have that instant connection, but if we never step out, we won’t know how much richer our lives will be.

I also know that there are many, many women that have been wounded deeply in friendships. I’ve been there. Trusting again (and sometimes again and again) is a choice.

There are some things I’ve learned about women and friendships:

  • She’s a woman just like me. We share a lot of the same needs, wants and desires.
  • She may be praying that I come to speak to her. Not all women are outgoing and need me to approach them.
  • Just because we’re both stay-at-home moms doesn’t mean that she’s home all day. She may have a jam-packed schedule that doesn’t allow for extended hang out time.
  • Just because she works away from her home, don’t automatically assume that she’s always working. She very well may have some down time in the evening for an extended hang out time.
  • Be open to becoming friends with a woman that would seem to be a highly unlikely friend. So what if she has a look totally different from mine. I think I’ll need to look back at my first point.
  • Its good for me to remember not expect too much of one person.
  • Above all, ask God for a discerning spirit when it comes to befriending. I pray that my heart is always in check and that I never have an agenda for becoming friends and that my new friend is actively seeking the same thing.

I know that I’ve only scratched a top layer of this subject of friendship. There are sometimes skills that need to be learned when it comes to communicating with and relating to others. Hopefully we can dig deeper into that soon.

By: Kela Nellums

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Show Me Your Friends, I’ll Show You Your Future

February 1, 2012 By

Do not be deceived: “Evil company corrupts good habits.” 1 Corinthians 15:33 NKJV

In our home, when faced with making a decision or setting rules for our children, we tend to measure them by two categories: negotiable and non-negotiable.

Here is an example of a negotiable: My middle son Jake, at thirteen, was a drummer in a worship band. As a band member the only garments he wanted to wear were hideous skinny jeans, a t-shirt and an equally hideous headband. As a mom who, in some ways, took pride in how our family presented ourselves, this was a hard pill for me to swallow.

Mom side note: To give you an idea of how outlandish he looked, one Sunday morning Jake was walking down the sidewalk at church. Our Pastor, who has a wonderful sense of humor, saw Jake and stopped him in his tracks. He took out his cell phone and snapped a picture of Jake. Then he showed Jake his picture and said, “Just in case you’re wondering what you look like, here ya go.” My son laughed it off and was not in the least deterred.

Although I wasn’t fond of my son’s apparel choices, I finally lumped this into our negotiable category as I realized that it was simply a reflection of his current fashion sense, not of his heart. I chose to let him get it out of his system, and guess what? He did! I am happy to report, he now has a fashion sense that would make any momma proud.

Now for one of our very important non-negotiables: Friendships. As mom, from my children’s earliest years, I laid out this non-negotiable standard, and they grew up understanding my expectations where their friends are concerned.

Years ago I heard a phrase that became one of my numerous mothering mantras …

“Show me your friends and I will show you your future.”

This past school year, I was faced with a situation where one of Jake’s friends was getting into a lot of trouble at school and I had red flags going up all over the place. I told Jake about my concerns and gently, but firmly told him that he could no longer hang around with this friend. When he realized that his anger and displeasure would not sway my decision, he pulled out all the stops to convince me that his friend needed him in his life and how he was the only good influence in his life. I actually agreed with him on his clever argument. So, I chose a rare compromise.

I set up a very clear guideline for him. I explained, “Your friend is always welcome in our home as long as your dad or I are here. We will love him as a family and you can still have him in your life … in our home.” Jake happily agreed. His friend; however, did not and quickly walked away from their friendship. Problem solved. 

Upon discussing how some of my oldest son, Jordan’s childhood friends, after graduating from high school, have left church, and are away from the Lord, he said to me, “Mom, if you have done anything right as a mom, it was standing firm on who we were allowed to hang around with. I know that I am who I am today partly because of who I did (and didn’t) spend my time with.”

Friendships truly do impact our children’s future. I urge you to make this a very firm non-negotiable standard with your children. While it is best to implement this standard when they are younger, it is never, ever too late.

Additional Scripture on friendships: Proverbs 13:20; Romans 12:9-10; Proverbs 27:17

Do you struggle with your children’s friendships? 

By: Shelly Brown

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