SheLovesMagazine.com is hosting a week-long series on mentoring. I am featured on today’s post.
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I remember when I first saw her. She was a vibrant, fresh face in the sea of bodies passing through the noisy hallway of my church on Sunday morning. She is one of the reasons why some people are saying, “Forty is the new 20.” After introducing myself, I found that she was new to town and had already met several women that morning. Southern hospitality gets people every time.
As I got to know Roena, I discovered that she is a servant. She loves her family and is a stay-at-home mom to her son. Her family joined the church right away. It wasn’t long before I invited her to my home to participate in a small mentoring gathering that I was hosting for moms that summer. We enjoyed food, fellowship, and laughter filled the air as some snuggled on the couch, others sat in chairs to balance plates in their laps, while the more flexible ladies in the group stretched out on the floor.
And before I introduced the possibility of discussing Author Helen Lee’s book, The Missional Mom: Living with Purpose at Home & in the World together that summer, we prayed and settled into addressing a few matters of the heart.
Mentoring requires our willingness to confront the hard things, look at ourselves, and deal with our issues. I wanted to level the planning field in the room so I asked what I thought was a simple question, “Please share your name, and tell us one thing about yourself that does not include your spouse or your child.” I was surprised with the difficulty as woman after woman struggled to respond. So much of their identity was wrapped up in meeting the daily needs of their spouses and children that they really didn’t know who they were. At the heart of this conflict was an identity crisis, women who were strangers to themselves and didn’t see themselves first and foremost as children of God and disciples of Christ.
Continue reading at SheLovesMagazine.
A SISTA'S JOURNEY 