Finding a Mentor | A Loft Prompt

I am excited to be co-hosting at the Loft again this week. Our theme? Mentors.

I have chosen to talk about finding a mentor.

I like to learn. I mean, I really like to learn (except in math, that just makes my head hurt after a while). Cooking, gardening, crafting, drawing, painting, sewing, being a homemaker, a godly wife and mother. I enjoy reading and sharing and listening to these topics and more.

Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good.  Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. 

Titus 2:3-5

This is an area we, as a whole church, do not focus on much. We are not being intentional about teaching our women of faith to share with the next generations.

That makes it hard to find a mentor sometimes. Ideally, our mothers and her friends should be our first mentors, teaching us as we grow. Just because we are ‘adults’ does not mean we do not need mentors. As we travel through the seasons of life, we need to look for mentors who have been there and done that, and handled it in a godly manner.

A quick Google of Mentor brought up this definition from the Oregon National Guard Youth Challenge:

“A mentor is a person or friend who guides a less experienced person by building trust and modeling positive behaviors.”

Dictionary.com defines it as:

a wise and trusted counselor or teacher.

 I have been blessed with several wonderful mentors for various seasons of my life. My mom and her friends. Ladies from church. Ladies online or in print. Many ladies who have just come along side me in this race of the faith.

While this is not an exhaustive list of steps, and I cannot guarantee how fast it will work, these are things I have found helpful:

• Pray

Ask God to send a mentor, to open your eyes to her when he does, to open your heart to His message sent through her.

• Look for ladies at church or in Bible based groups.

Ask God to open your eyes to a possible mentor.

Someone who walks with the Lord daily and seeks Him earnestly.. Someone ahead of you in your season of life (Spiritually and homekeeping and child raising).

If you think “She is a woman I would like to become like.”  “She exhibits these godly qualities.” “She is sold out to the Lord and is honoring Him by____”, or “I admire the way she _______”, that’s a good candidate to prayerfully consider asking to mentor you.

• Be humble and teachable

Ask. Ask about how they do what you admire about them (Say, handle a few small kids or how they keep their home or how they sew or how they study the Word). There is no shame in asking for advice, and it truly shows wisdom if you want to learn.

There is no point in any of this if you are not willing to weigh their counsel.

If you put up your walls and are unwilling to learn.

I will say, you do still need to hold them up to Scripture. If they are trying to teach you to do things the Bible condemns, ask them about it. Maybe they do not know or realize it is happening. If they continue though, find another mentor.

• Make time

This is hard to do in our world of busily rushing around from one event/activity/ministry to another.

One of the biggest ways Satan is chipping away at our society is selling the lie that we need to be busy. Families and churches both suffer greatly.

This may be more on the side of your mentor to find time, but it’s a step. Perhaps you could offer to come over and help with laundry or something.

• Think outside the box…

While in person mentoring is best, you can also be mentored by women of the faith in print or online.

My housekeeping mentors right now are both ladies I have never met, but God has brought their written word, advice and encouragement into my life.

Some of my marriage mentors are online.

My natural and gentle Christian mama mentors are online.

A note, this post is aimed at women. With the exception of maybe a married couple who mentors both you and your hubby, your mentor should be of the same sex.

Do you have mentors? How did that relationship come about? What do you do with them? Would you add anything to this list?

Graphic by Kerry Messer

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We are going to provide a months worth of prompts each week so that you can be thinking and planning for the coming weeks.

This Week’s Prompt: Mentors

October 21 Prompt: Autumn

October 28 Prompt: A Picture Prompt – take a look at the picture below and write a post about how it speaks to you.

October 28 – Picture Prompt at The Loft

November Prompts: The month of November will be all about Thanksgiving and being thankful. Any post, picture, poem, song about thankfulness is what we are linking up this month.  

I hope you will plan to join us each week at The Loft Link-Up.

Now, it is time to link-up!!