How do you choose a mentor?

It’s a question I get asked often. I began purposefully gleaning wisdom from older mentors since the time I was about fifteen. Right around when I accepted Christ and recognized, “I didn’t know it all.”

Different seasons in my life brought different types of mentors. For example, when I was in College, I asked the Campus Relations Director’s wife to be my mentor.  I observed her marriage and family, through our encounters at school and believed the fruit to be that of a woman who purposefully tried to help her husband with his work on campus as often as possible. I admired her and the fruit she had in her life. So I asked her to meet with me weekly; to go through a book study together.

Another example was when I was a young mom and had only one child at the time. I think Kelsey was about fifteen months; I asked an older woman in our church whom I respected because of the strength of her marriage. We knew them personally through a young married couples group, they were our leaders. We meet for about four years, sometimes going through books together, sometimes studying the Bible more deeply, other times to just talk and develop a friendship.

Another example, would be this last pregnancy, when I was on bed-rest and many of the women in the church came and cared for me and my family through meals, cleaning the house, etc.  There were a couple of women in particular who took great efforts to care for me, one especially who comforted me in times when I felt like I wasn’t fulfilling my role as a mother well. I was struggling physically and emotionally to meet the needs of my children and she was put in my life by God to minister to me in that specific season for that specific reason. I believe all of my mentors were very purposefully placed, at the appropriate time in both of our lives. I valued each of my many mentors, and still do to this day. I have had eight or nine purposeful mentors over the course of the past seventeen+ years (where we met regularly and with a purpose), and many more mentors through reading, lectures, retreats, and friendships.

So How Did I choose a Mentor?

The next two days we will cover these three steps in-depth.

 1)Prayer

2)Look at Who God has naturally put in your life

This may be one of the most important proactive steps you could ever take:

3)Look at the Fruit in a Persons Life

         ~ Their Fruit is the Resume`
~Are the Qualified?

I hope you will join us for this short series this week!

In the Journey Together,

Angie