Why Women Mentors are Important

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The Importance of Women as Mentors in Our Lives

by Angelica Perez on May 31, 2010

The following is a guest post from Angelica Perez-Litwin of Modern Familia.

There are mothers and sisters and good friends and teachers. And then, there are mentors…

Along the curves and bumps in my life journey, I have been fortunate to have mentors to steer me in the right direction, to get me back on track and to cheer me on at the finish line. Most of them have been women — inspirational, wise and strong women.

They have appeared in my life like a blessing, just at the right time and with purpose. I have met them in college, in graduate school, at work, online, in my community and within my family. They have served as powerful role models, anchors, life coaches, motivators and firm reminders of who I am and what I can become.

Mentor as Wise Advisers

Traditionally, a mentor is known as a wise and trusted adviser, teacher or friend, who is usually a more experienced person than the mentee in a particular community or role. Mentoring relationships normally exist in corporate environments and in higher education settings, where mentors help individuals advance in their careers, enhance their education, and build networks.

Mentors in the Business of Life

I propose we broaden the concept of mentorship to include the invaluable role that women serve to each other, as powerful sources of inspiration, guidance, support and encouragement.

Undeniably, men can be great mentors too, but it is the commonality of womanhood that makes women true life mentors. Consider the friend(s) you called upon as a new mother full of questions and doubts. Or the women you reached out to when life was unkind. Think about your go-to person when you need inspiration to balance it all and continue to move forward. And what about the wise women you look up to because they’ve been there and done that – successfully and confidently? These women, I say, are life mentors.

Photo by J.Cliss

Are You a Life Mentor to Someone Else?

You may not be aware of it, but you also have the opportunity to be a life mentor to someone else! Consider the following common characteristics of life mentors and how they might describe you as well:

• They have experienced and conquered challenging moments in their lives, which have made them a wiser person
• They readily use their own personal experiences to instill hope and share life strategies
• They are resilient, positive and open-minded
• They enjoy empowering others and bringing out their best
• They are supportive and are able to put aside their interest, for the sake of others in need of help and guidance

Why Do We Need Women as Mentors?

Women today are busier than ever. As working parents, we work long hours or hold multiple jobs. As stay-at-home moms, we take care of active and busy children while managing our homes and sometimes even working from home. We are creating new possibilities, starting or running businesses and pursuing our dreams.

Today, we need each other more than ever. Traditional support systems, such as extended family members, are less available to provide support due to their own busy schedules or distant living. So in these modern times, we need our small community of women mentors, to embrace us and empower us.

Photo by Ben Dodson

Where to Seek Life Mentors

By now, you might be wondering how you can sign up for one of these! The truth is, life mentors are all around us. We may not see them in this way, as potential life mentors, but they are among our social circle. Here are a few places to begin your search:

• among close, supportive friends
• among co-worker or colleagues
• extended family members
• people in your community (women’s groups, places of worship, other parents at school)
• former or current teachers and professors
• professional life coaches and counselors
• mentoring network websites (Mommy Mentors, HerFuture, Mentor)

You can also form your own group of life mentors interested in mutually mentoring each other. You can hold monthly meetings or do so completely virtually (online).

If there is someone in your life that could serve as a life mentor, try to connect to her, and don’t hesitate to ask for guidance. You will know you have connected when you find yourself feeling good about yourself and feeling deep admiration and trust for this person after a meaningful conversation.

It might take a village to raise a child, but it certainly takes a small community of life mentors to help women transform and reach their full God-given potential in life.

Bread

Bread is symbolic throughout Scriptures.

Throughout our day, every time we see bread we should be reminded of at least 4 different things.

1. Obedience

• Exodus 12:39 And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves.

• The unleavened bread symbolized the need to obey quickly. They didn’t have time to wait for obedience. The Israelites needed to pick up and go quickly. We are the same way. We need to be ready and willing to obey quickly. Delayed obedience is disobedience.

2. Relationship with a holy God

• Exodus 25:30 And you shall set the bread of the Presence on the table before me regularly.

• The bread was set in the Holies of Holies in the Temple to show the covenant between God and his people. God continues to be in relationship with his children today.

3. We need more than just our physical needs met

• Deuteronomy 8:3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

• Isaiah 55:2-3 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live;

• John 6:32-33 Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

• We are not helping our mentee by simply giving her worldly wisdom and our advice. We need to be pointing her continually back to Christ so that she could truly be satisfied. She will not be filled on your words alone.

4. Christ is our Bread of Life

• John 6:35;48-51 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

• Matthew 26:26 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”Christ is always the answer. Whatever we are going through, whatever we are needing, we also need more of Christ. Today, eat some bread and remember that Jesus truly is the bread of LIFE

Mentoring Roles

While reading on various websites recently, I found an article which profiled the book Spiritual Mentoring: A Guide for Seeking and Giving Direction. I personally found the information in the profile very helpful, so thought I would excerpt some of it for you as well. As the profile was quite long, I have split the excerpts into two parts—one for this week and one for next week.

“Augustine believed that ‘no one can walk without a guide.’ Scripture and history prove that this is more than a sentiment; it is truth.

Christian faith is imitative—it is taught by one person to another. Jesus set the pattern when He said to a small band of men, ‘Follow Me.’ Christ spoke often to the multitudes, but the intense forming of lives occurred in daily conversation with His disciples. In that community, these men themselves became disciple-makers and thereby carried on the work of building the kingdom…


Much of mentoring involves the process of listening to and observing the life of others and teaching them to see where God is already at work in and around them. Good listening is a must, as well as the ability to draw out of their hearts whatever is lodged there. As with all ministry, it is important to understand that mentoring does not come in a one-size-fits-all format. Mentoring will be as unique as the persons involved. However, observable patterns can help in understanding the types of mentors and what each brings to the relationship:

Discipler—empowerment to follow Christ

Spiritual guide—accountability for the practice of spiritual disciplines and spiritual growth

Coach—skill development for ministry and motivation to use those skills

Counselor—advice and perspective for viewing life and ministry

Teacher—knowledge and motivation to act on it

Sponsor—career guidance for emerging leaders

Contemporary model—a personal model for life and ministry

Historical model—principles and values from leaders of the past

Divine contact—guidance and/or discernment coinciding with apparent divine intervention

Regardless of what personality the mentoring relationship takes on, three basic questions must be deliberated: Who is God? Who am I? What am I to do with my life? These embody the universal soul-quest of mankind, and the pursuit of the answers will shape a life.”

The women who have asked to be a part of the mentoring ministry are obviously seeking help and encouragement in their lives and relationship with God. They are probably hoping for someone who can “show them the way to do it.” In reality, there is no short cut or easy way through the process of Christ’s “Follow Me.” The apostle Paul was not boasting or proud when he said, “And you should follow my example, just as I follow Christ’s.” –1 Cor. 11:1 (NLT) The best thing we can do as mentors is to be imitators of Christ in order that our lives are transformed into a life that might also be imitated.

Seeing God With Clarity

Misunderstanding
Drew, 22 months old, a ball of energy and curiosity was rummaging through the bathroom drawer, scanning the contents for new and hidden treasures.

First he pulled out a bottle of hand lotion, then a bottle of hair gel, next contact solution and lastly my hair dryer. I was running around upstairs putting clothes away when I noticed that I was late; I quickly called Drew's name requesting his presence, and waited ….. At 22 months Drew has finally learned the "come when called game" so my request shouldn't have been too difficult for him?

I heard him rustling in the bathroom, but began to get irritated that he wasn't obeying. I walked into the bathroom to find him still playing in the drawer, or so it appeared. I quickly disciplined him and then went back to the stairs to once again call him over. I called him again and waited….

My mommy vision was finally starting to work and I knew something more must be going on, so I calmly walked into the bathroom; I found my sweet boy with the biggest alligator tears of frustration ready to fall from his eyes. He was trying desperately to get the hair dryer back into the drawer, only he was rushing so quickly that his attempts were making little progress.

My approach quickly turned to sorrow, I had disciplined my son wrongly because, through my skewed vision, I believed he hadn't been listening to my voice, only to discover that he was doing exactly what I had taught him - he was putting his mess away. I felt horrible and quickly put Drew in my lap, gave him a big kiss & hug and told him how proud I was of him for cleaning up his mess. I then asked him to forgive me for disciplining him when he didn't deserve it. He gave me a big hug, and a proud smile, so excited that Mommy understood!

Reflection

I was reflecting on this situation today wondering how often God weeps tears of disappointment over me because I choose not to seek out an accurate picture of Him. I wonder how often he looks at the world and all of it's accusations and weeps tears of sadness because we just don't understand who He really is? God's word is here for my (our) knowledge, and yet I often choose to look at my life and God with less than 20/20 vision.

Seeing God with Clarity
A.W. Tozer wrote in Knowledge Of The Holy

• "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man's spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God."

Nothing else will have as much impact on your relationship with God, people, self, decisions, purpose, and eternity, than your perception of who God is. Everything in your life will eventually come back to the same question, "who do you visualize God is in your heart?" Do you know that the way you act everyday is a picture to the world on what your view of God is? For example, If, as a Christian, you lend a hand to the poor and orphaned, then you show the world that God cares for the orphaned and widowed. If you assist the single mother across the street, then you are showing the world that God loves her and cares about her specific needs.

Questions to Talk to Your M & M About

• What are your actions showing the world about God?
• Is it really possible to see God as He really is?
• What must I do to see God as He really is?

I just want to encourage you ladies to seek passionately after the Lord; His word reveals all about who He really is.



Lies We Need to Combat
According to Tozer & Chip Ingram, below are some common lies about God that people choose to believe. Read through the list and the verses that dispute them. Spend some time allowing God to replace any lie you may believe with truth from His word.

1. We tend to assume that God is just like us, but the truth is God is not like us – His ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts.

• Isaiah 40:25-28, 2 Sam 7:22, Psalms 46:10, Rom 11:33-36

2. We tend to reduce him to measurable and controllable terms – our "self-help genie," or salad bar god" – but the truth is that God is not like us, he is all knowing, all powerful, and was the only one who could save the world from their sins.

• Romans 1:21-23, Job 38-41, Exodus 32:1-6

3. We tend to overlook the obvious and significant ways that God has revealed himself to us.

• God reveals Himself through nature (Roman's 1:20)
• God reveals Himself through his Word (John 1:1-4)
• God reveals Himself through his Son (John 1:14-18)

Challenge for this Week
I would just like to challenge you to seek after God; it is the most important relationship you will ever pursue, and it reaps the most significant and eternal rewards. One picture I often think about is my arrival into heaven; I ask myself if I am willing and eager to spend the rest of eternity in the presence of Jesus, don't I want to passionately know this God before I get there?

Proverbs 2:1-5
1 My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, 2 turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, 3 and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, 4 and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, 5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.

From the Desk of: Melissa Williams

Trusting in God

By now most of us have met with our M & M relationship at least a couple of times. We’ve started the process of getting to know one another and listened as they’ve shared some of their life, hopes, and needs. For some of you the relationship may be going smoothly and as you expected. For others, you may be thinking, “what have I gotten myself into?”

The inclination to feel ill-equipped, inadequate, and unworthy is something we all know only too well. Whether the relationship is going well, poorly or somewhere in between, we may wonder about what our role as a mentor entails and whether or not we have the ability to be a Godly mentor.

For me the first question was, “what exactly is a mentor supposed to be?”
Although I’ve had many informal mentor-type relationships, I’ve never had a formal mentor role. I found myself wondering what I was supposed to do and say; what’s appropriate and what’s not? Will I royally mess this up? So I looked up mentoring in the dictionary. It says that a mentor is “a wise and trusted counselor or teacher.” Great, that helped a lot. There was no example, no mention of a how-to anywhere. (where’s a good mentor when you need one, right?) So I decided to search the internet. It came up with roughly 43,000,000,000,000 entries (okay, that’s a slight exaggeration-it was really only 130,000,000). I looked at a few of those hoping for an epiphany; no such luck!

All joking aside, the dictionary, the internet, and even the world’s model for a mentor will not help us to fulfill a role that was given to us by God Himself. (Titus 2) In order to be that which He has called us to be, we must always look to Him for our understanding. Each mentor/mentee relationship is so unique that we could never come up with a manual to cover all the possibilities. There is no 1, 2, 3 checklist somewhere. So where does that leave us?

It leaves us right where we need to be—totally and completely dependent upon God for every aspect of the mentoring relationship. God defines our role and God grants the ability to be that for which He has called us. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will direct your paths.” Prov. 3: 5&6 (NLT)

(written by Kim Collins)

Looking at the Heart

My husband and I had decided that we needed a little landscaping for our new house, so we headed off to the nearest Plant Shed to choose the trees. My husband was set on a pecan tree, but I was okay with whatever looked best for the yard.

We walked through the nursery and separately selected a couple of trees. He had gone to look at the few pecan trees that were there; I had gone to look at the "pretty ones". I chose a beautiful lacebark elm, and he chose the ugliest, scrawniest pecan tree I had ever seen. Being the submissive wife that I am, I only argued with him for half an hour or so. I finally relented and we bought the pecan tree. I was not a happy camper.


The tree was delivered, planted in the ground, mulched and watered. I hated it. He loved it. I really didn't think it would make it for very long. But it did make it. My husband lovingly tended that tree, but I still thought it was crooked, small and misshapen-ugly.


The first spring, it struggled to "leaf out", but it finally did. I began to think that it just might make it with a little TLC. I was sort of rooting for the tree now, although it still wasn't great looking. Then an amazing thing happened-that ugly little tree produced pecans its very first year! It produced the fruit that it was meant to produce. And I felt God say to me, "What more can you expect from a pecan tree than that it produce pecans? What difference does it make what it looks like if it is fruitful?" I had not seen the tree for what it really was or could be; I had only seen the cost and ugliness of it. God knew it would be fruitful, I did not. That pecan tree has borne pecans every season since it was planted. It still struggles. It grows ever so slowly, but it does grow.


As we meet or attempt to meet with our M & M relationships, we may be inclined to size up circumstances, comments, and even the woman herself by that which we can measurably see and hear. What a mistake it is to see through our own eyes and not the eyes of the One who loves her. We need to remember the relationship begins with prayer. As we pray for our M & M relationships, I believe we should be asking God to help us see them as He sees them. We need God's insight and wisdom in order to understand how we might correctly and lovingly "tend" them in the mentoring relationship.


"The LORD does not look a the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." 1 Sam. 16:7b

(written by Kim Collins)

Focusing on the Heart

Meltdowns
It hadn't happened in a while. In fact, I can't remember the last time I saw the four year old melt down. But melt down she did when I looked at her and said "he's younger than you. Just give him the toy and be a big girl."

It wasn't a tantrum or a fit. It wasn't screaming or fighting or pushing or pulling. It was big crocodile tears running down her face while her whole body went limp, and she just fell to the ground crying. Then her emotions took over and she began to yell "no, no, no, no". A real melt down.

My first reaction.
Focus on the unacceptable behavior and the consequences to that behavior. That seemed to work, until the next day when it happened again and then again and then again. Pretty soon, it was becoming a daily occurrence, and I just longed for the day when my four year old started acting like a big girl again.

Life consists of lots of meltdowns.
A situation happens, and we react badly to it. Maybe we yell. Maybe we curse. Maybe we throw adult tantrums. Maybe we give silent treatments. Maybe we gossip. There are a lot of ways adults react sinfully to circumstances. Usually we eventually realize our actions were a mistake and seek forgiveness. But before we know it, our behavior creeps back up again, and we are yelling, gossiping, cursing, and who knows what else all over again. The cycle of sin we just can't break.

But what if we took a different approach.
What if we looked at sin as a heart issue instead of a behavior issue? What if we looked at yelling as a lack of love in our hearts? What if we looked at gossip as a self-centered heart? What if we looked at frustrations as a lack of patience in our soul? Would that change anything? I think it might.

The solution
See my four year old didn't stop having melt downs because I continually disciplined her behavior. No, the meltdowns didn't stop until we started focusing on the selfishness in her heart. We made a chart with I Corinthians 13 written in it, and she started focusing on how to show love to others. We wrote down how she showed love all day long and rewarded her continually. We started focusing on putting godliness IN instead of just taking sinfulness OUT.

How do you apply this to your mentoring relationships?
Avoid the temptation to spend the next 6 months in your M&M relationship focusing on the sin you need to rid from your life. Identifying the sin in our life is easy; replacing that sin with godliness is the hard part. It is definitely important to identify the sin patterns in your life and confess that sin, but then focus on the heart issue behind that sin. Changing your heart is the only lasting way to change your behavior.

For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Matthew 12:34