"If you don't have a foundation of truth and freedom and a clear understanding of God's design for your role as a mom and for the part your family's story will play in history, you will take everything you hear from other cultural voices as truth, and then you will live by the premises and opinions of other people. Often, these voices of culture are filled with relative morality, formulas, and create guilt, a performance mentality and fear of failure in parenting. Jesus' came to give us abundant life--filled with purpose and meaning and it is only in knowing His truth and His design that we can find peace, contentment, wisdom and fulfillment. He was the creator--He alone has the answers."
-Sally Clarkson
As a young missionary in Communist Eastern Europe, many years ago, I was inspired with the discipleship principles of Jesus. He taught, loved and poured into the lives of 12 men, and then sent them back into the world to cause Christianity to flourish and to redeem generations of people to know and understand what it meant to know God's love and forgiveness through Christ. The miracle of personal relationships through mentoring and how strategic these relationships are to passing on truth, the word of God, the values of His kingdom, became real to me as I saw the first few women we discipled in our tiny little apartment, eventually be used to lead thousands more to Christ over the last 35 years.
The miracle of Christ in one life and the power that one life has to bring about a revolution of redemption in myriads of other's lives-- was a pattern that grew in my life--first to my children and then to other young moms who met in my home and finally to conferences and then through books and finally, all over the world.
God only requires that we give him our heart's allegiance and that we are willing to obey Him and follow Him, and he will lead us into a story of faith, and we become the redeemers of light in our own lifetime, through the relationships of love, friendship and passing on truth.
And that is why I believe so much in mentorship--the sharing of life and truth and love and encouragement from one woman, one friend, to another--this changes the world.
And so an idea came to my mind--maybe in some small way, I could mentor some of you who have been sending me your own thoughts and struggles in your journey as a mom.
Thanks so very much for all of you who have written comments and emails to me about your desire to have a mentor in your life. I see your hearts so clearly and have so many personal memories that encompass your thoughts and needs and emotions.
The idea of working on a plan of providing mentors for each of you--for support systems and those who would ease your pressure would be my desire, if I could just make it happen. But, I thought that if I could possibly be of some small encouragement on a regular basis, I would begin to implement what I will call Mentoring Mondays, where I will take one lesson or thought a week to specifically teach about one aspect of motherhood.
Of course I do not think I have all the right answers and have made many mistakes myself. But when I read the Bible, I have to look at Titus 2 and see that when Paul says for the older moms to encourage the younger moms, I have to obey and take that to heart--because it is a scriptural pattern.
And so with fear and humility, as I offer you, not a formula or rules or a system to follow, but, I want to offer Mentoring Mondays to begin together to discuss some of the issues that make you feel desperate or alone, and hope some of these meetings together will bring you hope and will create some fellowship amongst us as friends as we share in these Mondays together.
Mentoring Through 18 years of Mom's Conferences
I also wanted to tell you about the 15 years of tapes from our Mom Heart conferences that are available right now for downloads if you would like to hear some of the stories of my own life as a mom, or how I trained and disciplined my children, educational principles that create thinking, articulate children and ways to homeschool; or traditions we held, or the inspiration for our own family that God provide, dealing with the day to day pressures; taking care of myself and so many more subjects.
JUST GO here: and you can download the messages and begin some of the mentoring process today.
So, next Monday, God willing, I will start a vlog series on mentoring. Stay tuned for more and let me know what you think.