The one piece of advice I give all single women is to find a mentor. Then, be teachable and listen to her. I say this for several reasons.
Singleness by nature is isolating. You spend a lot of time alone, especially if you live alone. However, God did not intend for us to live in isolation whether we are single or married. We are created for community.
Why did God create us for community? Well, the simplest and most complex answer is because God is community. The Trinity – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – proves this. Because we are made in God’s image, we are created for community.
However, the reason goes further than the Trinity. God created us for community so that we can encourage each other to love and do good (Hebrews 10:24-25), see God’s glory and know what He wants to do through us (Acts 2:42-47), bear each other’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), use our gifts to serve each other (Romans 12:3-13), be there for each other during adversity (Proverbs 17:17), and to sharpen each other in the will of God (Proverbs 27:17).
A mentor serves all of these purposes, but the one I think she serves the most is being iron to sharpen you. “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17).
As a single woman, you are bombarded by earthly wisdom and lies from the enemy. I know this because I was when I was single. So often I wanted to do right, but I honestly didn’t know what choice was the right one. Whether it came to dating or buying a house or moving to another state or getting a new job, I didn’t know what was the wise choice based on God’s wisdom. This is where a mentor can help.
So how do you find a mentor?
I wish I could tell you that mentors are a dime a dozen, but I can’t. (Which is why you should be a mentor to a young woman yourself!) Finding a mentor is not always easy, and it requires you to think outside the box sometimes. Personally, I do not have a flesh-and-blood mentor. What I mean by that is I don’t have a mentor who I meet with in person regularly. Instead, I consider women whose books or blogs I read or who I am in community with online through writing and blogging or who I talk with informally at church as my mentors. I am always praying for a real-life, formal mentor, though, and I encourage you to do the same.
1. Pray and ask God to bring you a mentor!
I know that’s always the first answer, right? But so often I don’t pray for things I want or need because I feel they’re not important enough or will never happen. What little faith I have, though. God answers our prayers! “You do not have, because you do not ask” (James 4:2).
2. Check with the Women’s Ministry at your church.
I have found that churches sometimes have resources and ministries that we don’t know about. Your church may have a mentoring ministry. If not, they may know of a local Christian ministry or another church that has a mentoring ministry. The Women’s Ministry director may know of women in the church who would be willing to mentor you informally, without the structure of a formal ministry.
3. Ask someone to prayerfully consider being your mentor.
I know this one is kind of scary. It’s hard ask someone to give you so much of their time and energy. To some women, the idea of mentoring is foreign. What if they don’t have time but feel like they can’t say no? What if they don’t even know what a mentoring relationship is? What if they think you’re weird for even asking? All of these thoughts have gone through my mind.
God has not yet led me to one woman to ask to be my mentor. However, I am certain that if I am faithful in praying for a mentor, He will provide one. If you cover a potential mentoring relationship in prayer, before you ask someone to mentor you, it may not be any less scary, but you will be able to rest in the fact that the potential relationship is not coming from you. It’s coming from God. He’s the One who led you to this person, so whatever happens is in His hands and divine will.
Here are two wonderful ministries for mentoring:
Do you wish you had a mentor? If you have or have had a mentor, what was that experience like? What keeps you from mentoring a younger woman yourself?
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