When I read the words in Titus 2 I wonder, are these words meant for only mentoring married women or do all younger women need guidance and training?
“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)
Then I think back to my days as a single woman.
As is more of the trend in our culture now, more than it ever has been in the past, I did not get married right after high school or even college. I did not get married until I was almost 32. Now, it wasn’t because I didn’t want to get married. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to make a family my priority. It wasn’t even that I was busy climbing the corporate ladder.
Actually, all of this is to the contrary.
I wanted a family more than I wanted anything else even since I was a little girl. But for reasons I can only speculate, God had a different plan.
So when I read these words in Titus 2 my heart stings a little. Even though I wasn’t married for a long time, I still needed an older, wiser woman to come along side me, urge me on, teach me how to love my future husband and children (if God provided them to me), be self-controlled and pure, make serving a priority, and make the Word of God an even bigger priority.
I needed a Titus 2 mentor in my life.
Marriage and children and family create very busy lives for women. Women work hard to try to accomplish so much within a day. Maybe during this season there’s not much room for serving others outside of the home – to bring in a single woman who needs encouragement.
But then again, maybe there is. It doesn’t have to be in addition to anything you’re already doing. It can be just as simple as inviting her over.
Or maybe you are past the busy years of raising your family. You are an “empty-nester” if you will. You carry around more knowledge and wisdom and experience than any of us. Would you be willing to share that with a single woman at your church, workplace, or community?
Would you be willing to be a Titus 2 mentor to another, single woman?
And she doesn’t have to be young. She can be middle-aged, single-again, widowed. It doesn’t matter.
What matters is that she has community. A person who invests in her. A person calling her in.
Don’t know how to start? I have the perfect companion. I wrote an eBook out of my experience as a single woman called Fall for Him: 25 Challenges from a Recovering Single. It’s available now in PDF, Kindle, and Nook formats. The purpose is to help single women see that their life is not waiting out there in the future for them. Their life is now. But it can only be fully revealed by being surrendered to Jesus.
This book is a great gift that single woman in your life. Maybe your daughter, your divorced friend, the single-mom at your church, or the woman who lost her husband.
Go ahead. Reach out your hand. Bless this special woman with your love. Give her an eBook that will help. You can purchase a copy by visiting www.FallforHim.com.
Let me know in the comments – are you a mentor to a younger woman?
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