Adventures in Being Mentored....

A little over six years ago, a sweet teenager in my church asked if I'd be willing to mentor her.

I'm sorry...what? Did you mean me?

She did, actually.

We started meeting once a week the very day she got her driver's license and could make her way to the coffee shop on her own. We downed countless lattes, wrote in the margins of all sorts of books, exchanged prayer requests, and spurred one another on toward love and good deeds, just like Scripture says to do.

We still talk once a week, but now we do so by phone, because she has graduated from college and moved out of state to begin her life. I think I've always gotten more out of it than she has - but I'm thankful to have been invited to the experience.

In all those years of meeting with her, I began to crave a mentor of my own. Someone older than I...to offer good wisdom and life advice. But...someone young enough to understand what I face and how I approach life. I've asked women before and some said yes...some said no...but nothing ever really happened with any of them.

So for the past couple of years, I've been praying more earnestly for God to send someone to mentor me.

Almost a year ago, I went to a Super Bowl party with some friends from my old church. At the party, I met a sweet, you-gotta-love-her-the-minute-you-meet-her girl named Lara. She'd just moved to the area and started attending that church. We chatted, the Colts lost, and we both went back to our lives.

A few months later (Labor Day weekend, actually) I ran into my former pastor and his wife at the Wal Mart, of all places, and she invited me to be part of their Beth Moore ladies Bible study that fall. (Yes please!) Guess who else went to Bible study?

Lara.

God told me - That's your girl. Ask her to meet with you. I said "But she'll probably say no. Besides, she barely knows me." Ask her.

So I compromised. (How in the world God puts up with me when I pull these stunts is beyond me.) I emailed her to tell her I was so glad to have met her.

Nice obedience, Bek.

Convicted, I emailed her back and fessed up....and I asked if she'd mentor me.

Guess what?

She said yes.

Here's what I love:

1) I met her a year ago - at football party. How unlikely is that?

2) I re-met her last fall - at a Bible study I "shouldn't have been attending" were it not for a reunion in the Wal Mart cereal aisle and a generous invitation.

3) She told me from the first time we talked, she felt I was an old friend and she was honored I'd even ask her to meet with me.

4) His timing and ways are perfect. I love it. Lately He's been bringing to my attention all manner of things that are coming to pass in my life that I began praying about a while ago. He makes sure I'm aware the prayers are now answered and that it's just at the right time. And the mentoring setup is no exception. If He can and will do that....think what else He has in store! EEEEEE!!!!