Do You Have a Mentor?

Monday night my amazing Forum group met for dinner with a group of young adults - who call themselves Kinfolk - to discuss mentoring. I had the privilege of telling a short story about a time when someone mentored me in a powerful way.

Here it is.

In 1969 my husband, Ken, graduated from Candler, the Methodist seminary at Emory University in Atlanta.  We were immediately sent to Florida where he would be the associate pastor at  Park Temple Methodist Church in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

I had just spent the prior year working at Emory, earning a P.H.T. (Putting Hubby Through.)  We had two little kids - and I was pregnant.  And I was tired.  However, I was feeling like there was something more I should be doing with my life.  I had no idea what.

Soon this couple befriended our family.  They were older, elegant, southerners.  He was quiet and dignified but an excellent leader in the church and, most important to me, a great encourager.

For instance, I didn't have a car so they invited me to use their son's car for the summer since he was away.  I declined, telling them I couldn't drive a stick shift.  My friends' reply was, "Of course you can."  And the next day they delivered the car to my door.  I drove it all summer.

At some point a hand full of folks asked me to start a new adult Sunday school class.  At that time the Methodist Church had just come out with new material.  I loved it.  It was interactive and exciting.  Instead of a person standing in front lecturing, we broke up into discussion groups and asked each other questions (and listened to the answers.)  What a concept.  I was totally energized.  The class grew and I grew.  (Not only was I growing as a person but I was growing another person inside me who turned out to be Sarah.)

Then one day my friend called and asked if I would come to his company and do the series we'd just finished in class for his staff.  What?  Of course I would.  I wasn't nervous.  I was excited.  And when it was over I knew I'd experienced a significant life change.  But I didn't know exactly how.

But my friend wasn't finished with me.  A few weeks later he called to ask when I would be submitting my bill.  What?  So he mentored me through that process as well.

Forum and Kinfolk last Monday night.

And for 30 years, besides being the wife of a high powered, high maintenance Methodist minister, the mother of four children, and teaching adult Sunday school almost every week, I had a career as a consultant and platform speaker in churches and non-profits, and corporations and conventions - pretty much doing the same kinds of things we did in that first Sunday school class.

I'm so grateful my friend saw my potential and mentored me - and I have spent a lifetime trying to do the same for others.


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