Mentoring in the Marriage Season

Have you been blessed with a mentoring relationship–someone who walked alongside you, teaching gently from life experiences? I’m grateful the Lord sent older friends to guide me through challenging places. My friend, author Janet Thompson, has a new book that shows the value of these relationships: Mentoring for All Seasons: Sharing Life Experiences and God’s Faithfulness. I’m honored to be included in the book. You’ll enjoy Janet’s insight in today’s guest post.

By Janet Thompson

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh (Genesis 2:24).

We’re continually coming out of one season and going into the next.

Many have experienced the blessing of having a mentor in the changing seasons of life, or long for a mentor to help through a new life season. Those with experience can offer counsel, support, prayer, and God’s wisdom. Mentoring is that easy.

**A one-on-one mentoring relationship is invaluable in all seasons, especially marriage**.

Another woman experienced in life issues simply makes herself available to pray, give tips on what helped her, and let you cry, laugh, and share your struggles.

Needs are different for newlyweds than couples married twenty-five or fifty years, but the basic truths keeping a marriage on solid ground remain the same because God’s Word regarding marriage, communication, finances, and family never changes. God’s Word is the foundation for every mentoring relationship.

Marriage is about giving 100% to the one you love unconditionally.

Marriage is about giving 100% to the one you love unconditionally. Click To Tweet

The more you give lovingly, not grudgingly, the more you receive. It never hurts to have a few guidelines you each agree to, but when you reduce the relationship to keeping tallies, it becomes a lose/lose relationship. Focus on marriage as a team effort and remember…you’re on the same team.

Marriage is between two imperfect people, who will always disappoint and disillusion each other unless they keep perfect Jesus at the center of their relationship. Many Christian marriages fail because they didn’t keep Jesus at the center of every decision and discussion.

Many divisive onslaughts attack marriage: finances, parenting, jealousy, in-laws, personalities, loneliness, illness, outside attractions, work—daily life. Statistics of crumbling marriages—even among Christians—indicate Satan is winning the spiritual battle in many homes because couples haven’t armed themselves with the only effective offensive weapon—the sword of the Spirit—the Word of God.

How many marriages might elude divorce if spouses had mentors praying for and with them, teaching them how to study their Bibles daily and how to put God back on the throne in their marriage and family?

Mentoring for All Seasons

In Mentoring for All Seasons: Sharing Life Experiences and God’s Faithfulness, along with my own personal experiences, sixty-five women share their mentor or mentee testimonies. Helpful tips guide mentors and mentees to connect and nurture each other, from tweens to twilight years. Scriptures for each season guide the discussion to God’s Word. Mentors don’t have all the answers, but God does!

Mentoring for all Seasons is a reference, application, and coaching tool for a mentor or mentee traversing life’s journey together as Titus 2:3-5 instructs us to do.

^“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.”

Mentee/Mentor Dianne Barker Shares in Mentoring for All Seasons.

“During the early years of my marriage, the Lord—knowing I needed a good-wife role model—sent an older woman to mentor me, lovingly teaching me (like the Titus 2:3-5 woman) how to be a wife and homemaker, and make my first priority pleasing the Lord. Later, he sent to my own door young women seeking marriage advice. Over the years dozens came to hear the teaching I’d received, illustrated with stories from my marriage showing how applying God’s principles to one’s daily walk is the key to a flourishing relationship. Mentoring has been a double blessing— mentored by a precious friend so I could pass on her sound biblical teaching and encourage other young women desiring to strengthen their marriage.”

(Excerpts from Mentoring for All Seasons used with permission of Leafwood Publishers.)

Janet Thompson is an international speaker, freelance editor, and award-winning author of nineteen books including her latest, Mentoring for All Seasons: Sharing Life Experiences and God’s Faithfulness, available at all Christian bookstores, online book stores, Amazon, and signed by Janet at her website store where you can see more of her books. She is founder of Woman to Woman Mentoring and About His Work Ministries. Janet and her husband Dave relocated their empty nest from Orange County, California to the rural mountains of Idaho, where Janet writes and they love watching the deer frolic in their yard.

Also visit Janet at:

www.facebook.com/Janetthompson.authorspeaker

http://www.linkedin.com/in/womantowomanmentoring/

www.pinterest.com/thompsonjanet

https://twitter.com/AHWministries

Instagram: Janetahw

We would love to hear your experiences as a mentor or mentee. Please leave a comment. And I’d appreciate your sharing the blog with a friend or two!