Our church has started something that is new to me.  Women sign up to be a Christian "mentor" and others sign up to be mentored.  You submit an experience survey and they pair you up.  It is not random.  People are placed using a number of criteria.  The point is to make a relationship.

Tonight, I will meet the two women that were given to me to mentor.  This is going to be interesting.  From my background survey, there must have been something from my life that will be helpful to these two.  What is it?  I have no idea.  I do know that the staff that paired people up prayed for hours over those decisions.  It was not done lightly.

All of us need people to encourage us.  That is how we grow.  But sometimes we forget that we are the ones who are supposed to be the encourager.  We get so busy with our own problems and frustrations that we look "in" rather than looking out.  There is a world out there and it is hurting.

My life has been a journey.  Yours has, too.  Those experiences are stories worth telling.  They will help someone who is suffering similar road blocks in their life.  I cannot begin to tell you how much it has helped me when someone shared something that had happened to them and how they dealt with it.  We all like to hear a good story.

Not all stories turn out happily ever after.  Suffering is part of life.  And when you have tunneled your way through one of those times with the help of God's grace, you are equipped to help someone else.  And that is what God has called us to do.  Love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

This program may be chancy.  The mentors are not trained professionals.  But we are listeners.  And that is what most struggling Christians need.  Someone to listen.  I can do that.  So can you.

Let your light shine.