S2S Sisters: "God’s Design for Mentoring: Older Women Teaching the Younger" by Anita Yoder

Our prayer is that you will be filled with the knowledge of His will, strengthened with all might according to His glorious power. Hello, everyone. We want to welcome you to another episode of our Strength to Strength Talks, and we are excited to welcome Anita Yoder from Pennsylvania to speak with us today.

So my name is Linda Ament. I'm from Calgary, Alberta. My husband, Darren, and I have eight children, and we live in the city of Calgary and are doing our best to follow Jesus here and reach out to those around us.

So Anita has spent a number of years working, serving, living in Ireland and Poland before settling down in Pennsylvania, and I believe she works at Faith Builders now. That's right. So something that made me really curious, Anita, after reading your bio, is what is food that talks back to you? And I can imagine, but yeah.

Well, what do you imagine? A live food.

Flavorful. Flavorful. Okay. I wasn't sure whether that was raw or, you know, but I like that. No, no.

Oh, anyway, I find people like Anita, and even though I have only met her for the first today, very inspiring. I feel like I didn't grow up with a healthy view of unmarried women, especially. And I just, I have been so excited, especially, I think what started the excitement off for me in relating to Single Sisters is a talk that David Brousseau gives on historic faith in relation to early church practices and beliefs.

And, you know, I don't even remember which verse in the Bible where it talks about the virgins and how they served in the church. And that was just such an inspiring talk to me. It just gave me a new respect and appreciation for single sisters and brethren. And I just, I just, I truly want our children to believe and know that that is as beautiful a way of serving as there is any other way, marrying, whatever. I just, I love it. So I just really want to bless you for your joy, Anita. And that is just, I think, the very best.

So Anita has asked that everyone have a normal piece of writing paper and a pen with you today for whatever exercise she's planning.

So I will go ahead and pray for Anita with you all, and we'll do that, and then we'll pass the time over to her. So let's pray. Our dear Heavenly Father, our God, we are so thankful that you have given us this opportunity to be here today with women from across the world, with dear sisters who are serving you and following you, Lord, as best as they know. And we are so grateful and so humbled for your mercy and that you have brought us together in this way today. We know it is of your will and your plans, and we just want to give you the glory for anything good that happens here.

And I also ask that you would especially bless Anita with your spirit, with your words, with calmness and rest and clarity of thought, and that the technology would go well. And, oh God, just be with her today as she shares with us and blesses us with what she has experienced and has known through your mercies and your grace in her life.

We thank you for her passion and joy for living, Lord. Just bless her in this. We know that she has blessed many lives and will continue to do so as long as she has time and years that you have given her. Thank you again for being with us and go with us this afternoon. All this we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. All right, Anita, you go ahead. Okay. Thank you for that prayer, Linda. And thank you all for being here. I don't know what your stories are and what your questions are and what you're looking for here, but the Holy Spirit does, and I trust Him. So I'm going to tell you a little, a few stories first to sort of set the stage and help us see where we're going here.

So about eight years ago, I came from 19 years in Europe, and I came to Pennsylvania for what I thought was going to be one year. And in that year, I was in huge transition, and I didn't know who I was and where I'm going and what end was up. It was re-entry and transition. That was really, really difficult. And in that year, I went for life counseling ministries in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I went to their counseling training program that lasted for six months.

And part of that program was small groups where we would share in a small group and have two facilitators helping us, walking with us, talking, listening. And so we were sharing our stories with each other. And at the end of that time, one of the counselors, Josh, looked at me and said, "Anita, it sounds to me, it seems to me like you're a lady in grief, and I would wish for you that you would have another woman walking with you in this."

And I listened and I thought, "Oh, that sounds like a good idea." And when I, you know, the next day or when I came back to where I was, I started thinking and I started counting on my fingers, and I counted six women who were walking with me at that time.

And Josh did something powerful for me there when he said what he did because he acknowledged the need that women have for women walking with each other. And it woke me up to the riches that I have already. And I really, I firmly believe that the positive, what I've been given is what I have is because of so much input from so many other people. None of us is a self-made person, and I'm so glad for what other women have poured into me and supported me. I think sometimes that one of the biggest gifts my parents gave me was permission to go talk with other people when I needed to, when there were questions I was wrestling with, when there were things that I was having problems with, and I couldn't necessarily hear them.

They would push me to go talk with my youth counselors or my aunts, and I just had so, so much input. And it also demonstrates that no parent is enough for their children. That's what the community is for. That's what the body is for.

I'm the oldest of six children, so I was the bossy big sister, but I remember being eight or nine or ten, and people would tell me like they do children, you know, "Oh, you're the oldest. You need to be, you're the good example for everybody." And I resented that. I didn't want to be the example. I didn't want to be the responsible one. And maybe I didn't want to behave myself. I didn't want to be followed.

But I realize now that we don't really get a choice in that, do we? As women, wherever we are, no matter if we're the oldest or whatever stage we are, we don't get to choose how we influence people and who follows us. And so today we're going to talk about how women influence each other. So now, at this stage of my life, I work at Faith Builders where there is a mentoring program that's baked into the schedule of every week. And I spend a lot of time and energy in that. I invest a lot of energy in that, and I love it, and I believe in it. And I'm enthused about that, but that's not what I want to talk about today.

Today, I don't want to talk about it. It's not about a program. It's about people, loving people, and ordinary women doing ordinary things with the power of the Holy Spirit in them. And so this is for everybody, not for anybody special. So let's zoom out of the question a little bit back further. So we're wondering about how women help women, but I want to step back a little bit further and ask the question, how do we become shaped like Jesus? How do we become conformed to the image of God's Son?

So God is working in all of us, and He has already said that He'll complete His work in us. But as Christians, we get to cooperate with Him in that work. We don't just sit and be passive and let Him do everything.

So I believe that mentoring and influencing women and teaching women is part of the process of becoming like Him. And mentoring is kind of a buzzword, maybe. I want to use a collection of words today so that we get a feeling for that there's lots of ways to approach this and not just one way.

So we can use the words being shaped or formed spiritually. We can use the words teaching younger women. We can use the word mentoring or connecting with people. The biblical term is discipleship. So there's a lot of words that we could apply to what we want to talk about today, and you can choose your favorite. So when we think about becoming like Jesus, I like to think about, here's God's sovereignty, and He's wonderful and powerful, and He can do everything and anything.

And this is us, and we get to work with Him. He could do everything by Himself. I don't know why He doesn't, but for some reason, He lets us come in beside Him, and we work with Him. That means we don't get to opt out and say, "Well, God, you just do your work." We work beside Him, and we partner with Him in His work of making all things new and shaping and influencing each other.

So this is a really mysterious process, this process of becoming like Jesus. And it's not a formula, and it's never a program, but we can show up. And we don't get to opt out of being fully engaged, working with God beside Him. And as women, we can always be alert to beauty and goodness around us and pain and needs around us. And in that, we cooperate with Him in what He's doing.

So one thing that women, most women do well is talk. Most women are sensitive to relationships. And so we're already good at that. So what if our process and our ways of talking with women, comparing stories, chatting, swapping recipes, what if that were channeled into life-giving, vibrant relationships that result in each of us looking and acting and loving like Jesus does? That's the point. That's the point of what this is about.

And I have a figurine to kind of demonstrate what I mean. This is a figurine that was given to me, and I keep it in my office because it shows me what I idealize. This is two women talking with each other. And what I like about this is I'm never sure who's talking and who's listening.

It's this constant exchange. And we're going to talk about that mysterious exchange that happens. And this is kind of our model. And this is what I mean by shaping each other, leading each other. There's this listening and speaking, this giving and taking, this receiving and offering that's constantly happening.

So I want to talk about three habits that God's women can nurture in themselves in order to shape each other. And to give us a way to think about it, I want to use the example of a tree. So in your mind, think about a tree that you love. Think about a tree that might be outside your house or beside the road that you go. Think about a tree, how high it is, how wide it is, what color it is.

You have a tree in your mind now.

So this is what I like to say to people. This is really fun. You could try this too. I'm going to say it to you, and then sometime in the next week, you can say it to somebody else. But I want to say, remember that tree in your mind, and now you are a tree.

It's really fun to tell people you are a tree. But I'm going to unpack that a little bit. Actually, it is a biblical concept. The Bible talks about it now and then, about how the righteous are like a tree. And I want to just adapt that picture and that model for our purposes today.

Here is a model of a tree. My friend Esther is an artist, and she made this tree from pottery and broken glass. And I don't know if you can see the roots are coming down into the water here. And then there's the trunk and the branches. This tree doesn't have leaves or fruit, but we're going to talk about how trees have leaves and fruit. And so I think this is a beautiful model of what we want to talk about.

So first, the first way that you are a tree, that I am a tree, is that we have a root system. I'm not a scientist, but I understand that at least some trees have a root system that's as wide and deep as the branches and the leaves are on the top of the ground. So the root system is completely, mostly hidden. It's invisible.

It's not showy. It's just hidden.

And usually it's hidden anyhow. Sometimes we're taking a walk on a sidewalk, and there's a lumpy, bumpy sidewalk, and then we look up and say, "Oh, that was a tree because the roots are disturbing the sidewalk." So sometimes they let themselves be seen, but usually we don't see the roots.

So we need roots as well to be healthy people, healthy women. We need a sound, solid, flourishing root system. And by that, I mean we're taking in, we're drinking, we're being fed. And of course, it goes without saying that our life and our food and our water is from Jesus. He is the life. He is our source of life. And we need to do what it takes to take that in and to be drinking and becoming familiar and acquainted and closer and closer with this incredible person and heart of Jesus.

Another way that we are rooted and the way that we take in into our root system is to be teachable and that we ask questions and we make observations and we ask questions about the observations. We're curious. That's the roots taking in. And so you know how women are always asking each other, "What's your recipe for this? How do you do that?"

We do that already. And it is absolutely valuable even to ask for recipes for granola or pie. But what if we could ask for advice about how to do relationships that are difficult? How about asking somebody, "I noticed this," or "I'm curious about this," or "How do you find time to whatever?" or "Could you help me prepare a Sunday school lesson?" It means being teachable and not even thinking that we don't have to ask questions or we shouldn't be asking advice.

And then it translates into asking questions about, "How did you come to trust God as well as you do?" But I don't want to make a strict line between the sacred and the secular. It's really, really intertwined. But I also want us to not always be talking about pie or specific recipes, if you know what I mean. That has its value. I'm not saying stop that. That can morph into other things. But let's also not be scared to be curious about somebody else's relationship with God and how it came to be what it is. We can learn so much from other people's experiences and their stories.

And we never get too old for this. Nobody ages out of this. Nobody ever comes to being old enough that they don't have to ask questions or have to ask advice. That's part of the root system, taking in, learning, drinking.

So I think it's essential. So that happens in many ways and places that we can ask questions of and learn from each other. But I also think it's really essential that every woman finds a go-to person to talk with and learn from. Women need women. And so I want to say, find a woman who loves Jesus and takes you to Him and helps you process life and questions and the dilemmas that always come up. That person doesn't need to be perfect and pristine.

I often tell women to look for the gray hair and ask somebody with gray hair to talk with them. But that's just kind of a metaphor. It doesn't really mean that. You can actually ask and learn from people who are younger than you.

But in general, look for somebody who knows Jesus and walks with Him. We can learn so much from them.

And I don't know what it would take, but this is your permission to ask somebody. It's not a sign of weakness to ask for advice or for questions. It's okay to need to talk and to need someone to ask questions of.

Somebody asked me recently, "How do I know when I need to talk with somebody?" And that's a good question. And I don't necessarily know the answer to that. Maybe you all can add to that and give advice at the end here. But in that question and answer, I told that lady, I said, "Well, if something keeps you awake for two or three nights, you better talk with somebody."

The other way of saying it, or another way of looking at it is, if something's just kind of in the front of your head and it just doesn't go away and it keeps simmering and keeps distracting you, then it's probably something to talk with somebody about.

A couple of years ago, something happened to me that I was really in distress about. And I thought, "Oh, I'll just absorb it. I'll keep walking. I'll keep pushing through." But it just stayed here, and it kept bothering me. And so finally, I messaged my mentor, and I said, "Something happened, and do you have time to talk?" And she found time to talk, and she was listening to me. And she didn't give me solutions necessarily. You know how we just need to talk. And then in the talking, we hear ourselves say things and come to conclusions.

But at the end of that conversation, she said, "How long ago did this happen? How long have you been holding this?" And I said, "I think it's been three weeks." And she said, "Why did you wait so long?" And she was giving me a huge gift in that. She was giving me permission to come sooner.

And she gave me permission to be needy. And that was a huge gift. So don't wait three weeks to talk with somebody. That doesn't mean we can be grabby and demanding. But I often tell women, "Give yourself permission to knock on somebody's door," metaphorically, if you can't literally, and ask for time to talk.

So we've looked at the root system. We've looked at how we need to be feeding and drinking and taking in, be teachable and being curious, and find one woman at least to talk with and walk with you. And I want to say, without this root system, without this taking in, we will die. We will not be healthy trees if we don't have or if we're constantly taking in richness and nutrients and food, just like this tree has beautiful water to drink from. We need to do what it takes to make sure that we have a strong root system.

Now, let's go to another aspect of a tree, and that is the trunk.

I see the trunk as being part of that stability. It just stands. It's not splashy or flashy. It's just there.

And that doesn't mean it's boring. That doesn't mean nothing's happening, but it's just there. It's also very present. And if the COVID era did nothing else for me, it showed me, taught me how valuable presence is. I just love being with people. And nothing profound and big has to happen, but just being in the same space as somebody is really meaningful and very shaping.

So one way that I am trying to strengthen this for me is simply, and this might sound primitive, I don't know, or basic, but this is where I am. I am really trying hard to maintain eye contact with people instead of just dropping my eyes and saying, "Oh, they don't need to pay attention to me." I'm trying to give that presence. Now, that doesn't mean we weird people out by just staring at them and trying to always have eye contact. But sometimes I look away too quickly, or I just sort of ignore somebody, and that's not being present.

Another way I'm trying to be present is often I find myself in a group or in a small conversation when over on the other side of the room, something much more exciting is happening. And I'm really trying to ignore that more exciting thing at the other side of the room and be all here with this person. That's another place where God's sovereignty and my cooperation come into play.

This person in this time, in this place, is worth my attention and is here for a reason, and I can be present to them. That's what I try to remember. And that's what we can offer each other.

I feel like just our presence can give so much to each other. It can give comfort. It can give calmness. When we are alert to the beauty and the needs around us, we can offer so much. Just like a trunk is just there. We don't have to do something big and profound or say something big and profound. That doesn't mean we're passive, but that means we're present. A tree trunk is patient and listens and supports.

There's a lot happening inside, but it's not very noisy, and it's not splashy. It's just steady. Something that we do for each other, something that people have done for me is when I'm—okay, let me back up here. When I'm all disturbed about something, it helps me to talk with somebody about it. And that process of that person just listening helps regulate me and calm me down. And that person is just standing there, engaged, responding, but not saying that much. And I suggest that as we listen to people's stories and we hear their distress and we hear them debriefing and needing to talk, that is what our job then is to be the tree trunk and listen and be present and affirm, name what's going on, but not much more.

That is not the time to say, "Well, let me tell you when this happened to me."

Something that's really powerful to say is, "I get it," or, "Me too." Those ways of saying, "I understand this is big," but that is not the time for—if I'm listening, it's my job to listen and not to be telling them what I can do or what I've done.

There's times for that. There's times when we can share our story, but we should do it when we're asked more than just offering it freely, especially when somebody is in distress. Here again, this is my model. There is this exchange of listening and hearing and speaking.

But I hope that as we talk about a tree trunk, it doesn't give us permission to just stand there stiffly. That's not what I mean. But it is the way to be patient and steady and stable. And that's a big gift we can offer our world wherever we are.

Now, I've been talking a lot. Now it's time for me to be quiet, and I'm going to ask you to do something. So I'm going to ask you to get out your big piece of paper and your pen and quickly sketch out a tree.

Make a tree as big as the piece of paper is. And you can make it pretty simple, but make sure there's a root system, make sure there's a trunk, and make sure there's branches. Okay? I'm going to set the timer.

I'm going to give you just a couple of seconds now. Just sketch out your tree really fast, then I'll tell you what to do with it.

So now you can stop drawing. You can have just your little sketch. At the bottom where you have your root system, I want you to start listing things that you have learned from other people. What are the ways that you've taken things in? What are the skills that you've learned? What are the things you've observed and received and benefited from?

Don't write in complete sentences. Just put single words down here and there. Another way of thinking about this could be, "Who would you like to say thank you to?" Just write down—oh, I'm going to set the timer here for 90 seconds.

What have you learned from other people? Who would you like to say thank you to? That's on your root system.

And then in a little bit, I'll tell you what to do next.

And don't make a differentiation between the sacred and the secular. It's anything you ever learned from somebody.

Be as generous or as granular, as detailed as you want to be. Just put it down there.

Okay. If you're running out of things there, you probably aren't. You probably have more to say here, but you can come back here later. On the top of the tree, in the branches, start writing names and things of what you could teach somebody else. What can you give out of what you've been given? Think about the things you know, the things you experience.

Start writing some things down there. What could you teach someone else?

Teach or model or talk about.

Okay. We need to stop. That's just a way to start. I hope you can come back to this later. When I did mine the other day, there was so much here to put in the root system. And I felt this wave of gratitude and richness for everything that's been given to me. And then on the top, it felt like there was scarcity there. And maybe I haven't sat with that long enough, but maybe that's normal too. I think that's actually probably healthy, for sure, to be having more input than output.

So this was just a way for us to visualize some more abstract ideas. Now I want to go to focusing on the top of the tree, what's on top of the trunk and the branches, the leaves, and the fruit, and you in that part of you.

So as women and as trees, we are supposed to be fruitful. We are supposed to be nourishing and be the life givers. And we give out of what's been given. We take in from the roots, and we give what's been given.

So I'm almost 50, and I'm single. So that's been given to me. And it has been a point of some serious wrestling and prayers and tears and joy and richness. And so that's what I've been given, and I also give out of that. And so women come to me talking about their loneliness, and I can say, "I get it." And that's the exchange that happens from receiving and giving.

The other thing that happens in this giving process is a very uncanny way of how God works. So often, what I hear from my mentor and what I'm wrestling with, and I hear her speak a week later, a month later, I hear myself say those words to a lady that's talking with me. I don't know how that works. I don't plan these things, but that is God's exchange. It's a mysterious, wonderful way that He does math of taking and adding and giving way beyond what we can organize.

And this is biblical too. There's that verse that says, "God comforts us so that we can comfort other people." That's the constant, healthy exchange that can happen. So this giving as fruit, as leaves, as branches, as shade is not dependent on our age or our personality.

It just comes out of who we are. And the main thing for us to be thinking about is we don't push out the leaves, and we don't push out the fruit. We need to be available, and we need to be trustworthy.

And that's all. It doesn't have to be complicated or trying to be more profound than that. Something I feel very strongly about is in this process of giving shade and fruit is that we are doing this for the other person's sake and not for our own. Now, we are human, and we need to be needed. Humans want to be needed and have purpose. But to help somebody else, to be sitting with somebody else and to be listening to their story and giving to them is not something that we do to make ourselves feel better or validated or worth something.

That's not the point.

There's ways where it is gratifying, maybe. I don't even know if that's the right word, where it's rewarding sometimes, but not necessarily always. There's no guarantee. And our assignment is to be available and trustworthy. Our assignment is not to be somebody's hero or some profound source of wisdom. That's God's business. We just work beside Him.

Here's a mind picture that I love to think about. My friend Janelle Glick introduced me to this. She gave the example of, "I'm accompanying somebody who is in distress, and I'm walking down a field, and in the field is a river. And she and I, this lady and I, are walking together hand in hand. I'm supporting her. I'm listening and caring for her. And we're walking along the river, and there's a big green field in front of us. And as we're walking, there's a figure way ahead of us, straight out ahead of us. And we keep walking toward that figure, and we get closer, and we realize that figure is Jesus.

And I see that it's Jesus. And so when I get to Him, I take my friend's hand, and I put her hand in His. And then I walk away from them, or I join them, and we walk together. And I love that picture. It's a way for me to carry somebody's heart, if you want to say it that way.

It's not on me to fix everything, to make everything better. We take them to Jesus. That means I need to know Him. I need to recognize Him. And He's very capable of taking care of the people we love. But we can take them to Him. That's a beautiful privilege we get.

Now, I'm going to shift a little bit. This is still talking more about the fruit and the giving aspect of mentoring and life-on-life connections. And I'm going to separate them into two camps and talk about them briefly just for ways for us to think about where we could go from here. And these relationships are always intentional, but we're going to say some are low-key and informal and some are informal. So I'm going to call it make a differentiation between informal contact with people and formal contact.

So low-key, informal ways of being in contact with people can take so many ways. And I just want to give you some suggestions, and you can make your own applications in your own context. One time, a young mom was talking with me, and she said how she wants to get to know the people in her church better, the young ladies in her church better. But she said, "But they're busy, and I'm busy, and we just don't have time to go to a coffee shop." And I was just listening then.

I didn't have—she wasn't coming to me for answers, so I just listened. But later, I was thinking, "Well, there's lots of other ways to be in contact with somebody than just spending time at a coffee shop, even though that's a valid time and place."

So I suggest that we get creative in thinking about where we can meet people and be with them, be present. It can happen in so many ways. And it doesn't have to be big swaths of time even. It doesn't have to be an hour or two hours or three hours. It can be something much shorter even. Here's something that I did with two friends. So we were a group of three. They were young, busy moms, and we wanted to spend time together, but we didn't know exactly how we could. And somebody came up with the idea of Sunday afternoon walks. And so they would put their children to bed, and their families would all be calm and quiet, and we would go out for walks Sunday afternoons.

And we would howl around and pray and catch up and ask questions. It was really, really a beautiful time. We did that for several years. We had to stop that then just because of other things trumping that. But I thought it was a fun, creative way to get together.

Other ways to get with other ladies could take the shape of planning birthday parties. Maybe that sounds like another thing to do. So I don't want to burden you if it's another project for you to do. But you could think about just handing a friend a gift card or a gift bag, recognizing that they're important and you love them and they matter to you.

You could ask after church. You could say something like, "How are you doing?" or, "How are you really doing?" or, "What's big for you this week?" You get a lot of information with a question like that. One time, one of my mentors asked me how I am, and I said, "Fine."

And she said, "Are you really?" And I said, "No." And so the next day or something, we had a chance to get together, and she prayed and listened to me, and everything was much better after that. Not everything, but I said to her, "Why did you ask me the second time how I was?" And she said, "Well, you answered way too fast that you were fine the first time." She was alert to what was going on. She was alert to her world. And we can do that too.

Sometimes women say to me they haven't been able to find somebody that they trust to talk with. And that is a complex issue. But I want to say that it's hard to trust somebody without that foundation of informal sharing. And often it can happen in a group space, very informal, like a walk or a birthday party or whatever. You can make up your own applications. But in those everyday-ish, normal opportunities, that's where trust can be built for more one-on-one connection if that's what we're looking for.

We should always live out of the knowledge that everybody wants to be heard, seen, valued, everybody. And we can do that. We can do that for people. Everybody is hungry to be seen and acknowledged. We can do that informally all the time in many ways.

Now, I'm going to shift to more formal ways of being intentional, shaping life-on-life contact with each other. That could look like meeting regularly with one person or with a group to talk about habits that you want to add, goals that you want to have, habits that you want to drop, and being accountable to a group like this. It might look like a formal way of contact might look like a prayer partner where you mutually share your laments and your praises. You mutually bring each other to God. That's more formal or could be more formal or structured. You can do that with book studies, Bible studies, or other book studies.

So again, there's lots of opportunity for your own application and your own context for this. I want to say to you that you can't take someone to Jesus where you haven't gone with Him. So that speaks to the need of that root system being taken in and getting to know, "This looks like Jesus. No, this isn't what He would do." We can listen and give advice only as far as we know God and can speak of Him as much as we know Him.

The thing about a tree, if we think about how we are trees—okay, I'm shifting away from talking about formal and informal ways. I'm wrapping up a little bit here now and talking about trees in general. The thing about trees is that there are seasons for trees.

Some seasons they're fruitful, and they're producing a lot of apples or peaches. Some seasons, they're dormant, and not much is happening overtly or obviously that the tree is still alive. And so I want to say, wherever you are, whatever kind of tree you are in right now, give yourself—it might be nice to think about what season you're in and be patient with yourself if you are in a winter. And just know that it's okay to be in this season. There's a season where sometimes we're taking in more than we're giving. That can be a season. It doesn't have to be the shape of our whole life. It shouldn't be the shape of our whole life, but there's a season for that.

Some years back, I had an enormous decision that I was wrestling with. And so I was in my pastor's office, John and Barb in his office, and I didn't know how to decide what was in front of me. It felt like to say yes to this decision was a death, and to say no to the decision was a death.

And I was sitting in the office crying to them and said, "I don't know what to decide." And they couldn't tell me what to say. They couldn't tell me what I should do. And I stood up to leave, and I said, "I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know what way to go forward." And John said, "But you have a good shepherd."

And he's true. He's right. And I want to say that in the times when we're listening to somebody and we're supporting them and caring for them, it can be okay if all we say is, "You have a good shepherd." Not in a trite way, not in the Sunday school pat answer. But I could take that from John because I knew he knew the shepherd. I knew that he'd walked with him a long time and knew his character. And so when I heard him say it so confidently, I could believe him. And so I want to say whatever we offer and give doesn't have to be profound and elaborate and earthshaking. It can be something very, very simple if it comes out of our own confidence and experience with God and knowing His heart.

So let's go back to the idea that you are a tree. Look back at the tree that you made on your paper.

Think about the way your root system is working. What are you taking in? What can you give away?

I hope that you feel as I did, those waves of gratitude for all the things that you've been given into your root system that are pouring into there. And I hope that in the next days, you can maybe sit with this tree a little bit more and keep adding to the branches and the roots as you consider how you could use your influence because of your deep, invisible root system that's taking things in, because of your trunk that's standing and solid and present and stable and listening, because of your branches and fruit and leaves that are giving out of what they're taking in for the other's sake, leading them to Jesus.

That's what I dream for all of us. That's what women can do. And that's what we get to do.

I would be glad for your questions. I don't know how you want to take it from here, Linda, but that finishes what I wanted to say for now.

Thank you, Anita. That was very inspiring. And yeah, I bless you for sharing that. And we definitely want to hear from the rest of you if you have any inspirations or questions for Anita or just anything that God lays on your heart. We'd love to hear from you. And if possible, when you speak, we would also love to see your face. So yeah, go ahead. Maybe while you're all thinking about that, I will share some of the things that inspired me is that I kind of grew up in a culture—or I didn't kind of, but I grew up in a culture that tended to speak about pie recipes and houses and sewing and gardens and all these things pretty much most of the time.

And I feel like after God did a work in my life, that what He was doing in my life seemed like such an important thing to be speaking about with others. And I longed to hear what others had to say, how they walked with God, especially the gray-haired women that I knew.

And I feel like something that is such an important aspect of sharing with each other is humility. I feel like in some ways I would have tended to view giving advice or even just offering your story if people want to know it could have been pride. And I don't really think it's that way. I feel like it's humility that is willing to make yourself vulnerable as well and share with others. I think that's just such a beautiful thing. And I also love how you brought out that sharing with others is what makes us more like Jesus.

I love that. It's wonderful.

Is there anyone with a question?

So one came in from the chat here. It says, "What books would Anita recommend on mentoring others?"

One minute.

Somebody asked me that question recently, "What's my favorite recommendation or my recommendations for discipleship?" And my answer, I didn't have a book. I just had people. It's because people have showed me Jesus better than a book ever has. And the common denominator in those people that I mentioned to my friend was those people had been through a lot of suffering and a lot of fire.

So that's not answering your question, but that's my favorite resource is people. This is a book that we use that I do like. It's called Soul Shaper by Keith Drury. It addresses spiritual disciplines of silence, solitude, simplicity, hospitality, confession, charity, prayer, disciplines of relationship, restitution, forgiveness, humility. I mean, that's not nearly all of them, but very basic, not complicated. It won't answer all your questions, but it's a good guide.

Books about mentoring.

I would say whatever book teaches us more about the character of God and life and how God and life work together. So I have lots of books that I love and recommend, but it might not be what somebody else could, or it might not meet somebody else, or it might not meet them where they are. So I hesitate to give free recommendations. I don't know.

Henry Nouwen wrote many books, and he knew the Lord very well. He had a real shepherd heart, and I really like his spirit. So I haven't read lots by Henry Nouwen, but I really respect what he says. I love questions to help us to go deeper in relationships, like some of the ones you said about how are you really doing, questions like that without intimidating people, but to get to know in a natural way, help take in, especially in.

Yeah, there's that fine line, and I think it comes through trust. There's a fine line between asking a question because you really care or asking a question because you're nosy, and people really pick up on that. And so I think that's why shared history is important, and they get to know our intentions, and we can be patient with our questions. But yeah, it really can lead to good things if we're thoughtful and alert.

Is there anyone else?

There's another question here in the chat box for you, Anita. Do you have advice on how to establish good boundaries in a mentoring relationship? I want to be a listening ear to a struggling sister, but too often after we talk, I feel despondent.

Yeah, that's a big question. There's lots of layers there. So I'm thinking about two things in this question. One is the boundaries, and one is the despondency. I'm not sure if they're connected or separate. When I think of boundaries, I like to think about it regarding sort of like rooms in a house and where we talk with people in the rooms. So we talk with the neighbors on the porch. Anybody can come to the porch, and we can talk there. And then we can move into the living room, and that's a smaller group. Or we can move into the dining room. And the conversations change depending on what room in the house we are.

And so it helps me understand, and maybe this person could think about where's the room in your mind? What room in the house are you talking in? And keep it in that room until you decide together that you can move in and out of the porch, for example, or move from the dining room to the living room.