At the end of a big year (and what year isn’t ‘big’?) there are always
people to thank – for being there for you, by your side, to journey with you,
to listen, to advise, and to help you not give up when you feel you want to.
Over the past two years there have been seven significant mentors I want to
thank and acknowledge, but I will not mention them by name. Four of the mentors
were male, three female. All of them are older than me.
Mentor 1 played a regular
role in listening and asking the sorts of probing questions I hadn’t asked
myself. This person also had a way of affirming the right things; those things
I should focus on that I was already doing well at. This mentor was also very
real about human frailty in her personal experience.
Mentor 2 I saw every three months. He’s known me from the
beginning of my faith journey, but we only reconnected last year. He’s got a
fantastic pastoral heart. His experience on forgiveness, grace, church life,
and discernment he shares liberally – making him a classic mentor. He always
seems to use his experience to inform me regarding the problems I have
pastorally.
Mentor 3 is a person you
get the impression can see through you. We all need one of these people in our
lives, especially for the times we are tempted not to be real. She has a quiet
and an inquisitive way. She is a pastoral supervisor too. This person has
crafted the skill to move into the role of the moment and to be faithful to the
role.
Mentor 4, like all the others, has huge ministry
experience, and he is incredibly relational and humble. He’s also quite a
passionate person (a bit like me) and loves extravagantly without losing his
realness. He’s not been afraid of telling me what I need to hear, but he’s got
a very respectful approach (which is something that really helps me).
Mentor 5 I’ve known very closely for the past eight years.
He’s been able to see more of me in the flesh than any of the others. He knows
the real me better than the others too. With over three decades in ministry,
he’s been around the block enough times to have an instinct for when things are
right and wrong. I can ‘vent’ with this mentor, which I find incredibly
valuable.
Mentor 6 is the ‘journey
with’ mentor who is never officially a mentor, but as you look back was there
at all the right points, just doing little things to affirm and encourage and
empower. She is versatile in ministry, with over two decades experience, very
generous by nature, wise and compassionate. She is a very real person who invites
those around her into their own realness.
Mentor 7 is a CEO-type, an
innovator, and a person I can learn from regarding people strategies and
networking. Somehow there is gold on his tongue every time we meet, which isn’t
regular.
***
Mentors are there for you, by your side, to journey with you, to listen,
to advise through the sharing of their experience.
Mentors don’t tell us what to do, but they do journey with us as if they
were wearing our very shoes.
© 2014 S. J. Wickham.
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