Mother Mentoring Part I

Women have a responsibility to not only teach our children, but to mentor them throughout the different stages in their lives. However, if you are a Christian mother, you also have a great responsibility to make sure that your children know God and Christ. Too many Christian women think that Sunday school and even the public school will impart what their child needs to know in order to get through life. However, there is so much more to mother mentoring than just teaching your child that she should brush her teeth and take a bath every day. God said that we are to teach our children about Him and His commandments. “… faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today – to love the LORD your God and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul… Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates,…” (Deuteronomy 11: 13, 18-20).

As Christian mothers we are to impart God’s laws and the Gospel message to our children. This should occur every day in some manner or another, including different types of mentoring. While mothers are most often a teacher type mentor, at other times we may become a counselor type mentor or a spiritual guide to our children. Sometimes, we may need to be a coach type mentor; coaching our child or young lady through a difficult situation or goal to be reached. At other times mothers need to be an accountability mentor as she holds the young lady accountable for her actions and inactions when necessary. A mother mentor wears many different mentoring hats as she raises her children. But it doesn't stop with just teaching right and wrong, God’s commandments and laws, or how to live in this world.

We are to teach our children gratitude and generosity through role-modeling, examples, and other experiential actions wherein our children can actually see the joy that those things can bring to a person. We have to teach them and show them that there is more to life than “self” indulgence and self-gratification. We wonder today why so many of our young adults are so wrapped up in themselves or why they are so internally unhappy. Well, they are constantly looking for the next cup of gratification to give them a momentary jolt of happiness. What they really need, though, is a personal relationship with God and Christ. As mother mentors, we have to share the Gospel message so that our children can make their own decision. A relationship with Christ can give them a special type of peace and happiness that only comes from knowing Christ and their purpose in life. Those who know Christ as their Savior also understand where their life on this earth fits in with God’s plans and where they will be in the future.

Every child and adult has free will, though, which means that even with all the mentoring that a Christian parent does, it is still up to the child or young lady to determine whether or not to follow God and Christ. Most parental or mother mentoring has positive outcomes, and the young person will on her own choose to believe in God and love Him. However there are those children who refuse to believe in God and Christ. But a mother should not blame herself for the choices her child makes, if she has mentored her child in knowing God and Christ. Instead, the mother mentor must remain true to her life in Christ and pray for her child to come to Christ. Even though it can be hard to do, Christians are to praise the Lord throughout all the trials that we face even when the thought of our child not choosing Christ is overwhelming.

To be continued ...