For the last ten years or so, I have had a few different young adult discipleship groups where we would gather together to get into the word, pray for one another, and build relationships.

It has been a joy-filled time of growing relationships with this generation and a learning experience on how to do things well and not so well.

I have loved watching these beautiful young women grow in their relationship with Jesus and one another.

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Being a part of another’s life is truly a gift from God. Something special happens when we allow others into that sacred space of our hearts and share it with them.

This has been one of my favorite mentoring seasons. God is closing up and moving on, but this group of ladies will stay together and move forward in community with one another.

I have found mentoring to parallel the mothering experience. One particular part that is very familiar is that one day, they grow up and don’t need you the same way. Then you have to come to accept that and allow them to move on without you being there the same way you have been over the years.

This is where I am. I am not going to lie. I have shed a few tears. The tears are not all sad, but they are joyful tears as well. These young women are continuing to grow closer to Jesus, building beautiful relationships with one another, and ready to handle this group themselves.

For those of us in mentoring roles, we need to seek God and watch as he moves in these mentoring and discipleship relationships. Just like it isn’t good for us to hold on to our adult children too long or too tightly, it isn’t good for us to do that in these relationships either.

We must continually remember we are leading them to depend on Jesus and not on us.

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There have been times over the years when I have had to let go of the mentoring relationship because there wasn’t a willingness to move forward toward the Lord or there was an unwillingness to do the work.

Those are hard decisions as well. As mentors, we can’t become miss fix it or throw bandaids on things, hoping they will get better.

God is moving me more toward one-on-one mentoring and discipleship. He has been so faithful, and He has used these groups of girls to grow me, encourage me, teach me, and show me more of who He is.

These mentoring and discipleship groups are essential in growing the body of Christ. They are also helpful to those who struggle to live with one foot in the world and another with the Lord. They are vital in giving support to those who are walking this relationship with Jesus by themselves or with very few around them to support them. They strengthen and nourish their relationship with the Lord and keep them from feeling like it is impossible to live for God in this hard, crazy, and dark world.

No matter how God calls us to do this, let’s be faithful to take at least one younger person under our wing and share all that God has done in our lives and how He is alive and working in our lives now. God has not wasted anything in our lives, and we are meant to pass it on to the next generation.

May we be good stewards of this, and when God moves us on, let’s be faithful in that step, too.

I am excited to watch God continue to work in the lives of these young women and thankful to see such sweet fruit!