Issue link: http://denverseminary.uberflip.com/i/1095763
O ENGAGE 15 MENTORING COME AWAKE: WHEN A MENTOR HELPS US REMEMBER DEBRA ANDERSON GRADUATED FROM GATEWAY SEMINARY IN 2001 AND HAS BEEN A DISCIPLESHIP LEADER, CHURCH PLANTER, AND MINISTRY PARTNER. SHE ENJOYS HER WORK AS A MENTORING DIRECTOR AND FREELANCE BOOK EDITOR. DEBRA LIVES IN CENTENNIAL, COLORADO, WITH HER HUSBAND AND THREE SONS. On a recent Saturday morning, my husband and I rose early, popped on our comfortable shoes, and walked to our local coffee shop to enjoy conversation and coffee cake. We talked about the changes we'd seen in one another during our 24 years of marriage. I commented on how he seemed to be circling back to living, coming awake after a more phlegmatic season. And he noted my growing capacities to be confident with my influence, growing into something he knew I could be. Though we were wholly curious that we hadn't observed this about ourselves, we yielded to the accuracy of the insights from one another. It was as if, when we gave one another true recognition, we gave one another an invitation to live congruently with our own souls. Years ago, one of my seminary professors, Dr. Thom Wolf, taught me something similar. He said that a missionary's role is to retell people's stories back to them in light of the gospel. What feels like a brand-new story is really the echo of the activity of the Most High God throughout the history of all humankind. In this way, our great role is to help others recognize a story they are already in—a story they simply need to hear more clearly. This is also the mentor's role. Even when we sometimes feel like we are swimming in uncertainty, impotency, and dishonesty, our mentors remind us of our story, our gifts, and our promise. Mentors are not so much exposers of our shortcomings, but expressers of our singularities. The great gift we receive from our mentors is to be seen by them. I teach my students that to be formed is to be re-created into what and who we were first created to be. We fall asleep to this sometimes, and we need our mentors to remember what we often forget about being the image of God. When we have a mentor, we have a posteriori keeper of our record, our history, and our unwritten diary of design and purpose. Mentors observe and call out our re- creation and yoke us to our origin. Isn't it remarkable that someone outside of us can have such a profound insight into our inner being, giftings, and desires? And that he or she can merge that knowledge with the movement of the eternal Spirit at work in us? Our mentors are our memory keepers, and we need them to help us come awake to the movements of the Most High God whom we are learning to reflect to the world. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said: "Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you" (Eph. 5:13–14). evgenyatamanenko /Getty Images zencreation/iStock