The Mentoring Manifesto, Vol. 40: Your Mentees Need Your Marriage Story
Recently, Susan and I snuck away for a few days to celebrate twenty-one years of marriage. We were married at twenty-five…surrounded by family and friends…and utterly clueless about how hard the journey would be.
Two decades later and we’ve been through a lot…honeymoon, apartment living, Regi’s mentoring group, new job, lose job, first house, first dog, new job, lose job, in debt, out of debt, Thomas, extensive travel, Bo, more travel, counseling, depression, redemption, healing, Radical Mentoring, teenage years…you get the picture. For richer or poorer, in sickness and health, to love and cherish, until death do us part.
In his book, Sacred Marriage, Gary Thomas compares romantic love and mature love. He writes, “Romantic love has no elasticity to it. It can never be stretched; it simply shatters. Mature love, the kind demanded of a good marriage, must stretch…This is the reality of human heart, the inevitability of two sinful people pledging to live together, with all their faults, for the rest of their lives.”
Many of your mentees will be stepping into a new season of marriage or parenting. As the mentor, your story, especially the ups and downs of marriage and work-life balance, needs to be told. Your experience provides them with needed perspective and insight into what is to come. The resources below will help guide you in some of these conversations and help deepen your convictions on godly marriage.
One last word of wisdom, maybe for you, or maybe for those you mentor…find something you love to do together. A year ago, Susan and I went fly fishing together and loved it. On this anniversary, we spent time outside on the water, soaking in God’s goodness and an incredible twenty-one years together!
COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS AND ENCOURAGE ONE ANOTHER
THE DEATH OF PORN
DO YOU KNOW WHERE HER HEART IS?
Breathe New Life Into Your Men's Ministry
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