Should I have a MENTOR? Or be one? (Part Two)

God's beautiful and profound love

I was around 13 years old and in a very hard place in my life. I had just learned that year that a cousin, my best friend at the time, had been killed. I began to rebel at school and at home. At this point, my parents had already been divorced for about three years and I had become distant and vulnerable because of the trauma. My mom had to make the hard choice of sending me to live for a season (the whole summer) with my mom's oldest sister.

This became the turning point of my teenage years.

I went to live with my aunt and uncle and it broke me, it changed me. They lived at that time in a small one-bedroom apartment and in their home, I began to encounter the genuine Love of God. They would invite me to attend church with them and to their evening family devotions, but I just reluctantly denied each time. After only a few times my aunt stopped asking. There was so much apathy in my life. I would just sink into a zombie-like state each day as I sat on the couch in front of their television. With each passing day, Holy Spirit was softening my heart though.

One evening, as they were doing devotions, my aunt invited me to join them. This time, I was compelled to join them. You see, I had been witnessing what the love of Christ is -through their family dynamics. They would sometimes be in disagreements, yet would reconcile and lovingly continue about their days. Their authentic faith and love of Christ shone through each day, piercing the darkness in my life.

As I was sitting there listening to them, the Holy Spirit began to minister and comfort my soul through them. As if they knew what I was thinking. As if they knew the grief and bitterness and bondage I needed to be set free from. They knew because God knew. Jesus wanted to set me free.

I began to repent and confess all that I was feeling. They prayed over me and as they prayed I began to hear (in the natural), chains breaking and falling to the ground. I started to feel again.

I had experienced God's beautiful and profound love. Jesus had set me free from the heaviness and chains that had me bound. Without even knowing it, my aunt and uncle became the exemplary Mentors that I so desperately needed and God who is so intentional, had them be the Mentors I needed to have that year.

Who in your life currently, is desperate for your guidance?

Allow Holy Spirit to reveal to you who in this season -you can pour into.

Your friend in Christ,

Ruthy Villanueva