about the "faithful older women" post

Thank you so much for the thoughtful feedback on the Where are the faithful older women? post. For those who couldn't comment on the post directly because of the weirdness on my blog commenty thing, I'm sorry! I'm still trying to figure that thing out.

One of the responses that I received privately was exactly what I needed to hear. It was from a lady in our church, and she shared that when she was in need of a prayer partner, an accountability partner, and a mentor, she sought ladies out and requested that they fulfill those specific roles in her life.

In her exact words:

"I finally called on specific ladies and asked them to be specifically what I needed."

I don't know about the rest of you, friends, but that is exactly what I needed to hear.

I realized that there are always certain people who I'm hoping will reach out to me. So why not tell them so? Well, I know why; there is a rejection factor there, and I don't want to be hurt, and there really have been times since having children when I was just far too depressed to actually ask for help. But I'm not too depressed at the moment, so I need to just reach out and ask for help from the specific ladies who I'd like to have help me. I really don't want just any and every woman to try to meet those needs; let's be honest, not every older woman and younger woman combination would make a good mentorship. Or whatever. So really, I just need to step out and say... I need help. In this way. From you. And then see what happens.

I know that's a quick summary... I'd like to reflect on it more and have something better to say... but really, that sentence from the lady at church pretty much was what I needed to hear.

And not only did she write that thoughtful note about the whole thing, but she also followed up by bringing two ladies over to entirely pack up my kitchen for me two weeks ago (something she was going to do even before I wrote that post). And two days later, she came over and helped to thoroughly clean our old house while I stayed at our new place and rested with my children. Now that is some servant-heartedness because I can't think of anything worse than cleaning somebody else's dirty corners.

So... yeah. There are some faithful women out there. Maybe we just need to be more courageous about seeking out the right ones.