As a Christian teenager, I was always on the lookout for spiritual role models that could help me on my walk as a Christian. Someone that I could even silently watch and see what it was like to walk the walk as a faith filled woman. I would follow them on social media and reach read their feed on Facebook or even reach out to them for advice and not only did I get my hand proverbially slapped for trying to hash out the Christian lifestyle by some of those women, but was completely shut out of their lives. Thankfully I had the opportunity and blessing to have a godly mother and grandmother but honestly, it made me see what a rare jewel the woman that walks with the Lord is.
I know that we are all in different places spiritually- some more mature in their walk than others, but just as children look up to adults and even older children, so are baby Christians and children that are beginning their walk looking for a role model in fleshing out this thing called faith. We need to be aware that there are others around us that are watching us in our walk… hopefully when they do they see someone shining the light of Christ from their lives. Perfect? No, but walking out your life for Christ.
“Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women . . . (Titus 2:3-4a)”
This is the way it was supposed to be from the beginning. Older women teach the younger women how to live. We need to be busy about our walk. Study, so that we can be that older person in someone’s life.
My brother Christopher loved to copy us. We would do something, and he would copy it because he wanted to be like us. He thought we had things figured out and so he wanted a part of it. It didn’t matter if it was washing dishes or trying to snowboard down the hill in our front yard. We were placed in his life to be a bearer of light, a bearer of Christ (Funny, that is what his name means.) and we realized then the awesome responsibility that we had in our family and before God of being a good influence on him and others... because, for better or worse, he was watching us.
“Then they (older women) can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. (Titus 2:4-5)”
Young married women need a role model as well. I learned from my mother the importance of this. She taught me that you were supposed to have people as your bridesmaids that were the people that you would walk through life with, the ones that will help you keep your marriage vows. These are the people that would encourage you in your walk and in your marriage in the long run. It seems like that idea has been lost somewhere and it is sad because the divorce rate is huge and we live in an “if it feels good do it” society today that is desperate for those kinds of people. The light bearers.
As Iron Sharpens Iron - One Man Sharpens Another Proverbs 27:17
Even if we don’t think we are good enough, we need to get out there and be a light in the life of another. Don’t let the enemy tell you that you are too anything or not enough anything. There are girls that could be thriving if you would just understand that you were made for this – you were born for this. God has placed you right in this exact place for you to be a lighthouse in someone else’s life. So take a deep breath and step out. Shine on!
