I love college students!! It is a true joy for me to mentor both male and female students. My official name to them is “Mama B”. Not sure who called me that first but it has stuck. With cell phones, Skype, texting, Snap Chat, Twitter, and Facebook, it is easy to stay in touch and develop a prayerful, advising, listening, and encouraging relationship with these “Life givers” (that is what I call them). They breathe life, youth and challenge into me daily. Some adults have asked me if mentoring wears me out? I have to look at them like they have 3 heads(not a mean look but a strange look for sure). I tell them it is like being hooked up to a “5 hour energy drink-IV!”
Yep, college students are awesome. They really do become their own person, develop their independence and their own identity. It is so encouraging to interact with them and watch them mature and grow as individuals. We all have grown and know with growth comes change. The newfound identity that most college students realize is, “Hey, I am now the Boss of ME!” It is for most a newfound freedom, with newfound living arrangements, newfound friends, and a newfound level of elevated requirements in school and newfound opportunities, good and bad.
Two precious young college students that I mentor, male and female, called me the other day. It was a REAL, what I call, “GOD WINK” kind of day. They both independently shared with me their stress level which they both said was at an ALL-TIME HIGH. They were tense, pressured, worried, and down!!! The great thing about our conversations was the fact that they wanted to share what they had done with these feelings and REAL emotions. It was UNCANNY to me that independently in the same day they said almost identical things!!!! to me. No one was privileged to hear these things but me, but it was such a GOD MOMENT!!! They both talked about how they “prayed sooooo hard that God would help them” and “how God showed up and was REAL TO THEM!!” “Isn’t it awesome Mama B?!!”
Seriously, they both said the exact same thing!!! The result they continued to tell me was God’s peace and presence and how the next day was so awesome!! Later, Schroder called to tell me of the Bible study he had been invited to by a former friend who was seeking “Christ” now. Logan let me know she made an “A” on her test and quiz!!! As I sat back and reflected on our conversations, I smiled sooooo very big knowing that it was “God” who was the 4th party between us all. The independent conversations with them were identical because “Christ” was what we all three had in common!!!
The Lesson here is that when Christ is the “SOURCE AND COMMON FACTOR” among a group of people AMAZING THINGS HAPPEN!! Things that can only be explained by and through HIM!!! I encourage you today, Let Christ be the COMMON GROUND FOR ALL YOUR RELATIONSHIPS!! IF YOU WANT TO HAVE WALKING ON WATER EXPERIENCES, THE SOURCE AND ABILITY COMES FROM JESUS.
Look at the results of believers praying together in Acts 4:31. ” After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”
Proverbs 27:17, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”