When Russell and I were first married well, let me back up to way before then I was born the third, and final, of three girls, “the baby.” I loved being “the baby.” My sisters say I was babied. Maybe I was, I don’t know. I just loved being the baby. There were times that being the baby didn’t work to my advantage, like when I wanted to go with my older sisters and I was too young really too immature I didn’t like being the baby then.
Fast forward to when Russell and I were just married I STILL loved being the baby, and Russell kind of helped baby me. We often laugh about the many nights he and I would watch a movie in the living room and I would always fall asleep on the couch. What would Russell do but carry the baby to bed and tuck her in! I LOVED it!
Then came children
I wanted to have children. It was MY idea. I wanted to be a mom but inside, I secretly worried about the fact that I would no longer be the baby. I would have to care for the real baby! Slowly, I got used to the idea and hopefully, after two children, now five and nine years old, I have gotten past the need to be the baby. My daughter does a good job of it!!
Just like I have always been the baby in my physical life, I seem to have a hard time not being the same in my spiritual life. I want to be an example for younger girls looking to me to see how to be a godly mother and wife. I want to raise my children knowing how a mother and wife should live according to the Bible. I just get caught up in the baby thinking. I want to be mentored. I want to be shown the way. In a way, I don’t want to grow up.
It’s Biblical to continue to receive counsel and wisdom from those older and more mature in their faith. It’s also Biblical to pour what you receive into those younger and not as far along in their faith. I realized that what I was afraid of was letting go of the baby in me. I thought it had to be one or the other, that I had to be the mentor OR the mentee. I want to be both. I want to find someone that I think God would want me to soak up godly counsel and wisdom from and then pour it out on the girls in my life. I have a few precious ones in mind. One just happens to live with me!
What about you? Do you have someone in your life from whom you are receiving godly wisdom on a regular basis? Do you have younger lives who are waiting for you to share the baby status? I encourage all of us to seek out counsel and wisdom, as it says in Titus 2:
1 You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine. 2 Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.
3 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. 4 Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5 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.
6 Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. 7 In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness 8 and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.