Sometimes you have to let go! We’ve all faced time of letting go. Letting go of our children as they go to school, from grade school to college and beyond. We have to let go of our family traditions as our families move far away geographically—think of Thanksgiving and Christmas. We have to let go of the idea that our children will want our china and crystal someday! You can add your own.

What does this have to do with my thinking about LWML this week? I have to tell you, if a woman in my congregation came up to me and said she wanted to start an additional LWML group in my church, after I picked myself up off the floor, I would be so excited! If they wanted to meet once a quarter, or have Bible study and collect mites only, or do activities with their small children, I would be so excited! If they wanted to have an LWML as a service group alongside a women’s ministry group already in existence in their church, I would be so excited!

Yet I received two inquiries from women interested in starting LWML groups who met opposition because they are proposing an alternative look for an LWML group. Isn’t that sad. When we “mentor” women in LWML that doesn’t mean we make them do exactly what we have been doing in our LWML group over the years. If we are comfortable in our group and how it operates and when it meets, and don’t want to change, why not encourage formation of another LWML group? They, too, want a group that they are “comfortable” in. Why not try letting go?

I hope you will take it as a mentoring opportunity should some women in your church want something different in their LWML group and are proposing to start one with a different look. Teaching with love and encouragement can be a great example of “serving the Lord with gladness.”

Believing that God has molded each of us individually with love should help us let go. Individual molds means no two are exactly alike. Can’t we let go and let God guide the women to celebrate LWML as it meets their needs? Be a positive mentor. Just think how exciting it would be to have more than one LWML group in all our congregations!

I [Paul] therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift (Ephesians 4:1-7).

Love to you!
Patti

Me and the LWML office staff at a session on, “Effective Mentor-ship”.