Coffee and Christ-Shaped Lives

I don’t remember a thing she said, but the entire time she preached, I wept.

The woman at the front of the church was older, probably in her mid-60s. We were new to the church, and when she was introduced, I grew tense with anticipation.

I wasn’t used to seeing women in the pulpit. In most of the former churches we’d attended, women didn’t preach and certainly weren’t on pastoral staff. At our last church, we might have an occasional female guest speaker, but it wasn’t a regular occurrence.

But when she spoke that Sunday, I listened to a woman who displayed the gentle presence of the Holy Spirit. I heard her pour out love and mercy, and my heart soaked it up like a sponge.

For most of my adult life, I longed for a mentor to come alongside me, someone I could learn from, someone who could help me navigate all my burning questions about my growing faith.

The few women I knew in leadership had found other ways to use their gifts—ways that fit within their denomination’s understanding of women’s roles. Instead of considering preaching/teaching/full-time ministry, I followed their lead. I couldn’t teach, but I could write, and if men happened to learn something from me, well, at least I wasn’t preaching.

What I wanted desperately in my 20s and 30s was an older woman to help me discern my calling, someone who was further along on the journey. So, I asked the woman pastor who spoke that night, and didn’t know me from Eve, to join me for breakfast. I wanted to see if we connected the same way I connected with her the Sunday morning she preached.

Our one-hour breakfast turned into three hours of storytelling and faith-sharing over cinnamon bagels and refills of hazelnut coffee. As we neared the end of our time together, I was jittery (and not just from the caffeine)—this was the person I had been praying for! The woman I had hoped would disciple me into the calling I was curious about!

So, I stepped out on a limb and asked her, “Would you consider meeting with me on a regular basis?”

“I would love to, Sarah,” she said, “but I am about to have double knee replacements, and I’m going to be out of commission for the next six months. And then I’m retiring. If you have something you want me to read for you, I probably could do that.”

I was disappointed—dismayed. The woman who seemed like the right person to guide me through the next steps of discerning my calling was sitting right across from me . . . unavailable.

However, it wasn’t long before we moved out of the area and back into a different church community. Our relationship couldn’t have continued anyway. I have continued to seek out older women to mentor me, and I have continued to feel let down.

That is, until I realized how many women have been discipling me all along.

One day earlier this year, I was sitting with my friends Jillian, Kim, and Jody for our weekly coffee date. They’ve been meeting together for over a decade, but I’ve only been able to meet regularly with them just in the last year. Jillian and I are the same age with children at slightly different stages of life—mine are all teenagers now, and hers are biting at their heels, moving into the tween years. Kim and Jody are a little bit older than us. They both have college-aged and young adult children, some getting ready to get married, others graduating and getting their first jobs.

As we were talking about our children’s various life challenges, our own reactions and hopes and fears, and our annoyances and delights surrounding our husbands, it struck me that this is discipleship. This is what I have longed for all my adult life, and this is what Jesus did.

Jesus didn’t arrange a date to meet with an aspiring young pastor; He beckoned to them and said, “Come, follow me.” And then, they walked together through life. They ate together, laughed together, wept together, worked together, went out on boats together, walked together, shared their fears and uncertainties together, and offered wisdom to each other. Maybe Jesus was the one doling out the wisdom most of the time, but He modeled discipleship as a relationship. When they were together, they were sharing the fears and joys of their lives, helping each other become more and more like the Father, more and more like the Son, more and more a conduit for the Holy Spirit to live and move and have its being in their lives.

When I look back over the last two decades, I now see the women in my life who were quietly discipling me: my mother, mother-in-law, best friends, women in Bible studies, women in small groups, my boss, and others. They discipled me, not necessarily by offering me answers to my evolving questions, but by living a life devoted to Christ. They listened to my fears and doubts, called out my strengths and challenged my weaknesses. They walked with me through the pitfalls and delights of life.

We’re all at different stages of our journeys. Each of us has different ways we can teach and different ways we need to grow, but we can all be learning from one another. We can share truths from Scripture and pass along the peace of a long vision of hope for our future, together.

The very best way to make disciples, the only way, is to be disciples of Jesus ourselves and invite others along for the ride.

From that place, I watch for women of the next generation who long to be loved and cared for. I pray for eyes to see the disciples in my life already—daughters, friends, younger women, and others—who are looking to me, not just for answers, but also for time, friendship, compassion, and love.

–Written by Sarah M. Wells. Used by permission from the author.