I'd like to hear more from others about how they moved through feelings of indequacy related to mentoring. I'm not sure that feelings of inadequacy are always a negative thing because they cause me to depend more fully on the help of the Holy Spirit.
I can remember when God began to speak to me about discipling others. I'm a therapist and one day I ran in to a man who had been doing marriage counseling with me. When I had last seen the couple, they weren't doing very well and frankly I wasn't sure they were going to make it. When I inquired of him about how they were doing, he surprised me by telling me that they were doing great and that they had gone to visit a lay counselor at a local church who had basically sat down with them and had gone through the Scriptures with them in the areas that they were struggling. I was happy for them but my own sense of inadequacy arose because, at that time in my life, I was depending more on my professional training and hadn't really found a way to blend my faith and my professional training. God used that sense of inadequacy to draw me into prayer and to arming myself with Scripture so that I could offer my clients real hope. I asked the Lord to take control of my counseling practice and to give me opportunities to counsel from a Biblical perspective. He answered that prayer. Even though I get most of my referrals from insurance companies, God started sending me all kinds of people who wanted to deal with spiritual issues--atheists, Muslims, Mormons, etc.. It didn't matter what they originally came to me to deal with, they eventually would start asking questions about spiritual things. In many of those situations, I had to do my research by making sure that I knew what Scripture had to say about their issues and by taking time to better understand their belief system and where they were coming from.
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I have kind of gone in the other direction & need to work through this now.
I had been leading my daughter's small group (6 kids, 5-7 years old) when I had ear/brain surgery for an acoustic neuroma. The surgery left me deaf on my left side. After about 1 month of recovery, I took up leading the group again.
The kids and their parents were great. They supported me in prayer and in co-leading until I felt comfortable leading alone again. I finished out the 2008-2009 school year and took a summer break. I started out the 2009-2010 school year with a new BAHA (bone attached hearing aid) and did well for a few months. Then, my hearing in my right ear began failing and the BAHA wasn't working as well. I found I would just watch the kids' mouths move, nod & say, "Uh-huh..." I could not hear what they were saying. (Background: our church is a mega-church. The room for our small group had 5 groups in it of 10 kids each; there were 3 rooms this size for the second smallest service and this is only the K-1 grades) Once the other kids in the other 4 groups began talking, I could only hear buzzing.
I stepped down for this school year. I am sad about that. I miss teaching the kids but I think it's better for them to have someone who actually HEARS what they say.
I'd like to hear if anyone has any ideas about where/how I could serve.