A role model is defined as someone whose character, life, behavior, etc is taken as a good example to follow. I have been blessed by having several role models in my life time. My grandmother, my mother, and many of my aunts were wonderful role models of mine. But Gladys came into my life when I was young with brand new babies. The church we attended at the time had a ministry where women delivered a small bible to families who had a new baby. I was a mother who was missing my own family terribly and I had recently given birth to my second child in 18 months. My first reaction was embarrassment because my house was a mess. She sat and prayed with me and for me and when she left I felt like a new person.
From that moment on, she would always give me a hug when she saw me, always said wonderful things about me, and always told me how much she loved my husband.
These were things I did not believe myself. She always told me, “Laurel God has great things for you”. She always told me what a wonderful mother I was, and how handsome my boys were. God knew I did not believe one word of this.
Hearing these encouraging words over and over, she made me desire to become what she saw in me. Our relationship grew through the years, her words and her faith in me helped me through many difficult times. I would run over her house with my problems and stresses and she would pray for me and give me scripture. And she always said, “Laurel God has great things for you”. And it led me to pray, “Father what does she see in me that I do not see in myself, help me to become what she sees in me.”
Many years later her husband passed away and she ended up moving closer to her family in a different state. I can not begin to tell you how difficult it was to see her leave. And then a year or two later she passed away with her family around her. I still have the last letter she wrote me, it was a letter of encouragement and her telling me, “Laurel God has great things for you”.
She changed my life, she moved me closer to God, and she made me see the good in myself. I was blessed to inherit two chairs she and her husband sat in everyday to pray and do their devotions. They are the same chairs we would sit in while she prayed for me. She is my role model because I pray one day some young girl who does not believe in herself will enter my life and I can open my door and say, “Come sit, let me pray for you because I know God has great plans for you.”
I am tossing my hat in the ring at Carnival of the Crazy Hip Mamas #16,
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
What a wonderful inheritance. God has placed encouragers in my life, too. I knew a lady much like her. Her name was Miss Ruth. She just glowed with the Love of God.
Great post, thanks for sharing this! How wonderful to have had a Titus 2 relationship like this. I have been meeting w/our pastor’s wife for about 4 yrs. now and she reminds me of your friend. I have learned so much from her and she has changed my life in so many ways. Most importantly though I have gotten closer to the Lord. I love that you have this same vision now to develop relationships like this. I want that too someday.
What a testimony to the power of encouragement. This, to me, epitomizes the Titus 2 concept of an older woman coming alongside a younger one. Not that classes and seminars and more formal arrangement aren’t a part of that, too, but I think this is one of the best ways for it to happen.
What a great post! Gladys sounds like she was a wonderful person and an angel sent to you when you needed her. We should all be lucky to have a “Gladys” in our lives. I bet she’s smiling at you right now.
That is wonderful Laurel. I think encouragement is a special gift given to some people. There was someone like that in my life too - the pastor’s wife at the church we attended when I was a young mother. We are so blessed when God places someone like that in our lives.
I too have a “spiritual mother,” a role model who profoundly affected my journey with Jesus. I will never forget the night several years ago before I knew her when she was asked to pray aloud for a very tragic circumstance. As she quite literally cried out to God, I remember thinking, “I want to know Him like THAT.” Let’s just put it this way: she knew Who she was speaking to, and she knew Him well. What an example to me!
Beautiful….Encouragement is a lost art. So many women are too busy to encourage others or are in desperate need of encouragement themselves and can find no one to give it. Thanks for reminding about the power my words and deeds can have to another person and the difference those can make.
This was an awesome tribute. I pray that you encounter many more beautiful encouragers along life’s highway.
Oh Laurel,
What a heartfelt entry, an ode to true friendship and to those rare people like your mentor, Gladys. Don’t we long for such people in our lives…the rare gems of Faith.
“..she made me desire to become what she saw in me”. Makes your heart jump in expectation.
I am glad I begin to meet such people through the net, and I am looking forward to my every visit.
Gladys sounded like a beautiful woman. You were blessed to have her sent into your life! I hope one day I can meet someone who will touch my life the way she did yours!
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You are so lucky to have known such an amazing woman. I am glad she came into your life when she did. And, after reading just a few of your entries, I know that you will be that kind of amazing woman to another lucky girl, or even more.
Here this time from the CHBM carnival