Who Pours Into the One Pouring Out?

In his letter to Titus, the apostle Paul describes one of the responsibilities of older women in the church: women teaching what is good and encouraging the younger women (Titus 2). Faith is handed down from one woman to the next, one season of life to another. 

Most of us know this passage from the younger woman's side. Who taught me? Who showed me what faithfulness looks like when life gets hard? 

Marjie knows both well. Through the years, she says, "the Lord had always put people in my path who were just that season ahead of me." When she was a young mom with toddlers, those women had kids in high school or college. Later, she had a front-row seat as friends' children married and started families, watching how God's calling changed for each new stage. 

Then, somewhere along the way, the page turned. "I'm not sure exactly when I realized I was now on the other side of Titus 2," she says. "Apparently now I've become the older woman in this situation." 

She loves where the Lord has her and is grateful for how others trust her to be a safe space for them to process the joys and challenges of singleness, marriage, and motherhood. But it comes with sacrifice.  

Friends Who Share the Load

Marjie, Janice, and Janet

Marjie's friendships with Janice and Janet go back to 1992, when they began serving together in various ministry settings. Over the years, their lives have changed as children grew older, careers shifted, and life took them in different directions. 

All three are leaders in their own communities, and many people trust them with confidences, ask them for prayer, and turn to them for biblical perspective. But because they no longer share day-to-day life, they rarely get to be that person for one another. 

The three had attended the Women's Retreat for several years with a larger group of friends. This year, when that group couldn't come, they decided to go anyway, just the three of them. 

Room to Think Out Loud 

For most of the year, Marjie, Janice and Janet are the ones people ask: What should I do? How do you handle this? It's rare for them to be the ones asking. Their leadership roles have made them used to holding other people's confidences without often sharing their own. 

At the retreat, that was different. The schedule left open stretches, and the three friends made the most of their time together. They lingered over meals, walked the beachfront, and chatted in their rooms.  

Here, nothing was pulling them away, and no one was waiting on them to complete tasks. 

There was the luxury of extended time to talk through what they were each carrying and help one another sort it out. They laughed.  They listened.  They prayed. Some of it grew out of Jen Wilkin's teaching on aging and death, since each of them had somewhat recently lost her last living parent. They talked about caring for a parent through decline, and about what comes after. For some, there was also the harder question of how relationships with parents shape the way they express love to their own kids. 

Nobody needed a warm-up. "Our friendship is so deep that we don't waste time on the pleasantries," Marjie says. "You just are immediately back into it."

Leaving Filled 

Nothing dramatic changed for Marjie that weekend, but she was affirmed in Truth. Jen Wilkin's teaching challenged Marjie’s temptation to allow Scripture reading to become a box to check instead of savoring time spent with God. But what she carried home wasn't only what she heard from the front of the room. 

She's grateful for the chance to be on the receiving end. The teaching filled her, and so did the time with her friends who understand the weight of others’ needs because they carry it too. "How can we pour out if we're not being filled up?" she asks. For Marjie, the teaching and the time with friends were two halves of the same answer: a chance to sit under good teaching, then "connect ministry and friendship at a deep level.” That kind of time is rare.  

Each of the women is busy, Marjie is traveling frequently as her kids and grandkids are spread across the country. Their paths may not cross often but they will carry their time together with them. 

"We will remember the things that we talked about and prayed about and did together that weekend," Marjie says, "and most likely we’re going to show up together again next year.”