As most of you know – Jared and I work with the PowerKidz on Wednesday nights at church. PM works with the youth group, RAY. Last night her message was on mentors. I heard a few of the kids coming up to compliment her after the message and when we grabbed ice cream at McD’s I asked her about it. She said that she told the kids about the importance of mentors and had expressed her gratitude to her mentors, past and present. I didn’t even hear the message and I’ve been thinking about it.<\/p>\n
I have a mentor. I’ll bet you can guess who she is. My dear Aunt L. My mom always used to joke that I must have been Aunt Lori’s kid and not hers. I credit a lot of my self confidence to Aunt L. I was a goofy kid – looks – personality – you name it – I was goofy. Aunt L always helped me to be proud of who I was. One of the most important things I remember her telling me was – Danielle – you can have a boyfriend any day of the week – all you have to do is lower your standards. I used to get bummed out about all my friends dating these cute guys that I wanted to date. L would always tell me that little snippet. She helped me have the self-confidence that is very rare at that age.<\/p>\n
L used to be our youth group leader at church – when I was in 8th grade we signed True Love Waits cards. I remember that moment like it was yesterday – L talked about what signing those cards really mean – about the promise you are making to yourself, your future spouse, and to God. I wish I still had that card – but I had that reminder written on my heart. L took time to talk about the tough stuff with us – the things that might make you uncomfortable to talk about.<\/p>\n
L is one of the biggest supporters of me and my journey to being a photographer. She has a God given gift with words. She wrote all the blurbs on my webpage – she even “helped” me write my editor-in-chief spot when I was in high school – and by “helped” I mean wrote. She researches for me – encourages me – pushes me – promotes me – supports me.<\/p>\n
She started the TMJ Relief Fund – she sent out prayers and prayers for me. She wrote me encouraging notes – she believed with me that God would heal me.<\/p>\n
She is a strong woman of God and a woman I can turn to when times are tough. She prays. She is outspoken. She is bold. She is a mother. A new grandmother. A wife. A daughter. A sister. An aunt. A friend. A teacher. She asks for help. She cries out to God.<\/p>\n
She is one of the reasons that I am who I am today.<\/p>\n
I encourage you to take a minute to think about your mentor – thank them – and remember that your mentor is preparing you for that day when someone turns to you and looks for advice – encouragement – love.<\/p>\n
Thank you Aunt L.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As most of you know – Jared and I work with the PowerKidz on Wednesday nights at church. PM works with the youth group, RAY. Last night her message was on mentors. I heard a few of the kids coming up to compliment her after the message and when we grabbed ice cream at McD’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,19,21,36,40,58],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2192"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bardenphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}