So sometimes, if I’m waiting for Alex to finish practice or maybe just looking for a way to kill a few minutes before an appointment, I like to look at the comments on people’s Instagram pictures.

What? You thought I was going to say that I like to explore exegetical fallacies in Scripture? Or I like to contemplate modern-day pitfalls in eschatology?

Oh. I am terribly sorry. I mean, I understand this is the final chapter of this book and all, but I guess now is as good a time as any to very gently let you know that if that was your expectation, you may have confused me with someone else.

Because give me a small-ish window of spare time, and BRING ON THE INSTAGRAM. Sure, the pictures are great, and I get a huge kick out of being able to keep up with what’s going on in people’s lives. But as someone who spends a considerable amount of time working with teenage girls, I can tell you without hesitation that Instagram comments are a goldmine if you’re looking for some insight into the lives of young women in their late teens / early twenties.

Let me explain.

When I was in high school and college, we wrote notes to our friends. We wrote letters. We created sentences and paragraphs and lo, even the occasional novella so that we could (1) explain our feelings to our friends, (2) encourage and affirm our friends, (3) communicate what was going on in our lives with a degree of detail and clarity that phone calls didn’t always allow—especially if you had a sibling who kept picking up the receiver in the other room because he/she really needed to make a phone call, too.

(Can y’all even believe that we used to have to SHARE PHONES with people?)

(Obviously I grew up in the Stone Age.)

Now I don’t know about anybody else, but all those words coming from people who loved me were absolutely life-giving. I knew that my people were for me because they made a point to write it down and tell me. Sure, we still had the negative voices in our heads and, to a much smaller degree than girls face now, we had some pressure from media to be beautiful and charming and whatnot. But more often than not, affirmation came from real-live people who took the time to put words to paper and build up instead of tearing down. So by and large, when older women spoke over us and into our lives, most of us tended to believe and trust them. Typically we didn’t have any reason not to.

And that brings us back to Instagram comments. Or any social media, really. Take your pick. Only I’m not picking Snapchat because it seems like a lot of selfies and I feel like it would get on my nerves.

No judgment if that’s your fave, though. Free country, etc.

So in the interest of finally making a point, here’s a random sampling of comments that I’ve seen on my younger friends’ Instagram pictures.

Prepare to behold some serious depth.

Here we go.

I will number them to make this collection seem somewhat more official.

1. Total babes
2. Hotties
3. yessssss
4. Love
5. hbd
6. ily
7. Fire
8. Ok
9. Hotties!!
10. Omg you’re perfect
11. Hair goals
12. outfit >
13. literally perf
14. baaaaaaabes
15. ily a mily
16. Hawt
17. omg tiny
18. TINY
19. Bae
20. u look guuuuud

I think that’ll do.

And obviously, OF COURSE, I’m picking and choosing. There were some very sweet comments in the mix, along with a pretty good assortment of snarky ones. But here’s my big, fat point:

All of those comments might make somebody feel better for, like, four seconds, but there’s not a whole lot of substance there. Granted, I grew up during a time when the emphasis was “pretty is as pretty does”—my friends and I felt not one iota of pressure to be sexy or hot or “hawt,” for that matter—but wouldn’t it be great if we could back off the obsession with how people look for just a minute?

If we could type out a whole sentence of encouragement?

Or if we could double-tap the picture instead of reducing photographs to a public commentary about someone’s appearance?

Does anybody else think that this is a weird way to interact with people?

It’s not that I’m opposed to telling younger girls that they look beautiful or that their hair is pretty or that I like their dress. But our younger generation is already under enormous pressure to look a certain way, and I think that when lots of girls are essentially training each other to strive for “baaaaaaabes” and “omg tiny” and “Hotties!!” then they’re setting each other up to settle for superficial.

IT MAKES ME CRAZY.

But here’s what I have to remind myself: there is GOOD NEWS in the middle of all of this.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Because do you know what we see in Mary, Elizabeth, Naomi, Ruth, Lois, and Eunice? We see some substance. We see some wisdom. We see some blessing. We see some intention. We see some care.

And every bit of it was for the good of those women and the glory of God.

I don’t know about y’all, but I want those things so desperately for the generation behind us. They deserve so much better than what the culture is saying to them. And I keep thinking that if Lois and Eunice were in the business of passing along “sincere faith,” then that’s a pretty good goal for all of us present-day Loises and Eunices as well.

By the way, that doesn’t mean that we have to go big and publish a “Sincere Faith” Bible study and put up some fliers at Starbucks before we start planning our first “Sincere Faith!” event, launching in fall 2018.

It just means that we look around at the places where we’ve earned a voice in someone’s life. Maybe it’s a daughter. Maybe it’s a coworker. Maybe it’s a couple of cousins. Maybe it’s a neighbor.

That’s a lot of maybes, right? But those maybes are a really good thing—because they remind us that the relational possibilities are wide open.

So here’s the challenge: wherever you have influence with the generation behind you, start investing. Pray that the Lord will help you find the folks He’d like for you to encourage.

He’s “literally perf” at that sort of thing, you know.

Now before I talk for a few minutes about the older women in our lives, I would just like to be clear and say if there’s a trend on Instagram where our sixty-plus friends are calling each other “bae,” I am blissfully unaware.

In fact, I went to my friend Mary Jo’s Instagram to see what’s going on in her comments, and mostly she and her friend Jane are talking about greenery and orchids. This is enormously encouraging to me, because when I’m in my seventies (Lord willing), I pray I’ll be just as focused on how to make things grow and thrive.

I may have just amen’d myself.

And really, I may have also (unintentionally) summed up why it’s so important for us to have older women in our lives: they know what makes things grow.

They know how to grow plants, sure, but they also know how to grow in faith, how to grow in marriage, how to grow in singleness, how to grow in friendship, how to grow in parenting, how to grow in a relationship with the Lord. And in addition to all that growing, they know how to establish roots that are deep and well-nourished, they know how to prune away what’s no longer necessary, and they know what it takes to bear fruit.

Which reminds me of something.

A few months ago I spoke at a church in Birmingham, and because of the way the event—which is an annual Christmas show house—is organized, I spoke four times in two days. I got to hang out with some folks I don’t get to see nearly enough, and after the last session on the second night, I stayed way later than I probably needed to because I was having so much fun.

Around 8:30 I started to convince myself that it was time to go home. As I was gathering all my stuff from the table where I’d set it down, a woman, probably in her mid-seventies, introduced herself. She immediately told me that she had volunteered for both days of the event, so she listened to me give the same talk four times.

This elicited no small amount of sympathy from me.

Anyway, we were talking about this and that and the other thing, and as she was telling me a little bit about herself and her husband, she mentioned that for many years she was the primary caretaker when her mama was suffering from dementia.

Now I was listening before she said anything about dementia, but after she said it? I was LOCKED IN. I hadn’t mentioned anything about Mama’s health when I was speaking, so that sweet lady had no way of knowing what we’re dealing with in our family. But considering that just a couple weeks before I’d spent several days at Mama and Daddy’s to help while Mama recovered from foot surgery, there was so much about Mama’s condition that was fresh on my mind. There were parts of it that I hadn’t quite figured out how to process; and even though yes, this is our “new normal,” it’s still new. There’s so much we still don’t know.

My new friend and I stood in the back of the Fellowship Hall and talked for thirty or forty-five minutes. I felt like I could be completely candid with her because I knew she understood, and I wouldn’t take anything for the sweetness of that conversation and the comfort of her words. The Holy Spirit united our hearts almost instantly, and after we finished talking and said our good-byes, I felt like I’d been to church.

So it may surprise you to know that I haven’t talked to her since.

And there’s a very good reason why I want to make sure you know that.

Sometimes we can get bogged down in thinking that we need a mentor and we have to find a mentor and why can’t we find a mentor because, clearly, ALL THE MENTORS ARE TAKEN.

And they’re not, of course. But while you’re waiting or looking or praying, make a point to incline your ear to the older women around you. Seriously. Take advantage of opportunities to have a conversation. Listen to your aunts interact with each other at your next family get-together. Take doughnuts to a Sunday school class full of seventy-somethings at your church. Make a hair appointment for 10:00 on a Friday morning and soak up the stories as women settle in for their weekly wash and set.

Maybe I’m oversimplifying, but you certainly don’t need a mentor to build relationships with older women. I mean, if there’s a down side to putting yourself in a position to honor and listen to women of faith who have so much to teach and so much to share, I can’t think of it. Unless you easily tire of older women telling you how young and cute and darlin’ you are. But that would pretty much be the only potential drawback.

And who knows? In those conversations you may find that you click with someone, or you may realize—like I did at the Christmas event—that the Lord wants you to hear from someone who has been right where you are.

So here’s the challenge: wherever you have interaction with the generation ahead of you, start blessing. Pray that the Lord will help you find the folks He’d like to come alongside you.

And in the company of those good growers? I bet you’ll bloom like crazy—no matter where you’re planted.

I mentioned a couple of chapters ago that Lois and Eunice are only in Scripture for a tiny period of time. And really, when Paul acknowledges them, it’s almost in the form of a shout-out. It’s like he’s standing at a podium, building up Timothy with his words, and when he gets to the part about Timothy’s grandmother and mother, he pounds his chest twice and then blows a kiss. Lois and Eunice certainly aren’t main characters in Paul’s narrative, but because the Word of God is deep and rich and trustworthy and true, we can actually extract some significant takeaways from their brief appearance in the book of 2 Timothy.

So. Would you like to hear more about that?

Oh, I’m so glad.

Look! I made you another list!

1. You can’t underestimate the impact of women working together for the good of the generation behind them. I realize that Timothy breaks the pattern of our women-taking-care-of-women concept, but the big idea is the same. Lois and Eunice joined forces across their generational lines so that they could serve the young whippersnapper who was coming up behind them. They taught him the “sacred writings” of the Old Testament, and then, when Paul came into the picture, he built on that foundation and led Timothy to saving faith in Christ. Lois’s and Eunice’s teaching, investment, and care empowered Timothy to walk out his calling. Their faithful discipleship prepared him to follow the Lord, to serve people, and to impact the nations. Thumbs up, Lois and Eunice.
2. We can’t offer people support if we’re not receiving support ourselves. The Lois/Eunice combo reminds me that if we’re going to pour ourselves out relationally, we have to be filled up. HAVE. TO. BE. Spending time with the Lord is critical, of course, and so is community. Knowing that Lois and Eunice served together makes me wonder if there were times when they were getting ready to teach the sacred writings and Eunice said, “Mama? I CANNOT EVEN. Not today. Can you handle the lesson this morning?” Knowing that someone can be strong when you’re weak is such a comfort. Plus, knowing that someone has your back makes all the difference. When we’re not operating in a healthy, supportive relational environment, dynamics get warped, relationships get codependent, and people get hurt. It stands to reason that Lois and Eunice supported one another in an honoring way; pettiness, drama, and competition don’t breed “sincere faith.”
3. Lord willing, your obedience will ripple in ways you never know or see. Maybe this is a Captain Obvious moment, but in addition to cheering on other women in their callings, your intention in cross-generational relationship gives you the opportunity to share the gospel and see the Lord’s saving grace transform lives. Paul’s words remind us of that. He said that the sincere faith that dwelt first in Lois and Eunice now dwells in Timothy—and that Timothy needed to “fan into flame the gift of God” that he received when he trusted in Christ for salvation. Then, in 2 Timothy 4:2, Paul told Timothy to “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.” Timothy the student had become Timothy the teacher, and his “sincere faith” no doubt impacted others for the cause of Christ just as his grandmother’s and mother’s did him. And you know what that makes me wonder? How many people eventually came to know Jesus as result of Lois’s and Eunice’s faithfulness? I would sit and try to work up a hypothesis with that, but math.
4. You have to be a student before you can be a teacher (or a follower before a leader) (or however you’d like to phrase it). There have been so many times in my life when I’ve wanted to teach lessons that I hadn’t learned yet, when I wanted to pass along some nugget-o-truth that hadn’t even begun to take up residence in my head or my heart. When we’re trying to teach what we don’t really know, we’re putting ourselves in a place where our voice may have some volume but it will not carry a lick of authority. We’re marching straight into clanging cymbal territory. Lois and Eunice were effective in training up the generation behind them because they knew what they were teaching backward and forward. Just like Elizabeth did with Mary and Naomi did with Ruth, Lois and Eunice were passing on what they had learned way down deep in their souls. So from that perspective, I think, we can’t ever stop learning and growing deeper in our faith—because those two things are critical components of our teaching. We don’t just want to be smart; we want to be wise. Proverbs 4:7 says, “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight.” Before we teach or pass on anything, we should be people who pursue wisdom; we should “Pray for [wisdom], take pains for it, give diligence in the use of all appointed means to attain it . . . get it above all thy getting.”33
5. Plant the seeds and trust that the Lord will bring the harvest. So, in this current era of momagers—mamas who like to map out a plan and then work out some details on behalf of their families—it’s tempting (especially for those of us in the Eunice crowd) to think that we can strategize and program and plan A Meaningful Discipleship Experience (with Proven Results!). But here’s what Lois and Eunice did: they faithfully scattered seed. We don’t have any reason to think that they micromanaged, that they orchestrated Timothy’s first meeting with Paul so he could network and make connections, that they walked up to Paul and offered him a very detailed testimonial about all the ways that Timothy was so very gifted. They scattered seed. However that played out was up to the Lord. This is so good to remember when we find ourselves building relationships with older or younger women; it’s not our responsibility to fix everything so that it looks pretty (and listen—I so get this since I am a fixer by nature). Because ultimately, the last thing we want is a makeover; we want substance and wholeness and impact. Only God can do that.

Good talk, team.

Some of you have probably been reading all my words about honor and wisdom and investing in the generation behind us and thinking, This is all very easy for you to say, ma’am, because in case you didn’t notice, you work with teenage girls for a living. You have no choice but to invest in their lives. THEY HAVE YOU SURROUNDED.

Yes. Yes, indeed. These are very fair points.

But I can tell you for a fact that I’d be hopeless with those girls if not for women who are a step or two ahead of me, women who have taught and led and loved me so selflessly. They’ve come in all forms, too: family members, teachers, coworkers, Bible study leaders. They know better than anyone what a reluctant learner I’ve been at times. But they’ve stuck with me and stuck by me and let me see what real faith looks like in the context of real life.

They have been the sweetest gifts.

Well.

A few days ago I ran in the grocery store because I realized that I had approximately zero items to put in Alex’s lunch for the next day—unless, of course, he wanted to enjoy a questionable can of cream of celery soup along with some stale Veggie Straws.

It just so happened that I was right on the brink of my personal emotional precipice as I wheeled up and down the aisles; I had just returned home after a funeral for my friend Daphne’s mom, so my mind was full of thoughts about Barbara’s influence and love and kindness in our lives. Plus, she and Daph were unusually close—a couple of like-minded, like-hearted women—and it made my heart hurt to think about Daph having to endure the loss of her sweet, smart, funny mama. Even now it breaks my heart to think about the text Daph sent me after her mama passed away: “She was the best person I knew.”

So my heart was full and my eyes were teary as I blazed through the Publix, and I was just about to grab a loaf of bread off the shelf when I saw Martha (not my mother-in-law! Not that one! This is a different Martha!), a friend who taught math for many years at the school where I work. Different Martha retired about ten years ago and could quite possibly be the twenty-first-century prototype for the quintessential Southern grandmother. She is a nurturer through-and-through, and while she has daughters of her own, she has also been a faithful mentor to younger women in her church.

Different Martha asked me about school, and I asked about her granddaughter who graduated from high school last year, and we traded stories for about five minutes when she asked me how the book stuff was going. I caught her up on the progress of the book you’re reading right now—told her that I hoped to be turning it in within the week—and she said, “Oh! That’s so exciting! What’s it about?”

And I said, “Well, it’s about cross-generational friendship—how younger women need older women and older women need younger women. How we’re meant to walk through life together.”

It wasn’t my most, um, articulate explanation. But Different Martha was totally tracking with me. She smiled, nodded her head, offered all sorts of encouragement. And then, after she paused for a few seconds, she said, “You know what? That’s how I’ve always tried to live my life.”

“I know you have,” I replied. “I’ve watched you do it.”

So we said our good-byes, and I moved on to the cheese aisle (who’s surprised?), but after I bought my groceries and walked out to the car and put everything in the trunk, I sat down in the driver’s seat, put my head in my hands, and cried like a baby.

Because Different Martha, she went straight to the heart of things. I could have quoted her on page one and typed “The End” right after I closed the quotations.

This whole cross-generational thing isn’t a program. It isn’t a fad or a trend or a member multiplication tool. It’s real life. And like Different Martha, I believe it’s how we’re supposed to live our lives: blessing and learning from the ones ahead of us, investing in the ones behind.

I’m so grateful for Mary, Elizabeth, Naomi, Ruth, Lois, and Eunice—six women in Scripture who took care of their people in the most personal, life-giving, God-honoring ways. Six women who show us how to honor, how to persevere, how to cling, how to glean, how to partner, and how to pass it on.

No strategies. No methods. No checklists.

Just wide-open hearts, an abundance of tender, loving care, and a one great, big, awesome God who faithfully provides us with the perfect people at the perfect time. Sometimes it’s because we need to learn, sometimes it’s because we need to teach, sometimes it’s because we need to bless, and sometimes it’s because we need to heal.

And in and through every bit of it, we can look around at the women who surround us and echo Mary’s words: “. . . for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name” (Luke 1:49).

Get out there, girls. And get after it.

Giddy up.