Here you are. You've settled down into a routine at school. You know what your teachers expect and had the first set of tests. Math is harder than you thought it would be, but then so is history. You and your best friend have no classes together. The new girl, though, seems to be everywhere you look. Maybe it's time to start thinking about being a mentor.

Did I just see your eyebrows go up? No, you don't have to be 40 with an advanced degree in psychology to be a mentor. A mentor is simply one person who knows something that another person needs to know and who is willing to share it.

Take this new girl in school, for instance. She may not be your type, but she knows nothing about the school and you do. By being a mentor, you can answer her questions, give her the insiders' information on all the important things that the school handbook leaves out, be someone to greet her in the morning, and have lunch with her.  After a few weeks, she'll probably feel more comfortable in school, find people who share her interests (assuming you don't) and your mentoring role is over. This works even better if you can persuade your best friend to mentor her with you.

Was that a groan? You and your best friend just had a fight? Your heart is broken? You're too busy? Are you agonizing over all three at the same time? Life is never easy in this hormone pressure-cooker. If you are spending your free time thinking about how unfair life is and how unhappy you are, then you really need to be a mentor.

I know that doesn't make much sense, but then God always said that His ways aren't our ways. Mentoring is God's way.   Some - not all, (remember, some of your misery is due to the physical changes your body is making) - of your unhappiness is worse because you spend your time thinking about it. Finding someone to mentor changes that. A mentor LISTENS to discover what the other person needs. A mentor THINKS about the other person.  A mentor PRAYS for the other person. A mentor GIVES her time and energy in support of the person she is mentoring. A mentor CARES enough about the other person to help her succeed.

In mentoring, everyone wins. You helped someone for no other reason than because she needed it, so she wins. You win because you took another step in maturing God's way. The ME!, ME!, ME!, who was making you more miserable, got out of the way so that you could obey Jesus who said, "Do to others as you would have them do to you."

Mentoring won't stop the fights with your best friend or change the bad grade on your report card, but it will remove some of the heat under the pressure-cooker and it pleases God.

Lynnda Ell has been an active Christian for over 50 years and successfully raised two daughters. She also has an adopted daughter and five grandchildren. She has had careers in everything from accounting to electrical engineering to writing.