Over the past couple of years, I have been serving in the discipleship program at Northstar. It has been a blessing to help lead and encourage young women to have a closer relationship with Jesus. As the program progressed, I began to realize my own need to have someone more mature in their faith that could provide spiritual guidance, Biblical perspective and just more wisdom on life in general.
This need for discipleship ended up becoming a prayer request of mine for several months.
As I continued to pray, the new discipleship initiative last year began, and I was able to be on the other side of that table and be the participant. I was very excited to learn and engage in God’s word in a different way this time. Cynthia Rancourt led our group, and I quickly felt a connection with her. She was very relatable, easy to talk to, and no matter what topic we were discussing she always had a way of bringing it back to Jesus.
As I continued to get to know Cynthia, I began to see how she easily expresses such a genuine love for Jesus that you can’t help but want to know Him better like she does. In our meetings she was able to talk about events in her life that were very difficult, and how those trials made her cling to Jesus for comfort and direction even though it was not always easy. It was a great example to me how the Christian walk can be very difficult at times but if we just keep our eyes on Jesus we will make it through. Even though I had been leading discipleship groups myself, I gained so much from going through the new initiative.
Our discipleship groups came to an end, but Cynthia and I still met for coffee once in awhile, and it was always a blessing to me.
She has helped me deal with some difficult situations involving my parents that I haven’t really discussed in depth at all with anyone other than Kevin. I felt that Cynthia would give me good Biblical perspective on how to deal with those situations. She helped provide clarity on issues I had been dealing with for over 20 years, and God has provided me with peace through those discussions.
Throughout our time together we have discussed different books we are reading, the different ways we approach studying the Bible and just fun talk about what’s happening in our lives. It’s great to bounce ideas off of each other and get her view on things.
It has been truly wonderful to share our stories with each other and quite a few laughs, and it is such a blessing to know that she is praying for me. I believe that the past couple of years God helped me see my own need for someone to guide me for awhile.
She is not only a friend but someone I believe has been an answer to prayer.