Ministering the Love of Christ to Single Teen Mothers -- By: Mary Somerville

Journal: Journal of Discipleship and Family Ministry
Volume: JDFM 02:2 (Spring 2012)
Article: Ministering the Love of Christ to Single Teen Mothers
Author: Mary Somerville


Ministering the Love of Christ to Single Teen Mothers

Mary Somerville

Mary L. Somerville has many years of experience as a pastor’s wife and discipler of women. For 14 years she directed a ministry of evangelism and discipleship of teen moms with Young Life. She holds an MA in Counseling from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and is currently an Adjunct Faculty Member at The Master’s College in Santa Clarita, CA where she enjoys teaching women to disciple women. She has also authored the book One with a Shepherd: The Tears and Triumphs of a Ministry Marriage which has been translated into Russian and French. Bob and Mary have two grown children and seven grandchildren.

Sue pleaded with great emotion in her voice, “Mary, I don’t know what to do! Yesterday I ran into Christine, a friend of mine from high school. She led me to the Lord when we were working together at that time. Since then she’s stopped walking with the Lord, had a baby out of wedlock, and the father has custody. She can’t even see her baby and she has so many problems that she is seeing a psychiatrist and is on more than a dozen drugs. She’s totally incapacitated; she really needs help! Could you help her? Would you be willing to meet with her ?”

Answering Sue’s plea for help involved more than merely saying yes to a one-hour counseling session with her friend. I didn’t know it then, but that day I was catapulted into what would become an eighteen year ministry working with young single mothers.

I knew God had answers for Christine. She agreed to meet with me and for the next two years Christine and I met together for weekly Bible study and biblical counsel. There were times before the Bible study that I would help her clean her squalid house. Frequently she was depressed. She dressed in old, out-of-style clothes that did not fit nor flatter her. She would readily admit that she was not at all lovable. Although my feelings were telling me not to help her, I knew what God wanted me to do. My love for her was coming from God himself.

I tried to understand what it would be like not to be able to see my own child for two years. My heart ached for Christine. As she got her life right with the Lord, I helped her find an attorney to help her obtain visitation rights. Christine was finally allowed to see her child for two hours a week as long as I was on hand to supervise the meetings. I rejoiced in watching her freed from her dependency upon prescription drugs and become a God-reliant person. She also got a job, and began what was to become a good relationship with her child and the child’s father. She often called me to let me know how things were going and to submit prayer requests. She learned how to deal with her problems biblically—many o...

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