Lisa Barry: Can you think of one or two older women in your past who influenced you? What was it about their lives that impacted you the most? Was it their attitude, wise advice or a soothing voice?

Today on Gateway To Joy, Elisabeth Elliot and Donna Otto do a little reminiscing of their own as they reveal the people who made a difference in their lives. That's what's coming up next on Gateway To Joy. Here's Elisabeth.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That's what the Bible says. "And underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, delighted to be able to talk again today with my friend, Donna Otto. I like to call you "Dotto." That, to me, just covers everything. Donna Otto. She is an author. She is a speaker, a wife, a mother, and a mentor to many younger women. Donna is from Scottsdale, Arizona.

We're so glad that she can be here in the studio in Lincoln with us today. I don't always do my taping for these programs in Lincoln. But instead of asking her to come all the way to Boston, which is where I live, near Boston, and also because my dear producer and director, Linda Meyers, had just had another baby, I thought, "Well, why make poor Linda get on a plane with that baby and come to Boston?" Instead of that, we'll all just meet here.

So it's a privilege, Donna, to have you again today. "Dotto."

Donna Otto: Thank you.

Elisabeth Elliot: We've been talking about older women teaching younger women.

Donna Otto: We have. Thank you. I treasure that nickname. I think what I've experienced for myself is a fear of coming into this "older woman doing this responsible act that God has asked me to do," and I do think it's important. But because we are afraid that we're not going to do it well enough, we set up these standards. I think it's very simple. It is a classroom. It is a classroom of the heart. This woman, whom God invites into our lives, is a daughter of the heart.

We have talked about spiritual motherhood, and I think that is one side of it. As an older woman, I am a spiritual mother. But who is this younger woman? And she is truly a daughter of my heart. Not my biological daughter. I have a daughter. You have a daughter. We're not looking for another daughter to replace our biological children that God has blessed us with. But daughters of the heart.

And where does this work happen? It happens on tablets of the human heart. Paul, who in 1 Corinthians talks about, "You need a letter of commendation from me?" No. When they traveled, they needed this letter to get into someone's home. This broo-ha-ha had been going on in the church. He says, "You need a letter of commendation from me? Just look around! You are my letters of commendation. You are the men and women whom I have written on, your heart is the tablet." Not with a pen and ink. Not in these books, but in the hearts of the women that we have been privileged to know and to love.

I pray that you understand in your heart the immeasurable gifts that you have given in my heart that can never be evidenced to you on a written page. But I pray that my life evidences them.

And then waters of the heart. We talked yesterday about my young friend, who came to my home crying. The water of the heart. That was a phrase that Luther used. He used that. "These tears that flow from my heart." And the woman who came to wash the feet of Jesus. She was prepared. She was Martha. She was prepared. She had her bowl and her cloth and she washed the feet of Jesus. What she wasn't prepared for was what happens when we sit at His feet-this unbelievable closeness. She began to weep and she began to cry.

That's what happens when we attach ourselves to a young woman, a daughter of the heart. We become close to them and we become involved in their lives. We give things away to them. Then the refreshment of the heart that comes from that.

But I think what happens is we get afraid and we don't know what the next thing is to do. "Okay. Okay. I've been listening to you and I've been listening to Elisabeth and I've been reading these books. I think you're right and God's convicting me and I should go out and do it. Well, what should I do?"

In the book of 1 Samuel, we see Hannah and that amazing story of Hannah's life. But in the sixth or seventh verse, it says that Peninnah, Elkanah's other wife, was her rival. She wept bitterly. Hannah wept bitterly because of this rival. I think that's what happens to us. We get involved. We get invested. We believe that God's calling us to do it. We believe we should go and knock on the door of someone's heart. We are convinced that we just want to point someone to Jesus.

But we look around and these rivals come in. "I'm not educated enough and I don't know the Scripture enough and I don't know where to meet someone." One by one, this list of things. "I was a poor husband." "I am a divorced woman." A poor wife, I should say. "I wasn't a good wife to my husband." "I'm a divorced woman." "What could I teach? I've never been married. What could I share?"

I think that what happens are these rivals come in and deprive us. For me, your phrase, "Do the next thing," is akin to the face of my Aunt Pat, who was my other significant older woman. She was the first tangible older woman who came into my life and taught me how to knit and crochet and sew and bake. I never went to her home, that the house wasn't absolutely fragrant with food. You walked in and, "May I take your coat? Are you hungry? May I give you something to drink?" Her knitting needles went so fast, Elisabeth, that as a young girl, I was sure she wasn't actually knitting anything. She was clicking those needles.

She wanted to teach me how to sew. She knew me well as a young girl. She was my aunt, my mother's brother's wife. When my mother went to work, I went to my aunt's house. She babysat me. Then in the summers, as I got older, I would get on a bus and go to her house every day.

She wanted to teach me how to sew. She was a wonderful seamstress. I think she failed in that respect, actually. She must be in heaven, looking down and saying, "Oh, on that count I really failed." But the first sewing project she let me do, and for the seamstresses who are listening, they will laugh, I made a jumper, lined, with a long-sleeved shirt and a tie. The shirt was of the same fabric that the lining of the jumper was. That was my first sewing project.

Elisabeth Elliot: My goodness. A major undertaking.

Donna Otto: And my aunt, now I know-she knew me so well-that she used it as one of the best lessons of my life. She said to my always, "Donna, do what you can do. Donna, do what you can do." She could tell I was always wanting to go ahead of myself. If I could go to the Senate floor today and tell the Vice President and those senators what they would be doing, family issues, I would go. I mean, okay. Instead of saying, "Okay, I have this opportunity right here, right now, to do." "Donna, do what you can do" has been so helpful to me.

She gets me to the sewing machine and we sew this project. She is helping me the whole way, doing it mostly, but showing me, helping me. We get to the zipper. I audaciously sit down to the sewing machine with a zipper in hand-a side zipper, I might add. My aunt comes over to me, sits down on the sewing bench and sort of slides me to the end of it and she says, "Now Donna, you hem this. Do what you can do. I'll put the zipper in. Watch."

"Do what you can do." That phrase has sustained me. And you, whom I really believe God put in my life as a connector to what my aunt did in my early life, have said for years, "Do the next thing. Do the next thing." What is the next thing?

The very first time I ever heard you say that, we were sitting across the table. And I, a young, eager woman to serve the Lord, said to you, "Well, what do you think the Lord would have me to do? Yada, yada, yada, yada." You could just hear me, can't you? I still do those kinds of things and way too much chatter. "Well, what should I do next?" And you told the story of being in the jungle and looking around and the next thing to do was to change Valerie's diaper. Do the next thing.

Elisabeth Elliot: Yes. After Jim died, of course I was overwhelmed with the amount of work that there was to do on a jungle station. I was alone there that time, since Jim and I had been just the only missionaries. Of course, I was tempted to sink into a swamp of self-pity and just not do anything. The Lord just reminded me of the simple maxim that my mother had taught me, "Do the next thing." And also the headmistresses of the boarding school that I went to in Florida used to repeat this over and over again. Shall I read the whole thing?

Donna Otto: Please.

Elisabeth Elliot: "At an old English parsonage down by the sea, there came in the twilight a message to me. Its quaint Saxon legend deeply engraven that, as it seems to me, teaching from heaven. And all through the hours the quiet words ring, like a low inspiration, 'Do the next thing.'

Many a questioning, many a fear, many a doubt hath its quieting here. Moment by moment, let down from heaven, time, opportunity, guidance are given. Fear not tomorrow, child of the King, trust that with Jesus, do the next thing.

Do it immediately, do it with prayer, do it reliantly, casting all care. Do it with reverence, tracing His hand, who placed it before thee with earnest command. Stayed on omnipotence, safe 'neath His wing, leave all resultings, do the next thing.

Looking to Jesus, ever serener, working or suffering be thy demeanor, in His dear presence, the rest of His calm, the light of His countenance, be thy psalm. Do the next thing."

Donna Otto: Praise God. That is such an encouragement to me. I am so delighted that you found this. I've said this phrase for all the years that you've been trying to pound it into my head, but to have this piece to go with it-

Elisabeth Elliot: It simplifies your life. It absolutely simplifies it.

Donna Otto: And it also takes the thrill of understanding the sovereignty of God, because I don't always know what the next thing is going to be. I said earlier in the week about carrying for my father-in-law. I didn't know that was going to happen, when it was going to happen, if it was going to happen. The sovereign God had his life planned. So do the next thing.

And for me, it is exciting. I look forward to the next thing, whatever it is. It encourages that excitement in me of what's to come.

Elisabeth Elliot: He does show you, too, doesn't He?

Donna Otto: Always.

Elisabeth Elliot: Val called me, my daughter Valerie called me, early one morning. I could hear the little catch in her voice, so I knew she was crying. "Mama," she said, "I don't know what the next thing is." With eight children, she has many demands. But she learned, and she's told me since then, she said, "I've just learned to drop on my knees and just say, 'Lord, what is the next thing?' And whatever comes into my mind, I assume that the Lord has put it there."

Thank you so much for being with me again this week, Donna Otto.

Donna Otto: Thank you.

Lisa Barry: I'm sure many of you will want to find out more about Donna's books, BETWEEN WOMEN OF GOD, THE GENTLE ART OF MENTORING, and the complete packet of materials called MENTORING FOR MOTHERS. We can help you with that when you call us here at Gateway To Joy.

Don't forget that time is running out to purchase the Mother's Day packet. It includes this two-week tape series, another tape with Glenda Revell, Glenda's book called WITH LOVE FROM A MOTHER'S HEART, a flip calendar and more.

Here is the number to call for more information: 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. Or you can write to us at Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Our Internet ministry address is gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Monday Donna talks about some of the important areas to cover in a mentoring relationship, so join us then for the next Gateway To Joy.