5 minute read
Abiding Side by Side
Gale Van Norman
At the February women’s retreat, I shared a testimony of how Jesus rescued me as a child, wooed me back as a young adult and replanted me from Los Angeles to Wheaton as a thirty-something.
I was replanted in a fertile land where my soul could grow deep roots in God’s Word and be strengthened by the local church.
Twenty-five years ago, I walked into College Church for the first time. It was a Sunday in early March. It was the day Pastor Hughes returned to the pulpit after nearly losing his wife, Barbara, to a rare blood disorder. In God’s perfect timing, and thanks to holidays and guest speakers, Pastor Hughes preached a message from Luke about how Jesus miraculously healed a bleeding woman.
The congregation’s reaction and the Holy Spirit’s presence were palpable. I did not know another soul at the church, but I knew I was home. I knew that College Church was where God wanted me to take root.
That same Sunday, I began attending Pacesetters, the large singles ministry that met in the old church gym. The group was buzzing with activity. I met many committed Christians that first day— business professionals from throughout Chicagoland, teachers who had grown up in Wheaton and transplants like myself from across the country.
Just two months after I began attending College Church, I was laid off from the public relations job that had brought me to Illinois. I was confused but confident that I was supposed to stay in the Midwest.
Kathy (Stephens) Chapek, a new friend from Pacesetters, just happened to work at a placement company that hired temporary employees for corporate assignments. Eventually, I was placed at Motorola and worked in its public relations department until I left seven years later to pursue teaching.
Kathy became like a sister to me. We met each week for years in the Stupe at Wheaton College to share our lives and discuss Scripture. She discipled me in how to read the Bible and pray. Although we are both married and attend different churches now, our relationship is still going strong. My soul is enriched.
Because my salary was cut in half when I got laid off, I needed to find a roommate to help pay my bills. Several people suggested I post roommate wanted notices at area churches and the college. God led a recently graduated Mindy Austin (that’s Mindy Rynbrandt to us now) to my doorstep. We roomed together for only six months, but she was one more person God placed in my life at a critical time. My soul was cultivated.
Jim Johnston was the singles pastor at the time I first attended Pacesetters. He, and the pastors who succeeded him, encouraged us to plug into the larger church body. They urged us to become “church people.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I was willing to try. Kathy suggested I teach first-grade Bible school with her. I laughed and explained that I didn’t know the first thing about teaching and that children kind of scared me. She assured me it would be rewarding and that the hardest part would be just to arrive on time.
So, I began teaching a small group of six- and seven-year-olds in the basement. I taught alongside Sylvia Kietzman and Sue Teiwes. The roots of my soul grew deeper as I heard—often for the first time —stories about God’s faithfulness to Noah, Abraham, Daniel, Esther and Ruth.
In time, God would lead me to change careers. I became a schoolteacher in 2003 and currently teach kids in Glendale Heights how to read and fall in love with books.
Within a few years of coming to College Church, I joined a small group of women from Pacesetters. We began meeting in each other’s houses twice a month to study God’s Word and pray together. More than 20 years later, we still meet.
We have celebrated weddings and new children together. We have mourned sickness and death together. We remain connected through pandemics and continue to gather around the Word using technology. My soul is strengthened.
While we may be separated physically, I know that we are together spiritually. I first learned the power of long-distance church support in 2010, the year my mother died. As her only child, I was in Los Angeles off and on for eight weeks caring for her and preparing for her death. My small group sent regular emails with Bible verses to encourage me. I had ongoing prayer support and encouragement from Women’s Bible Study friends. And though I had not taught in children’s ministry for some time, Diane Jordan spoke with me and prayed for me by phone. My soul was comforted.
I continued to fly back to Los Angeles, settling my mother’s estate. My husband, Kevin, and I did not celebrate our birthdays together for two years, because I used spring breaks and Thanksgiving holidays to do my executor duties.
I remember attending the Thanksgiving Eve service in 2012, after missing the previous two. I was overwhelmed by being in the presence of God’s people. It makes me look forward, with greater anticipation, to when we will be together again—side by side.
It’s reassuring for me to look back on the 25 years I have been at College Church, especially as we live through a global crisis. God’s Word exhorts us to remember—to remember his goodness, his sovereignty and his grace certainly as we read Scripture from the prophets and the apostles. Yet, it also calls us to remember his unique faithfulness to each life.
I recently began discipling a younger woman new to College Church. Our life paths have similar detours. We are navigating our way through sheltered isolation, even while we build our friendship. We text each other often and call weekly to discuss a chapter of Esther.
She has joined a small group and attends Women’s Bible Study when she’s not working. She has been replanted in a fertile land where her soul can grow deep roots in God’s Word and be strengthened by the local church.
