Pleasant lines

9:41 p.m. Today's project was to meet an old friend, Nancy Neumann, at Disneyland with her family. Nancy was one of the first people I met when I got saved and began attending Calvary Chapel Riverside (now Harvest). She mentored me and invited me to Tim Weeks' home Bible study, where I met my husband Steve. That was in 1980, and she is still serving the Lord in any way she can, with the same joyful enthusiasm; Tim Weeks (who married us) is now pastor of Calvary Chapel Spring Valley; and Steve and I are walking together with the Lord as excitedly as ever. We still consider home/small group Bible studies--whether for women, as I've taught regularly for 27 years, couples' studies, The Truth project, or the coordinated home fellowships of Calvary Moreno Valley--an indispensable component of the Christian life.

Nancy has left me a powerful legacy. When I became a Christian, I was a single mother, a rising star in Connecticut General Life Insurance, succeeding as an agent in what was then "a man's world." When Nancy found out that I had my bachelor's degree, she asked me to pray about becoming an elementary teacher at Grace Baptist School. I could work in a Christian environment, and furhter benefit from free preschool for my son Sean, then 4-1/2. Many parents from Calvary Riverside had their children there, including Greg Laurie, whose late son Christopher was the same age as my son.

The school needed a 3/4 combination teacher. I committed to praying about it. I loved the sales world, having just returned from an all-expenses-paid trip to Connecticut that I had won, a very luxurious prize for top producing new agents. The brilliant fall colors, the fresh lobster, the finest of accomodations--not easy to turn one's back on a career that promised more of the same, only better with each year and achievement milestone.

At the time I was considering the career change, I had just committed Philippians 3:13-14 to heart:

Brethren, I do not count myself as having apprehended; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things that are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Nancy got back to me, because her mother, the late Frances Andersen, head of the school's board of directors, was wanting to interview me for that class soon. I said "yes" to a 50% cut in pay, and unbeknowmst to me at the time, to a lifelong career as an elementary teacher! My little boy was attending Christian school and both of us were learning A Beka curriculum's memory verses. Sean learned his in Pre-K with my friend Debbie Sharick; I learned as I taught my students. The most important lesson my son and I learned was that God would give us strength and guidance daily, from one very critical verse that Sean and I both memorized, Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

Nancy's legacy lives on! One of her daughters is a teacher; her nieces and their spouses are teachers; my Heidi is a teacher. And all are serving the Lord.

I am so grateful to God for allowing this friend and mentor to influence my life and the lives of the next generation for Christ! Nancy's beneficiaries can all say with the writer of Psalm 16:6,

The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; yes, I have a good inheritance.