I had learned how to walk again after childhood polio, but in 1993 my muscles began to weaken and one too many dangerous falls ended with a diagnosis of post polio syndrome, a second back surgery, and a Rx for an electric wheelchair. Wheelchairs, either manual or electric, don’t fit through bathroom doors in most homes, including mine. The doctors did their job again fixing my broken body, but now how would I fix the inaccessible bathroom issue in my house?
God’s amazing people of CRBC came to my rescue!
When I was widowed several years earlier, I had started attending a Women’s Sunday school class led by one of my precious friends and mentors, Ruth Ann Cahill. If you didn’t know her, I am sorry for you, because she was one of a kind. Be sure to look her up when you get to heaven because she is a woman well worth knowing. She will be easy to spot as she will be mentoring, caring for, teaching, leading, and getting things done for others, just as she and so many others did for me when they heard of the need for accessibility at my house.
Ruth Ann immediately organized a group of volunteers to transform my house into a wheelchair accessible home. Remodeling started as soon as the need was known and continued while I was in the hospital. The job included removing a wall and constructing a new one to include a wider opening and a sliding door to accommodate the chair. The shower had to be replaced, the cabinets rearranged, old flooring removed and new put down, and everything needed painting. Before I came home from the hospital, the work was done, including a fresh coat of my favorite shade of pink paint on the adjoining bedroom walls with a beautiful floral wallpaper trim, a new mattress and bedding, and a new easy-to-reach bedside lamp! Above and beyond anything I could have imagined or hoped for was accomplished by God’s loving, caring, and giving people of CRBC. They were God’s hands and feet. They lavished love on me and helped make life so much easier for me.
I recovered from the back surgery in a few months and adjusted to life in the wheelchair. In time, I was able to return to church and my Sunday school class. Through the years following, I served with Ruth Ann on several of her helpful, caring adventures of doing for others. She was such a wonderful godly example to those of us who were younger and learning to be servant leaders. At the time, I had no idea what God and Ruth Ann had planned for me in the area of leadership.
Several years later, Ruth Ann’s health began to fail. When her husband retired, they decided moving to their lake house would be best for her. That meant her class would be without a teacher and leader. No one on this entire planet was more surprised and shocked than I when she told me that God had told her that I was to be her replacement! I was totally convinced that she and God had picked the wrong person. I had absolutely no experience teaching adult women anything! I could change diapers in the nursery and help with VBS, but this was absolutely out of my ability and comfort zone.
The truth is that God and Ruth Ann saw some potential in me that, to this day, I still don’t see. But, she helped me understand that when God calls you to a task that it is not because you are capable or qualified. Rather, He will equip you to do whatever He has planned for you to do. She showed me that obedience to His call is the most important thing. And so my mentor moved away and eventually went home to heaven. And all these years later, every Sunday as I drive to the church to meet with the ladies of the Soul Sisters connection class, I pray and ask the Holy Spirit to speak through me and please teach all of us what He wants us to learn about our amazing Father God.
I have written all these words to tell you that God’s faithful, loving, and caring people of CRBC have changed my life dramatically for the better since our family stepped through the door that November day back in 1979.
I will be eternally grateful for this body of believers.
Meet the author!
Debbie Jourden is a follower of Christ, Mom to Gabe, Mother-in-law to Lisa, and Grandma to Chris and Caleb. She facilitates a ladies Sunday morning Bible Study, a Sunday night small group, and a Celebrate Recovery Friday night small group. Debbie runs two small businesses from home in her power wheelchair. A student of prayer who learned to really pray and trust in grief after the suicide loss of husband and youngest son…she is still learning.