LTSP

New Students, Fall 2001

Resistance Fell

Cheryl Hensil was reluctant to surrender when she felt the Lord pulling her to seminary. "Each time seminary thoughts floated into my head, I found a barrier for resistance," Cheryl said. She thought for a time that as the Chester County WIC (women, infants and children) administrator she was already serving others in a career that didn’t need adjusting. She wondered what she had to offer since she hadn’t grown up in a church- going family. Cheryl began talking to friends and family hoping for a person to join her in laughter over seminary study as a possibility for her. "No one but me laughed," Cheryl said. Despite her hesitation to answer the call, thoughts of seminary continued to return.

Cheryl turned to her home congregation, Temple Lutheran Church in Havertown, PA., to speak with her pastor, the Rev. Larry Stiles. She began to pray about her concerns and felt almost an immediate sense of peace. The barriers of resistance fell down. "I began to feel that seminary was God’s plan for me," she said.

Eighteen years after her last experience in school and two years before an early retirement plan, Cheryl is now taking on a new challenge to serve the church professionally.