There is never a dull moment around Elaine. She tells stories, she laughs at herself, and she asks you questions that go beyond, “How was your week?” At church, you never catch her standing by herself waiting for someone to talk to her. In many ways, she is one of the central spokes of a large RP congregation.

But it has not always been this way—and I wanted to point this out because often we make wrong assumptions about the people we see in church. Elaine has struggled with self-confidence from a young age and spent many years of her life feeling like an outsider to multiple communities.

Fear

The fifth of ten children in a Roman Catholic family, Elaine felt like an outsider when they would go to church and people would stare at their large family. She had no friends there, in part because with so many children they could not afford Catholic school. She said she would look in the church bulletin for her family’s name to appear in the list of donors but was disappointed every week.

Later, after Elaine and her husband, Greg, had become members of Southside (Indianapolis, Ind.) RPC, she continued to struggle with feeling on the outside of the community there. Other people didn’t necessarily view her as an outsider, but she convinced herself that she wasn’t good enough because she lacked a college degree and she wasn’t familiar with the Bible, and because they chose a different schooling option from many families during a time of tension regarding what a Christian education should look like.

Elaine was married and a mother of three children by the time she came to know the Lord. Although her parents had packed up all the kids and attended church each week, they never read the Bible at home or talked about what was taught in church. For many years, Elaine’s relationship with religion could largely be summarized in one word: fear.

As a child, Elaine feared the large family Bible that sat in her mother’s office, not knowing why there were pictures of Jesus with nails in him. She feared the priests at their church who would listen to her confession once a year. She feared that she would not be forgiven at confession. And she feared that, despite her good actions and rituals, she would commit a mortal sin that would send her to hell, according to Catholic doctrine.

“I knew I could be separated from God,” Elaine told me, “but Jesus as a Savior was not something I really understood. I knew that Jesus was hung on the cross, but I do not remember learning that it was for me personally. It was all just confusion to me.”

Good News

Greg and Elaine were married by the priest even though Greg did not believe Catholic doctrine or the Christian doctrine that he was raised in. Eventually, they found a house in Fairland, Ind.(south of Indianapolis). Their neighbors, John and Pam Hanson, invited them for dinner the same day they moved into the house. The Hansons became (and still are) faithful and loving friends to the Cerbuses. When they asked Greg and Elaine if they would be willing to do a Bible study, they offered to meet at the Cerbuses’ house so that Elaine would feel more comfortable. They met together for three years, and Elaine said that she became a Christian in the sunroom of her home, during a conversation with Pam. She came to understand that she was a sinner, conceived in sin. She finally understood that Jesus’s work was for her. She saw for the first time that she could have a personal relationship with Jesus.

There was great comfort in knowing that she was already accepted because of Christ’s work and she didn’t need to earn her salvation. Now Elaine faced the challenge of learning to live as a Christian, unlearning the many habits of thought and action she had developed her whole life.

Elaine saw new aspects to her sin: “I realized very quickly after I became a believer, how selfish I was, how all my thoughts were me-centered, always thinking about what made me feel better, with little to no regard for others.” She continued with those struggles, which often fight so viciously even after we are believers: “It has always been easy to entertain thoughts of worthlessness and feel defeated before my day has even begun. I’ve stumbled in comparing myself to others.”

Elaine summarized the struggle as learning to see herself as God sees her (and us), and not through her own eyes and mind. “I’m continually clinging to the truth of who I am from the Lord’s perspective.” And so, she can recognize that she is a sinner, but she is redeemed. She can rest assured that “He loves me, He cares for me, and He guides me by His Spirit. I have worth.” A balm for self-comparison: “I only need to do what the Lord has given me to do, and He has given me the ability to do those things.”

After years of learning, Elaine reflects, “I wish I had known that God’s Word was available to me, and that I could know more about Him and Jesus by reading it. I would love young people to develop the daily routine or habit of reading the Bible so it becomes a normal part of their day. They can find comfort and be strengthened from the pages of the Bible.”

She also wants young people to grasp that they have worth in Jesus Christ. “What the world thinks of them doesn’t matter. I understand the desire to be liked by everyone, but the sooner young people realize that they won’t be liked by everyone, and in fact will be hated by some, they will be able to grasp and live their own identity in Christ.”

Comfort

It took three more years after Elaine’s conversion before Greg also made a confession of faith. They eventually had six children, and Elaine said it was a great blessing for their family to “be at the church whenever the doors were open.”

When their youngest daughter, Bethany, was a junior in high school, Greg was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Elaine and Greg both had their grief to deal with, of course. But Elaine said that one of the hardest things was having to tell their children that their faither was going to die and then to put aside their own grief to minister to them. Although very weak, Greg spent as much time as he could with his children. Greg died in the late spring of 2012. That summer, one of their daughters was married, and Elaine found out that she, too, had cancer.

Although her cancer was not as late-stage as Greg’s had been, Elaine still struggled with the weariness and grief of having just lost her husband. And furthermore, she knew that Bethany was still struggling with grief and now the anxiety of possibly losing both her parents. It was a time of putting one foot in front of the other.

But the Lord cared for them greatly in this time. Although she grieved, Elaine said she was never overwhelmed by it. Their church family cared dearly for them. Providentially, one of her sons and his wife were able to move in with Elaine and Bethany while Elaine was going through cancer treatment. They had just had their first child, and it was a great joy to have a new little baby in the house.

Leading up to and after Greg’s death, their pastor (Gordon Keddie) counseled them lovingly, pointing Elaine to Psalm 23. Elaine said she clung to the psalm, knowing that because the Lord was her shepherd, she could have “certain hope of God’s goodness and mercy flowing continually” to her all the days of her life, in spite of her circumstances.

She also prayed Lamentations 3:22–24 each evening as she went to sleep. “I praised God for His character and promises, and that I would not be consumed with grief because of His mercies and compassion. Every morning I knew that I could get through that day because of His faithfulness.”

Elaine remains an active member of Southside RPC. Although her children are spread out around the world (including Australia and Japan), she is encouraged to see their walking with the Lord. I hope you are encouraged by her story, as I was. Consider talking to the women in your church to hear their stories and receive counsel from them amid your struggles and sorrows.

The Oaks of Righteousness column is run by Evelyn Kruis and Tori Sturm. There is an accompanying podcast that shares more stories of older women in the faith, produced by Johnathan Kruis. We welcome suggestions of women to highlight, but we also eagerly invite others to contact us about writing their own articles for this column about women who have been an example of faith to them. You can contact Evelyn at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).