Monthly Archives: October 2010

Nancy Rollins

Nancy Rollins: Runner Extraordinaire

I met Nancy over 14 years ago. She was introduced to me by a friend and had expressed interest in working as a therapist at the Center for Christian Life Enrichment.
She had spent the last 20 years serving as a psychiatric nurse, having worked at Northwestern and now at Highland Park. She was highly regarded by all the staff and thought of as one of the most outstanding nurses on the unit.

She was hungry to help others in need and had an amazing way with people. She won me over in the first few minutes. I just knew she would be an awesome addition to my staff. I could see her being very effective and the most important quality to me was her genuine compassion and concern for others. I had a sense we would become friends and partners in the work of personal transformation.

I learned that we both had spent a number of years on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ, sharing our mutual love for Christ and our passion for seeing others discover a personal relationship with God. I also sensed that she had learned a lot from her life experience and had a lot of wisdom. As an adult with a family, she too had returned to school and recently completed her Masters degree in Counseling from National Lewis University.

I was surprised and scared to learn that she had gone through a divorce. As a director of a relatively new counseling practice, I was not sure that the community we served would trust and respect someone who had been divorced. After hearing her story, I realized it was the same Nancy Rollins that I was getting to know who had responsibly and tenaciously attempted to save her marriage. I saw how much courage and faith it took for her to accept her inability to effect a change. I also knew she had remarried and had two sons, creating a strong and health family of 13 years.

I then became aware of how Nancy, having experienced the heartache and pain of a divorce, was eminently qualified to support others in learning how to heal and strengthen their relationships. She would end up becoming my most effective marital counselor. I knew I could send any couple to Nancy and they would bond and build a strong relationship through which the couple would heal and strengthen their partnership. She knew both the rewards as well as the hazards of intimate relationships.

In addition to her strong qualities and character, Nancy is one of the most highly respected masters level runners in Illinois and the Midwest. She holds nearly every masters level distance record in the state. She has run in nearly 60 marathons and completes in races of every distance every weekend through the running season. Nancy is not only an elite runner; she is a dynamic coach. She founded and leads the CLE Running Club at the Center for Life Enrichment, which serves a large number of people who want to blend the benefits of psychology along with the wisdom of heath and fitness.

Nancy is my trusted partner and senior therapist at the Center for Christian Life Enrichment. She not only powerfully and effectively serves her clients; she also is a mentor and supervisor to the rest of our staff. Read more about Nancy at www.cle.us.com or find her on LinkedIn.