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He and Etchison also started dating. “That
strengthened my resolve for the battle,” he said. “I
wanted to do it not only for myself and for God, but I
also didn’t want to let her down.”
He might have escaped his spiritual slide without
Etchison’s rebuke. But maybe not. “I could have skated
through without Cedarville’s message gaining traction
in my life,” he said. “My
tires were just spinning.
I was headed back to
our family business after
graduation where I would
have to toe the line again.
“Still, I would say that
accountability is key. It’s
easy to live a two-faced life when you are not transparent
with someone who will speak the truth to you. I don’t
know who that would have been if it wasn’t Layne.”
English, CEO and President of Olde English
Outfitters, joined the Cedarville University Board of
Trustees in May 2015.
HURTING HEALER
Mueller was excited to attend Cedarville. “My
brother had attended Cedarville,” she said. “I’d attended
a Christian school my whole life, and there were a lot of
people from my church who went to Cedarville. There
was a long history there.”
Her first two years were all that she had hoped. “I
played JV volleyball freshman year,” she said. “I went
on a missions trip
sophomore year. I was
involved and had a
large friend group.”
But an internal
battle sidelined her.
“My sophomore year
into junior year, I
started struggling
with body image and
an eating disorder,”
she said. “It affected
my whole life: My
grades started to
suffer; my friendships
suffered; even my
relationship with my family suffered.”
She stepped away from Cedarville in the spring. “I
took the semester off my third year for some intensive
counseling at home,” Mueller explained. “I returned
junior year, but I was still struggling.”
Taking a semester off set Mueller back socially, as
well as academically. “I lost some of my friend groups
because they kept going and I was a year behind,”
she said. “I became pretty secluded even though I
lived on campus. It was by my own choice.” Her fifth
and final year she lived off campus and the seclusion
worsened.
In spite of her withdrawal, close friends — Casey
O’Neal ’06 and Julie (Martz) Anderson ’08 — and
her adviser, Sharon (Klopfenstein) Christman ’92,
never gave up on her. “Sharon met with me weekly to
talk about nursing, but she’d ask me about life, too,”
Mueller said. Christman
asked tough questions and
wouldn’t let her get away
with easy answers. She was
the mentor Mueller needed
at that point in her life.
She is also thankful for
Angelia Mickle, currently
the Interim Dean of the School of Nursing. “She really
advocated for me in the nursing program.”
By Mueller’s senior year, she had recovered
academically, making the dean’s list. Despite her internal
battles, God was using Cedarville people to help her
begin to heal.
After graduating in 2009, Mueller lived in the
Cincinnati area two years, then moved to Dayton to
work as a cardiovascular intensive care nurse at Good
Samaritan Hospital. She lived with Cedarville alumni
Devon ’95 and Beth (Irving) Berry ’93.
“God used them to help me understand how to
apply the Gospel to the way I saw my body,” Mueller
said. “I wanted my body image and eating disorder to
be gone. I missed the point that God was trying to use
it to make me more like Himself. God didn’t look at my
performance and equate that to my standing before
Him.”
In 2012, she married husband Trevor ’06, whom
she’d met her fifth year at Cedarville. They live in
Springboro, Ohio, and are expecting their first baby
next year.
Mueller finished her Master of Science in Nursing
degree at Cedarville this summer. Although the seed
planted underwent a harsh growing season, Mueller
has experienced the fruit of her Cedarville experience.
“I have a greater appreciation for Cedarville today due
to God’s work in my heart,” she explained.
And that’s a harvest worth celebrating.
ClemBoyd
is Managing Editor of
Cedarville Magazine
.
“I was a fence walker who regularly
jumped on the wrong side, but then
I’d jump back on to look respectable
again.”
— Evan English ’88