India, Illness, and the Goodness of Christ - Lynette's Story

It was the spring of 2012 and I was 17.

I was babysitting that day, and as I pushed the double stroller of sleeping kids down the long driveway, I prayed for their souls. As I walked, it felt as if my heart lifted up out of me and went up over and far beyond the mountain in the distance. I had an overwhelming burden to pray for a children’s home in India. Unbeknownst to me, in less than a year I would be in India with those very children that the Lord had so heavily burdened my heart for and had me praying for long before I ever knew He would take me there. I hesitate to share this experience because the Lord does not need to give such experiences to call His followers onto the mission field, but in this case He did. It would be a sweet comfort that I would often think back on when my heart would question if God was in all that was about to transpire.  

My perfect plan of going to New Tribes Bible Institute that winter no longer gave me peace. Following the Lord’s prompting, I was now heading to India, still baffled that I was going out of order of what made logical sense to me. His ways are always better. The large sum of funds that needed raised was daunting. I had a few ideas of how I could raise the funding, but after one fundraiser meal all the money and an additional $420 had come in. It would serve to be yet another comfort that the Lord knew the plans He had for me.

On January 13, 2013, I was headed around the world with 10 other girls. I had been sponsoring Indian children and native missionaries for years. My room was covered in collages of all the scraps of paper of beautiful people I had torn out of magazines years before, never really considering that the Lord would actually take me to this country that I loved so dearly. The poverty was sickening and their way of life was anything but comfortable. I loved sleeping on the concrete floors with geckos scaling the walls above me. The heat, stench, squatty potties and cobras didn’t bother me in the least. To get to be with and minister to the people that the Lord had given me a heart for was the greatest gift!

Our days were filled with tutoring our children, going on prayer walks, speaking in schools, and ministering in the slums. There was no place I’d rather be and nothing else I would rather do. It took me all of ten days to surrender my life to the Lord and be open handed about living my life here in this country. On different of our prayer walks we would witness the Lord heal people miraculously. Paralyzed men would stand up and walk! Blind received sight! It didn’t become less exciting as they happened more and more frequently, but it did become more normal and expected. But greater than these miracles was to get to witness the believers in this persecuted place thriving and growing in number!

Three weeks into the trip, a friend and I started feeling comfortable, and in an effort to avoid complacency we began praying and fasting. Demonic activity isn’t a foreign concept in India, where the Hindus worship hundreds of thousands of gods. Within the week we both came down with weird illnesses. They were able to diagnose and treat hers. I did not have the same experience. My body was no longer able to sleep. The first two weeks weren’t bad. It was enjoyable to go strong all day and have all night to worship and memorize and read my Bible. By week three, the tiredness had grown into extreme exhaustion, and my body systems started to take their turns shutting down. I could no longer walk on my own. I would lie on my mat all day, and in the evening I would muster any ounce of strength I had and two girls would help me walk down the road so I could join everyone for worship! What rich, sweet worship that was! When you see the depths of your frailty, and death seems more of a reality than life, how much sweeter the Lord and His provisions are!!

Breathing became laborious. I would have episodes where my heart would pound faster than I thought was possible and then seem to stop. After some time it would return to a steady pace. During those times I would gasp for breath. One would think this would be alarming. But I had such saturating peace. There was no fear, but only a comforting, pervading presence of my Savior that I never wanted to leave. A comfort that made leaving everything and everyone I loved so dearly on this Earth the only worthy thing to do. A comfort that welcomed death and was not afraid of it. What glory resides in our Maker and Perfecter, glory that drowns out every thought of anything else. What a gift we have awaiting us!

There was one day that stands out in particular. As I close my eyes to rest them, a very decorated Indian truck comes shrieking toward me and plows into me. My body jerks and eyes open to realize I am still alive. Closing them again, I am falling off a multistory building. I hit the ground hard and my body again jerks and I open my eyes to find myself still on the floor. Agitated, but unable to do anything but close my eyes yet again, I am taken up, up, up by a  wave in the sea and flipped around and smashed down hard, causing my body to shake violently. When I open my eyes, I see the dark forms crouching all around me. Their mouths don’t move, but I hear them in unison saying in a nonhuman voice, “We are trying to kill you and it’s not working!” The horror that was felt in their presence was crippling, but the wave of relief and comfort that attended me afterwards cannot be put into words. What a privilege it is to reside in the One who is greater than he who is in the world.

My body no longer took orders from my brain. Reaching over to pick up my Bible became a battle with myself. I would demand it and try and try to convince my arm to move, and it lay limp and paralyzed next to me. Eating became a choking fest. Even the few small bites I managed to chew left me sweating and panting for breath. After a few days of this, I was taken to the hospital. There they came to the conclusion I had cancer and needed to be flown home. What heartbreaking news, and I don’t mean about the cancer. Three days in the hospital amounted to $420. What provision the Lord had so tenderly provided, long before I ever knew its purpose. He had prompted the body of Christ to give to the exact dollar necessary for all that He had planned for me to endure on the trip. 

I told my team I wasn’t leaving; they must not have understood me. Three days later I was at Ruby Memorial in Morgantown, West Virginia, confirming that I had cancer and needed to return to start the work up for chemo and radiation.

I was devastated to be ripped from the country I loved so much. I had determined what I wanted my service to the Lord to look like, and my anger towards the Lord revealed the idol I had grasped so tightly. It would take me a couple years to fully surrender to being content to serve the Lord in America.

Upon returning for treatment, they confirmed that cancer was no longer in my body. My health returned and I went to New Tribes Bible Institute in Michigan. By the second semester, I was in and out of the ER many times and was hospitalized again for a few days after an emergency surgery. By the end of third semester at the end of 2014, I was unable to continue and returned home. Yet another thing I was unable to complete. How grateful I am that my worth is not dependent on what I can accomplish.

So much exposure to the medical field gave me a desire to go for nursing. In the fall of 2015, when I had gotten enough strength back, I enrolled for my prerequisites for nursing school at Garrett College. This too I would not be able to finish. My undiagnosed health issues continued for years. I wasted extravagant amounts of time sitting in doctors’ offices, getting countless labs and scans taken, and all to no avail. These were depressing and hard years. The prime of my life, and I was in bed or soaking in the tub the majority of my days. The Lord was ever present and always at work in my heart. Even though the body was wasting away, my inner being was strengthened day by day. Those seven years of sickness hold very sweet memories where I walked in deepening dependence on my Maker, and those years hold horrible memories of when I refused to believe the truth about my God and resorted to other measures of comfort and walked in sin. Both avenues showed me the glory of God. Through one, I experienced His rich presence, and through the other I experienced His forgiveness and His redeeming grace that has rescued me from my wretched self.

I wrestled long and hard loosening my grip of works-based worth. I could now do nothing for my Lord, and He loved me the same! Oh what freedom to know my value is not dependent on the ministry I can be involved in or the hours I work a week. The world would call me useless and a waste; but I never once lost any ground in the Lord’s eyes. I would much rather desire to serve the Lord yet be stuck in bed too sick to do any of it, than to have all the strength in the world and want nothing to do with my Creator. The Lord requires trust and worship from us, both of which I could do in the sick bed.

Easter meant so much more to me when I was sick. Jesus died my death, he bore the wrath that I deserved, so that my death could be sweet! He died to take away my sin and pain and exhaustion. I was not afraid to die, I actually welcomed and longed for death! But I was terrified of continual torture. It seemed as though this pain and exhaustion was here to stay. Every specialist confirmed like the last that there were no answers or help to give. Jesus died so this would not be my reality. “Oh, what a miracle it would be for you to be healed!” people would say. But I had found comfort knowing that He had already done what was necessary for my healing. What I thought was a greater miracle was to continue to love and depend on the Lord who was allowing the sickness to remain. In Him I am whole and perfect and fully healthy, whether I experience it yet or not. Chronic illness has a way of giving you eyes for eternity. The here and now is not glamorous, and it strengthens your eyes and heart by fixating on eternity! What rich hope He has given us now and for the age to come!

A lot of people didn’t know how to interact with me anymore. I became known as the “sick girl,” and my health was the only topic some would ask me about. Some avoided me, others said very hurtful things.  I didn’t want to talk about it, and yet it affected every part of my life. I didn’t feel like a “poor girl” as they called me. I felt as though I had received a weighty gift. Though there were seasons of my sickness that I would not have called a gift, there were long stretches of times that I embraced for the gift that it was, of walking closer with my Savior. Bearing suffering in the body enables us to relate in the smallest of ways to the One who has suffered on our behalf.

Year six of sickness, the Lord brought my husband into my life. How patient and humble he was to pursue my lifeless self. Our dating more often than not consisted of him holding my feet while I lay on the couch too tired to even speak. We got married not knowing how long I would make it, and pretty certain that children were out of the picture apart from a miracle. My biggest fear in marriage was getting pregnant. My body could barely sustain my own life, and losing a little life because I could not support it was more than I could bare.

July 27, 2019 was our wedding day. What a beautifully exhausting day. Great measures were taken to ensure that I would be able to attend. We had it first thing in the morning, before the pain was excruciating and the exhaustion was debilitating. Between pictures Daniel would hold my bouquet that I could just barely manage on my own. There was a chair for me at every point in the ceremony, and a friend designated to take me out when I became too overstimulated. Our pictures were taken after the wedding to ensure that I had the energy to make it through the ceremony.

What a picture of Christ and the church! I walked numbly down the aisle, having nothing in my body to offer; wearing white yet conscious of my impurity. The bridegroom receiving me with joy, vowing to love and cherish and care for me, absorbing all of my shortcomings. My husband is not Christ, but he does exemplify Him so very well!

A couple months later I was basically bedridden. Months went past and I had not gone anywhere. Stepping outside would take my breath away. Either the heat or the slightest breeze would send my heart racing and shaking uncontrollably. Watching movies is what most sick people resort to for fun. But my mind and eyes could not work fast enough, and the overstimulation would set in within a couple minutes. If people would come to visit, I tried so hard to put together what they were saying. Trying to string words together in a cohesive way to respond in a timely manner was too exhausting to handle very long. How badly I wanted to be known and understood. The Lord knew me. He understood me more than I did myself. And He loved me! That reached me in my loneliest hours and was the refuge that I abided in. The God that made the universe and held the stars in orbit knew my weaknesses and made a way for me to come to Him!

November 1st of 2019, the Lord miraculously healed me. I had gone to a recommended chiropractor as a last ditch effort because the pain and stiffness in my contorted body was unbearable. At the first appointment, he had suggested using his beam ray machine. I was a bit suspicious about this device, having never heard of anything like it before. I prayed the Lord would make known if I should go forward with his treatment plan, and that He would protect me from even more devastation of another plan not working. Up to this point there were years of treatment undergone that had done substantial damage to my body. I didn’t know if my weak body could bear any more.

A thought of a friend I hadn’t interacted with in years can to mind. I remember thinking it strange that the thought came across my mind as it did. After reading the book he had given explaining the resonance machine, a text was on my phone from that very friend. A text explaining her dream that she needed to share with me. It was a dream about sick cows; we found grass that made them well.  Then we went around telling everyone of this grass that had made the cows well. The grass signified the treatment, and I knew this would be the next step the Lord had for me to take. Upon returning to the chiropractor, he had to tell us that as he was praying for me that week, he began weeping and knew that the Lord was going to do something amazing. The word “baby” was given to him and he asked if that meant anything to me. It was such a sweet confirmation from the Lord. More than any pain or limitation I had experienced in the past seven years, more than the disappointments of not being able to complete or pursue anything, the greatest ache I carried was knowing that I could not bear children. He prayed over me and treated me and I went home healed! I was able to stand at the stove and cook a meal! I was able to talk! I had emotions again that I was strong enough to feel and didn’t have to avoid. Six weeks later we were pregnant! What a glorious gift that the Lord did not have to give us! He would be just as Good if I had remained sick. He would have been just as Good if He brought me home to be with Him! He is glorious in the sustaining of trials and He is glorious in the giving of blessings! Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Simeon, our firstborn’s name, means “Out of My Suffering.” What life the Lord has brought out of my body that was all but dead! He is three now, and as I call out his name for him to stop hassling his sisters, I am reminded that they are all gifts that I never thought I’d get! Sometimes several days go by without a thought of my previous sickness. But it is brought to mind by the simplest of things: an exhausting night, laughing with my husband, kissing my daughter's hair, working out, waking up refreshed, pushing out a baby! Memories of being sick no longer cause me to be anxious, they cause me to rejoice knowing that God is faithful in the abundance of blessings, and He is faithful in the abundance of suffering.