Wednesdays With Watson: Faith & Trauma Amy Watson- PTSD Patient-Trauma Survivor

Harmony in Heartbreak, the Lydia & Cameron Garner Story of Faith and Fortitude

• Amy Watson: Trauma Survivor, Hope Carrier, Precious Daughter Of The Most High God • Season 6 • Episode 8

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When Lydia Gardner joined us on the Wednesdays With Watson Podcast, she brought with her a story that interweaves suffering with an unwavering strength of spirit. Her journey—a testament to faith's power in the darkest times—is one she shared openly, navigating through personal trials, from the anguish of infertility and premature childbirth to the resilience required in facing unemployment and time in the NICU. 

Our emotional discussion took a heartfelt turn as Lydia recounted the communal outpouring of support during her son Ezekiel Cameron's health battle. By sharing their grief, Lydia and her family tapped into a universal need for connection, discovering solace within a global prayer network and the compassionate care of Christian medical staff. Lydia's moving tribute to Ezekiel, through the hymn "It Is Well," exemplified the healing power of music and faith, offering a poignant message of finding peace amidst profound loss.

Concluding our time together, Lydia’s reflections on the legacy of her missionary parents, Garth and Lynette Piper, brought to light the urgency of living a life that contributes to the gospel's reach. She spoke of stewarding our time, talents, and even our pain, to support others navigating similar challenges. Her story, rich with hope and transformation, is an encouragement to listeners to embrace the transformative potential of faith, and to hold fast to the hope that can alter the course of lives.

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Speaker 1:

When peace, like a river, attends death my way, when sorrows, like sea Villars roll, whatever my lot, that has taught me to stay, it is well. It is well with my soul.

Speaker 3:

If you are in youth ministry, those kids aren't listening to you. You're never going to get through to them. Think again, because today's guest is Lydia Gardner, who is the daughter of Gareth and Lynette Piper, who are part of my redemption story. They were my youth pastors and we're going to talk about that a little bit today, but Lydia is here as a part of our by faith series. We'll talk about the Bible and the Bible will be written today Lydia Gardner. Cameron Gardner's name would be in it. Lydia, welcome to the Wednesdays with the LLP Podcast.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. It's an honor to be here. I've been listening for many years and, as I told you before, I feel very honored to be asked.

Speaker 3:

Well, I'm sorry it's under these circumstances, but I'll talk about some fun things first. So, first of all, it is Wednesday where I am, it is Thursday where you are, so tell the listeners house tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

It's beautiful, there are blue skies.

Speaker 3:

And it also is summer there, or becoming summer anyway, maybe spring right. Yes.

Speaker 3:

Okay, guys, so we are talking to Lydia, from New Zealand, where she and her husband and four precious boys live. But, lydia, so the connection here between me and you, as I mentioned in the intro, there is your parents, mr and Mrs Piper I've got hives calling them Garth and Lynette just now or they were my youth pastor at Victory Baptist Church In Jacksonville, florida, which the listeners know what an impact that church made on my life. But I wanted to tell you something about your mom and dad. That's not going to surprise you at all, but so on Sunday nights so this was after I was removed from my mom by the state of Florida and I was living with Gayle and Ray Dunning, and your mom and dad were new youth pastors at our church. I don't know how old they were, this would have been in 1985, 1986, something like that and so that night, when the state took me from my mom, I needed somewhere to go, and so a couple people just kind of stood up at the church and said, well, we'll take her this time, we'll take her this time, we'll take her this time.

Speaker 3:

Well, your mom and dad got the night that I went to church and told Gayle what was going on in my home, and this was way before you guys were born. So I had just gone through this unbelievable trauma. I went to church and told Gayle about it and of course, they weren't going to send me home, so I stayed with your mom and dad in this little house. If I were in Jacksonville I could drive you to it and your mom well, first of all, your dad Like every Sunday night we would.

Speaker 3:

I can't remember what it was called, but we were walking through the book of 1st Timothy and that made such an impact on me in terms of character and to see your dad this many years later. Gosh, I was 15 years old and I just turned 52. I can't even do that math in my head, but seeing him faithful with the gospel so many years later as missionaries to New Zealand is very cool. So anyway, he made a tremendous impact on me, which was interesting because he was the man, and then it did nothing but hurt me.

Speaker 3:

But your parents they probably still are super cool and fun and hip and all the things, but they were young, probably not even out, probably not even out of their 20s, if I'm being honest with you.

Speaker 2:

No, early 20s.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so anyway. So I stayed the night with them and my body did what bodies do when it's been through trauma, and I had never. You know, bedwetting is kind of a hallmark symptom Of children who have experienced trauma, but that had never been my story. But that night that happened to me and I remember waking up being just devastated that your mom and dad that I had wet their bed, essentially, and so I remember just kind of quickly getting the sheets and finding the washer and your mom to the stage. She's gonna find out when she listens to this podcast. Oh yeah, she did do that.

Speaker 3:

But they are part of my story. They're part of the reason why I'm sitting here today and I know how much you adore them. But I wanted to give them a shout out on this podcast Because they are a part of the Amy Watson story. Both of them loved me unconditionally. Your dad and your mom, both still on Facebook, still big supporters of me Tried to get to see them when they were here twice now in Furlough, and neither time have gotten to be able to see them. But you sit here in front of me today, so many years later, as an ambassador of a message, and so we are in the by faith series and I'm asking people to come onto the podcast who have suffered trauma, who have suffered loss and, frankly, I'm cheating on my dissertation Because I want to prove in my doctoral dissertation the faithfulness of God scientifically, statistically. I want to talk to enough people who held on to their faith so that I could write a dissertation about it.

Speaker 3:

But I want people out there who had earbuds in their ears To know that, no matter what they're going through, no matter how dark it is, that there's other people in this world who love Jesus and suffer unimaginable loss, and so we're going to talk about that today. But the first question I want to ask you it's the same question I'm asking everybody is Tell us what faith just that word faith Means to you.

Speaker 2:

Right. Well, I had a good think about it the last few days, and to me, faith and hope as well. They're just so intermingled and for me it's the childlike trust that God knows all and sees the big picture that I cannot see. And you know, when I think of my faith in God, it's just this confident expectation that he knows what's going to happen.

Speaker 2:

So I don't need to worry, and I see that faith that our children have in us, and I see that I can understand why in the Bible they talk so much of a child-parent relationship, because that desire for us to have our children Just trust us when we can't always tell them what's going on or why exactly we're asking them to do something. It's like that with God he's asking us to do things Sometimes that we just cannot even begin to comprehend. But I know, without a doubt, that God has a plan and that he's going to use it for good, and so my faith in him it's not blind, it's been tested, and so I understand that what I talk about today Will seem totally incomprehensible to some people, because they haven't walked my walk, they haven't been down the road we've been down, and so it's not. The faith I have now is not the same faith I had 15 years ago, before I got married. It's a faith that's grown with trials, and I'm thankful for those trials Because they helped us lead up to where we are today.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, beautiful answer. I love the analogy of children and the childlike faith and how parents Obviously want the best for their children and the scripture that's posted in my brain. And your parents are going to be really disappointed in me, because I know the verses but I don't always know, as Adam McGowan called the address. But there's a scripture that says that no good thing does a father withhold from his children. But yet we're on a podcast talking about trauma and loss. How do we hold both of those together? And that's what we're going to talk about today. Now there is one massive loss that you have experienced in your life recently. But, if I'm right and we can edit this out if I'm not but you guys had some struggles and some loss before the loss of last year. Is that correct? Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Well, when I think of what grew my faith the most, I go back to our first year of marriage, 14 and a half years ago, and my husband lost his job seven months into marriage and it was during a recession and he was a flight instructor and he couldn't get a job for a year and a half. That was massive because I was working and we were dealing with infertility and we were dealing with all these things and wondering where our next meal was going to come from. You know, we never missed a meal. We had people that would drop off groceries. They didn't know we needed them. That was a miracle of God. We had so many things, but during that time I did ask God why I was still a Y Christian. Why is this happening? I'm sure many people understand.

Speaker 3:

I love that. A Y Christian, I like that.

Speaker 2:

Well, after that, as it turned out, I did eventually get pregnant during that time and I was getting late in the pregnancy and I'm like, okay, lord, now would be a great time for him to get work. I wanted to be a stay at home mom and I ended up having him the baby six weeks early. I was getting ready for work and suddenly there was five hours later I had him in my arms and he was in NICU for three weeks and my husband still didn't have a job. We're like, okay, lord, come on, what's going on? Anyway, the week we got home from hospital with baby, with Josiah.

Speaker 2:

It was such a blessing because that week Cameron got called by a temp agency and was offered a job and we're like, yes, yes, we'll take it whatever it is. It was like his worst nightmare. It was on the phones but he was just so pleased because it was work and we were pleased and it's like, okay, god answered our prayers. In hindsight we see that had he had any job start in the months prior, he would have had no time off accumulated for when we had the baby early and when we had to go up to the hospital like a million times, and we see God's hand in that, because he had all that time just to support me and that, honestly, was the last time I doubted God. Wow.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and that was 12 years ago, and ever since then we've had another career loss. We've had 10 moves. We've done a lot.

Speaker 3:

You had a few miscarriages too, didn't you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I had. The one that really challenged us especially was in 2021, I lost a baby at 14 weeks and that was our fifth baby and I'd had a really, really, really hard pregnancy where I couldn't even read at all, like my brain chemically was changed. It was very strange and very, very hard and I lost the baby and I learned a lot about grief through that and learning how to ride the waves and how to cry when I needed to cry and how to not be absorbed with grief, I guess, just to live life but still grief.

Speaker 3:

What did that? What did the miscarriage in particular do for your faith?

Speaker 2:

I think it made me more aware of heaven. Wow, it was a hard year. There was a lot going on culturally.

Speaker 2:

It was already a very emotional year with all the stuff going on it was already very challenging and and it was hard because I didn't necessarily feel even comfortable being pregnant right then, and so there was this mixed emotion and so when I lost the baby, there was a element of relief which makes you wonder. Any mum, a lot of mums that have miscarriages, feel a sense of grief and shame and guilt and all these things, and I worked through a lot of that by writing a song, because you're very musical as well. It touches you and that touches me as well, and I had to recognize that my feelings can't affect whether or not I get to keep a baby. That's not how it works. I trust a god, though I'm like, okay, it's not now and it wasn't for a while.

Speaker 2:

It was the first time we ever actually prevented was after that, because I was quite scared of being as unwell in the brain as I was during that time. But my faith has only gotten stronger through its circumstance, because I knew that god would use our story and that with somebody else, and he has for sure. I brought up the conversation because I love to just talk, I love to talk through things. So on Facebook I'm like you know what I've heard from so many people that they didn't really ever get to talk or process their miscarriages, and so I opened up that conversation and I had women that had miscarried 30 years earlier and never talked about it who were saying the things that they wish they'd known, and so, just to be able to facilitate conversations I wouldn't have had otherwise, you know, I just see god working through our story, often almost immediately after grief or during grief.

Speaker 3:

It's interesting that you bring up Facebook, because obviously that's how you and I know each other. I mean, I know you through your parents but in my heart's beating fast, because this is going to be just a difficult episode for sure. I remember the first day, though, that you posted about Ezekiel Cameron, and, however you're comfortable, I would just love for you to tell us that story, as much or as little as you want.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so we had four healthy boys and we had just gone on an amazing summer holiday over Christmas, our first Christmas with mom and dad in 10 years, actually on the day and we'd gone to family camps afterwards and we'd noticed that his tummy had gotten a bit distended and at first, you know, you justify things. It's like, oh, in his case, oh, he had some gluten, or oh, he's been overeating because it's summer and Christmas and we're eating rich foods. And at one of the camps my friend was a nurse and she's like now she get this checked out today. And I was like, okay, because we were gonna check it out in like four days from then, when we were home, sat our GP, so that was gonna be fine. And we took him to the GP and he said, oh, that's constipation. We're like, okay, you know, no big deal.

Speaker 2:

Nothing our boys had ever had was a big deal. He'd never even been to the doctor till that day. He'd been very healthy, um, anyway. So that was fine. We tried doing laxatives. That was very uncomfortable for him, um, but there was nothing changing. And so a week later, when I did take him back to the doctor, we'd done all the stuff they told us to do and it still wasn't getting better. I knew in my heart it was probably very serious. I I was fully expecting tumors of some sort. That was in my mind, because I'm kind of a worst-case scenario kind of person. I don't stress about it, but I think about worst-case scenarios.

Speaker 3:

Call your roommate. She drives me crazy, but it's a good school to have around you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I always I mean, I'll drive down the road and I'm thinking, oh, I could die there, oh, we could die there. You know, like I, just I I always think about life and death constantly, and so I've taught my boys to think the same way, not in a negative way, but in a this is just what it is. Um, anyways, I took him to our GP and from the first moment that she even basically touched him, she, she asked me a few more questions and she said all right, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna get him straight to the hospital to get some scans. And I was pleased because that's what I was gonna push for and I didn't have to.

Speaker 2:

So she knew that it was very serious and he and I went straight up to our local hospital and we got some scans in the ER and we went up to the pediatrics ward and a doctor there is actually the cousin of my brother-in-law and we'd met him once before.

Speaker 2:

He's the chief medical officer and also I was head of pediatrics at the time, and so when I saw him, he came in and he saw Zeke and he started touching and at this point I was pretty calm because you know you keep calm for your kids. You know you, you have to um, and I think probably one of the most difficult moments of the journey was when he looked up at me after having sort of palpated his tummy and stuff, and he just looked up at me with most gentle eyes and he said all right, so now would be the time to go ahead and call your husband to come in and be with you and um, and I knew then it was like really, really, really serious, because we live 45 minutes from town and had three other boys to get somebody to watch, and that was like you know, the heart drops moment.

Speaker 2:

And we had some plans in place in case something like that happened, because I was quite concerned, and so we had a friend come and came and brought up stuff for the night and he was going to stay with Zeke in the hospital and we had some more scans done and Cameron arrived just in time, which I was so relieved because I wasn't allowed to go into some of the rooms for like x-rays and stuff because I was pregnant at the time in my second trimester, and so he went in there and I finally could cry while they were in there because I'd been holding it together and finally I wasn't. That didn't have to be the strong one, and they gave us that that it might be something like lymphoma and I've had friends that have had lymphoma and I know that it's reasonably high survival rate. So to us on day one it's like, okay, we can do this. It's going to involve a lot because we live two and a half hours from the hospital that chemo would be happening at and stuff, but we can do this. You know it's fine. The next day we went up to Christchurch hospital, which is two and a half hours away, and we had to wait because that was on a Tuesday that we found out on the Wednesday. We went up there on the Thursday morning, we talked to the oncologist and he, actually even before having seen anything but the scans we'd already had done, he talked to us and he said I'm pretty sure this is what I think it is. I don't have the diagnostics yet, but it does not look good and it's very unlikely to be treatable. If it is what I think it is.

Speaker 2:

And for us, we've had on our radar for many years a lot of natural remedies, a lot of things that you can do to fight cancer that are outside of the system. And so for us we're like well, we have a child that would have absolutely had to do chemo, whether we wanted it or not. That's just how the system works and you don't have a choice with children. And so that was what we were expecting to have as our journey. And now he's saying that wouldn't even necessarily work. So we don't know exactly what it's going to be until we have the diagnosis, but prepare for the worst, essentially. And to us we heard okay, there's a green light, we can try everything, we can throw everything at this, all the alternatives, without getting a fight. And so I'm like, okay, we know lots of people that have had stage four. They've been giving death diagnosis and they've fought it and they've won.

Speaker 2:

So to us we still had a lot of hope, and I didn't even cry in that meeting because we were going right back to Zeke's room afterwards and so I didn't want him to see us distressed. So we held it together and the doctor as it turned out, he was also a Christian, because I was talking to him later and I was sharing, I was wearing my it is well with my sole necklace and I was sharing how that was Zeke's favorite song and that it truly was. We had peace and he knew the story of the writer of Horatio Beef's, bafford, and he knew about him having lost his children. And so we went back to Zeke's room and we said, hey, you know we're going to be fighting this, we're going to be doing some things to try to help you get better. And he just was at peace all the way up until the very end. He trusted us and that's the truth.

Speaker 3:

So it's a video of him singing as well with your soul, with that outpost, when this episode goes live, because it is precious.

Speaker 2:

I'm so glad we have that. That was just a couple of days, or within days, of getting home. He was just picking it out on the piano, so he just loved to. He picked it out on the piano, so I have a video of him playing it. And then I was like, do you want to sing it together? And he said yes, and so I'm so glad I did that because it is so precious. But we still had so much hope all the way through.

Speaker 2:

And that night was when I was staying there at the hospital because he had to have some biopsies and stuff to check and see what the tumors were made of and all this stuff, and I didn't cry until he was down getting, I think, the biopsy done. And then the poor food nurse she comes in and she'd brought one meal and I was starving. It was like one o'clock, I was pregnant, I was so hungry, I was stressed a bit not too much, but I was there, whether you know it or not and she brings in one meal and I didn't know to hit times two on the food thing. It was meal.

Speaker 2:

So when she came in and only brought one, I just started bawling. All the stress came out. Those poor nurse, she's just a food lady and I said I've just been told my son is probably not going to survive and I'm like you know, I just cried and she just gave me a big hug and I appreciated it because I needed somebody right then. But most of the time, I mean, it was just this incomprehensible piece from God. The whole journey, and he kept sending music and I know you love music and all along I would share these songs. That were the ones that God was speaking to me through, like the first one. I'll never forsake you. That was my top song on Spotify this year. I listened to it like 40 times, but I'm sure it was more. So I think I listened to it on YouTube sometimes too, but yeah, so it was just.

Speaker 3:

There's a song. It's called Sufficient. For Today, sufficient is my top song because, as I sit here listening to you, I'm grateful for the way that you have walked it out publicly. Right, you clearly are clinging to your faith, and so is Cameron, and so are your boys, and you kind of drop this in there all in nowhere, but guys, in the middle of all of this, she was pregnant, so a new baby is born now. But I was so grateful for the way you walk it, or that you are walking it out, because Zeke passed away and it was. Was it July?

Speaker 2:

So I had the new baby in July and he passed away. So Zeke was sick only six and a half weeks from diagnosis before he died. Yeah. So it was an end of February, so it's been, so not even a year, not even a year.

Speaker 3:

So I've watched you walk it out on Facebook and admit and admit might be a bad word, but in the Christian world you know. You know if the wrong person talks to you, you're not ever supposed to feel sad or doubtful or yours. You know it's a name. It claim it through Bible, versus at it.

Speaker 3:

And you're doing that. Hmm, You're grieving it. You're telling us that you're grieving it. You're giving us the opportunity to pray for you. What is it about our Jesus that makes that so irresistible? That makes hanging on to faith? First of all, I can't express how sorry I am for the loss of this young man. Thank you.

Speaker 3:

And watching it with your mom. There's also a video of her asking him Zeke, do you know where you're going to go die? Yeah, how do you know Zeke? Well, because I asked Jesus in my heart and I'm going to get to go to heaven, and these videos are on social media and halfway around the world. I'm like this is what faith looks like.

Speaker 3:

And you mentioned music, and I keep mentioning this on every episode. This one in particular, I thought of you when it first came out as a song by Corey Asbury. It's called Kind and one of the lyrics literally in the song is sometimes marriages don't work, sometimes babies die, sometimes rehab turns to rehab and we're left just asking why. Sometimes I wonder if he is real. And if he is, how is he choosing who? He does and doesn't heal? And then he goes on and goes. But on that day, in the darkest day in history, when I looked up at the cross, it finally occurred to me that's what kindness costs. So, lydia, I ask you has God been kind to you and the loss of Zeke? And if so, tell us how.

Speaker 2:

Ah, god has been so good. You know, I was listening to some of your old podcasts, and in one of them you're talking about how the spirit of gratitude makes all the difference, and so one of my nicknames is Lydiana, like Pollyanna. Love it.

Speaker 2:

But I've been raised to be thankful and to look for the things to be thankful in, and so, yes, I see God's kindness in it all and the songs that make me cry the most at the moment are about God's goodness, because I just feel it. I feel it so deeply. God is so good and I feel overwhelmed by his goodness. So, absolutely, I mean, there was miracle after miracle. We had all these Christian doctors, which, in a very, very secular country, is a huge deal. We had a beautiful Christian nurse in the oncology ward. You know, we had this support. We had people praying for us from all around the world. That was fun.

Speaker 3:

That was a bad word, yeah no, I understand it was.

Speaker 2:

No, it was.

Speaker 3:

Powerful to watch on, play out on Facebook Like powerful. I mean, from people from New Zealand to Jacksonville, florida, to Tampa, florida and everywhere in between. We were praying. You were even responsible with his story as so, those six and a half weeks, what felt to me like two weeks, but you were even responsible in that, and I just want to tell you publicly how much I appreciate your representation of the star of the story of Jesus, because you say, yeah, this hurts. Sometimes I cry.

Speaker 3:

One of the most painful things that I, when I see you write on Facebook, is we're still getting used to counting to four, because you would be counting to five, yeah, if you didn't have your youngest baby. And so I just you know, guys, I don't know how to tell you how this is a sustaining faith or some. We are not wired to bury our children, and so you know. I just want my listeners to know what it is that you're grabbing onto and then that we can effectively walk it out, because he wants to be our ever present help in trouble. And so, lydia, if there are people and there will be who have lost a child to either a miscarriage or this precious, precious young man, he was just days short of his ninth birthday and it's unimaginable to me but I wasn't giving, given the grace that God has given you in Cameron.

Speaker 3:

As I watch you across this computer screen I'm like I am so confused by this right now. But I'm not really, and I think people probably think that about me. They probably look at me like how are you even speaking complete sentences, much less trying to live for the Lord? And you mentioned faith and hope or inner twinkle to enter twine. I have to say I have to put grace grace Also. My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness and I love how you guys are walking through it.

Speaker 3:

What is your message to people who did not have the experience that you had, where you had to kind of hold on to your faith during those times? It's interesting that you mentioned that about provision when Cameron didn't have a job and things like that, because I tell people I trust God with my eternal salvation but I'm not sure that I'm going to have a food tonight and in my adult life I've never not eaten, never not had a roof over my head, but I have a hard time trusting Him with that. You go from that to losing this precious young man, ezekiel Cameron Garner. People are listening to you right now. They're clean and hope. They want to die, probably. What do you say to them from your mom's heart?

Speaker 2:

You know, the verse that God gave me for motherhood is 2 Timothy 1.7. And I haven't memorized, but I wrote it down, For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. And you know, there's there's no end of things that we can be afraid of in this life. There's no end Because a lot of parents are fearful of their children getting sick or of their children dying Of course that's the worst or they're afraid of where are we going to get our next meal? How are we going to survive financially? You know all of these things.

Speaker 2:

What I come back to is in Matthew 6, when he talks about I closed the lilies. The grass is going to be burned tomorrow, and yet I care about them. He cares about the sparrows, and so how much more does he care for us? And so when we have God's words in our heart which, thankfully, I grew up in a home where that was continually imprinted upon my heart was God's word and his faithfulness, through very faithful parents that I know that God's going to provide, and I know that he has given me the gift of these children and I had a time when I didn't know if I could have children. So I appreciate them so much more Because I had a time where I was told you might not be able to have children at all. So they're that much more of a gift.

Speaker 2:

But when you have an eternal view, like it says in Matthew 6, to seek ye first, the kingdom of God and all these things, and take no thought for the moral, Like I don't worry, like basically about anything, when Zeke was sick, I still was not very worrisome Because it's like, well, it's out of my control, what am I supposed to do? I can't control that. I can't even control if my house were to burn down. I can make provisions for things as much as possible. All of our stuff is temporary, and I said in a group the other day you know, we're in a very entitled generation where we think that everything that we have should be ours as long as we want it.

Speaker 3:

And easy. Everything should be easy.

Speaker 2:

And that's just not the case. That's not what life is. Life is hard, and so when Zeke got sick and you would have seen it like I said, people say why me, why me? And I said why not me?

Speaker 3:

I loved that. Why not me? And you are so faithful with this. I know that nights, when you lay in bed and cry, or you're in the shower and you cry and you and we miss Zeke, I miss Zeke. I didn't even know Zeke Because it was so amazing, so you could just tell that he was full of life. That song it is. Well, you're a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful voice. Would you sing a verse for us?

Speaker 1:

When peace like a river, I tend death my way. When sorrows like sea fillers roll, Whatever my love, Thou hast taught me to say, it is well. It is well with my soul, it is well, it is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul.

Speaker 3:

Is that well with you?

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah it is, and I love sharing Zeke's story and I have tissue, like I'm prepared to cry. I cry a lot, but I also have so much joy and I was telling Cameron the other day you know, this year, I think, when you, when you lose someone, you can either and I'm not saying it's wrong, okay, so like, how I do grief is different to how other people do grief and that does not mean that you're a failure at all.

Speaker 3:

Thank you.

Speaker 2:

And I think that all of our, all of our griefs added up to teach us faith and to teach us how to grieve, and that's and we're just that's where we're at. But I feel like, with God's grace and with the lessons that we've learned, I am like overwhelmed with God's love and I and I wrote about it the other day on Facebook because it's really hard to describe, but I haven't seen me for a while and they expect to see sadness.

Speaker 3:

I feel like I'm exploding with joy and it's like you are the YouTube, YouTube listeners, and this is not. This is, by the way, your, your parents are the reason why I know a lot of scripture too.

Speaker 3:

And and songs, and one of them is the joy of the Lord is my strength. I can't sing, so I won't. We will not, we will not, we will not subject you to that. There's no way to fake this right. There's no way to fake and you just said something so powerful All of all of our losses added up to where our faith is now, and that's where we're at, and one of the things that I am learning of late is that God's math is weird. Right.

Speaker 3:

Like the episode that dropped today, the episode that the guest was quoted and saying God is the only one that can turn a negative times, a negative times, a negative, into a positive, because that breaks all of logic, all of the rules, rules, all of math rules, all the rules. He's the only one that can turn these things into positive. And so, listeners, what you're, what you're hearing today from Lydia, is not name it, claim it. It's not fake, it's not anything except for the sustaining faith of the completed work of Jesus on the cross and Ezekiel, on his short time on this earth, he even walked through fully knowing that he was going to die. He walked through it with such joy and such happiness, really up until like the last day when your mom was with him and he just kind of slept a lot. But even he was all over Facebook and North America because I shared the tar out of those that story and the go fund me and all the things, because even seek, who made a profession of faith, had that joy. And so.

Speaker 3:

Lydia, one last question for you before we do invite the listeners to come to know Jesus. But if the Bible were still being written today? So we know? By faith, noah built the boat. By faith Abraham listened. By faith Isaac. By faith Jacob, what would you put behind by faith, lydia Garner, fill in the blank for me. Oh, that's really hard.

Speaker 2:

That's really hard. I mean because the thing I noticed when I was studying about these people was that, by faith, they stepped forward and did the hard thing, not knowing the outcome.

Speaker 3:

There you go. By faith, lydia stepped forward, doing the hard thing, not knowing the outcome, and by faith you're a good, you're an amazing steward of this pain. And I tell people that all the time people asked me about my life, and and I quote somebody that I don't even, not even sure is an actual pastor, but I like what he said when somebody said something to him, would you go through that again? And he said I wouldn't choose it, but I wouldn't change it. Do you feel a little bit like that, like I understand what you're saying, when you say that overwhelming love it's my. My trauma sometimes feels like God picked me.

Speaker 2:

I think that when you see how God can use every difficult thing in your life to bless others, that you stop seeing yourself as a victim. Yeah you know it's powerful.

Speaker 2:

Because he can. He wants to use us for his glory, and when you stop thinking about life as about you and about, instead, about God, all of a sudden everything that happens is for him, and a thing that I've shared a lot in the last few years that God has taught me is that I think that every Christian should see themselves as a full time Christian servant. You don't have to be a pastor, you don't have to be a pastor's wife, you don't have to be a staff member of a church or a missionary, but if you see every single thing that you do as for God's glory, then that will impact your life.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and if you understand that time is short and the mission is critical, because we're talking about the souls of people, the eternal souls of people, and I make no apologies on this podcast.

Speaker 3:

I love Jesus and he is the only reason why I am sitting here today. He is the only reason why any of us are sitting here today, and it is for his glory that all of this happens. My life first, philippines, 112,. I want you to understand. Paul wrote this. And so, for listeners who don't understand who Paul is, besides the fact that he wrote about 75% of the New Testament, paul was in prison. Paul, before he became a Christian, beat Christians bad dude that turned out to write about 75% of the New Testament, and he wrote this in Philippians one, verse 12,. I want you to understand that the things that have happened to me have really happened through further the gospel. And so Ezekiel, cameron Garner and all of you who have lost somebody, you can wrap it off a name like that, for God's glory. They are just on loan. They're just on loan to us. People are just on loan to us. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And to your point, lydia, this happened to me right before COVID started, and that on New Year's Eve, on 2019, I was laying in a bed at Disney World because I'm single, with no children, and I could do that, and we were staying where we could look at the park and literally I was laying in bed watching the fireworks. In 2019, going into 2020. And it had been an interesting year, but I thought, well, you know 2020, I'm going to pick a word. I'm not that person. I don't normally pick a word.

Speaker 3:

No hate to people to pick words, but I did this in 2020. And that word was expectant, based on Ephesians 320, who is able to do exceedingly abundantly. Above all, that we can ask or think, which I think is kind of a snapshot of your heart right now who in the?

Speaker 3:

world would think that you could have joy and sorrow meet and it land in the furtherance of the gospel, right. And so I think that, in all of that, people need to know that God never promised us. In fact, he told us, in this world you're going to have trouble, and so when he keeps His word, when we keep trouble, why not trust Him? Like he told us, this is not a surprise, right? And so, with all of that being said, I just you know you've been on my prayer list for since February, and I know that people will be blessed by what they've heard here today, and I know that this will be a wound that you will carry for the rest of your life. But the Bible also says that our suffering is producing for us a peculiar sense of glory. We find that in 1 Corinthians and back to, time is short and the mission is critical.

Speaker 3:

I picked that word expectant, and then, three months later, the world shut down and I'm like that was not exactly what I had in mind, god. And then what happened after that? Just a month later, we started the podcast, and because I woke up that New Year's Day January 1, 2020, with a prick on my heart with this phrase. Time is short, but the mission is critical, that everything I do in life needs to be for the furtherance of the gospel. To your point, I'm not in full-time Christian service, but I hope that I am serving the Lord with my life, understanding that everything on this earth you just said it the grass is going to wither. What I promise tomorrow? But what I am promised is that I'm going to stand before God one day. And he pretty much said who'd you bring with you?

Speaker 2:

You know, yeah, and we use our time wisely.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, how did you use your time? How did you use your gifts and how did you use your pain? Thank you for being a good steward of the story. Thank you for being a good steward of a part of your heart that will never come back alive again Unimaginable, but I don't have the grace that he's given you. And so God is good. He is amazing because your parents are the reason why we're sitting here having this conversation.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 3:

And so shout out to Garth and Lynette Piper, missionaries to New Zealand, who are my youth pastors, and so well, thank you for being here today. Partying words are yours, anything you want for our listeners.

Speaker 2:

I think what made the biggest impact in my life, besides my parents, was hearing the stories of those that had suffered loss before us. Their stories were what were going on in my head families that had lost multiple children in accidents, and they'd stayed faithful and they'd written tracks sharing their hope. And so, with joy, I share our story, hoping that for those that are after us that lose a child or lose a loved one, that you can know there is joy and there is hope on offer. You just gotta take it.

Speaker 3:

Ooh, hope on offer. That is a bit of a drop might drop hope on offer. Guys, take God up on that offer. It will change your life because all of our lives he has been faithful. All of our lives he has been so, so good, even in the face of unimaginable loss, trauma and tragedy. Between the two of us we got a little bit of it. Yeah. Thank you for being here today. Thank you.

Speaker 3:

Okay, guys, we'll be back in two weeks with another by faith story. By faith. Lydia knows that we can do the hard thing, so I hope that you found hope in her story today. Remember as I always say, and I proclaim over you and I proclaim over Lydia, cameron and their four precious boys and God, the one and the perfect. You are seen, you are known, you are heard, you are loved. So, so loved, lydia Valued. Thank you guys. We'll see you in two weeks.

Speaker 5:

You have pulled me out from the depths. You have saved me from certain debt. You have shown yourself faithful to me over and over Jesus, so let my life glorify you. Teach me to walk beside you. I want to be more like you, so let my life be one more trial for you. And when my hope is fading and when worries do assail me, I will remember how you you never failed me. You have pulled me out from the depths. You have saved me from certain debt. You have shown yourself faithful to me over and over Jesus, so let my life glorify you. Teach me to walk beside you. I want to be more like you, so let my life be one more trial for you. Mind by you, mind by you.

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Amy Watson

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