Chronic Illness and the Grace of Today: Finding Hope in a Pompe Disease Diagnosis

Welcome to followed by mercy with Austin Gardner.

This is where we talk about God's grace and mercy

that meets us and follows us even in our lowest moments

and lifts us to hope again.

No matter what's been broken, here's love still heals.

So let's move from pain to praise together

because surely goodness and mercy does follow me and pursue me

all the days of my life.

I want to welcome you back today to followed by mercy

because every believer can rest their assurance in this.

Surely goodness and mercy does follow me all the days of my life

at Psalm 23 and God has greatly used that in my life.

I'm joined by Robert and Kelly Canfield, very good friends.

You've already seen the last session

and I'm sure you have seen the darker side.

Though to be honest, they weren't quite that honest with it

because it can be a very embarrassing disease

and bad things can happen.

But today I want to help you focus on how God surely

goodness and mercy gets you through.

And so to be honest, Robert, in the car that day

you were crying, yeah, you were beating on the dashboard

of my truck with your fists.

I was like, I'm never able to sell this thing.

And you were hurt.

And you had every right to be.

I don't think anyone would ever question

that normal, natural response was what you were doing.

But God helped you.

Tell us how God helped you.

Yeah, so I told you that, you know,

I'm not going to be able to do this and we're not

going to be able to do this.

And I'm not going to be able to go to the mission field.

I'm not going to go there.

And by the way, that was Kelly's desire.

Kelly, you had wanted that for how many years?

Since I was 17 since I'd gotten saved.

Yeah, so she wanted it over a decade.

I surrendered.

I wanted to do something for God.

And I just even thought about living a normal life.

Does that make sense?

Like, you see old people.

I was working at a church and I was also delivering

pizzas at the time and in the evening.

And I'd drive down the road and you see couples walk.

And my mom would go back to it and I'm like,

we're not going to be able to do that.

I remember one time.

Mine people, why you wouldn't be able to do that?

Because she, I mean, the disease takes away her ability, her mobility.

Eventually, I'll end up in a wheelchair.

And so I remember when we were at a, a couple's retreat.

And nobody likes being the weird person.

You know what I mean?

No one, everyone likes to be in the group.

And we were walking from a restaurant back to the hotel.

And it was just everyone was like, almost a block away.

And we were just lagging behind.

And nobody likes that.

But I remember beaten telling you about all that stuff.

We're not going to.

And you said something that literally revolutionized my, my life.

And at that time, I'm pretty sure we were on a way, we were on our way

to see a guy that was, had a similar kidney cancer that you had.

Oh, I remember that now.

She mentioned it.

Because you got it shortly.

Yeah, you just, I did this funeral.

Yeah, you just, you just had your kidney removed

and you were dealing with all the other junk that you had.

And you were gracious enough in Holy Spirit led you to say, you know,

was it Matthew chapter 6 verse 34?

Take no thought for tomorrow.

For tomorrow's take thought for itself.

The fission is the evil is the day thereof.

I think I kind of paraphrase that.

But you spoke truth into my life in the sense of you said,

just worry about today.

You don't worry about the future.

Just worry about today.

Don't tackle or take on you.

Well, I need to hear that.

Kind of off of the moon laugh.

Because sometimes the Lord has room behind me.

It's easy preaching.

Yeah.

Hard living.

Hard living.

It is.

And but at that time, it literally, those words,

they ring true in my heart even till today.

And I think that's good for anybody that's going through suffering, pain.

But that's good for all God's disciples.

Like so many times we get our heart and our minds set on something in the future,

some goal, something that our hearts launched.

She said our heart was longing to go to the mission field.

And everybody has a dream.

And everybody has that thing that they're looking to achieve out there in the front.

And whether they realize it or not in their own mind,

they've created their own path, if that makes sense.

They've figured out how they're going to get to that goal.

But even Proverbs says, man's heart devised it this way.

But it's the Lord that directs the steps.

And so we have no clue where God is going to direct us.

And when I was at the training center, I used to teach young men.

I would always tell them, I was like, you guys say that you want to be a missionary,

but you have no clue.

And you say that you want to do this or that, but you have no clue.

And the only thing that you can really worry about is just today.

And when you told me that,

it's like something birthed in my heart.

It's like a veil that took away some blindness.

Don't worry about tomorrow.

Just worry about today.

Because a lot of times our future worries rob today's joys.

And so, and I was letting that happen.

But that was just one of the many battles.

Did he communicate that to you, Kelly?

He did.

Can you tell us how you feel about that?

How you feel about living the moment?

It was helpful to me, especially to see him live it by example as well.

Not just to preach at it, but to actually be living it too.

It is real easy to focus on what could be in the future.

And especially if something so dark and the unknown,

I want to just dwell on that and try to figure out.

If you look at the internet,

the internet will help you find every reason to want to shoot yourself.

That's true.

That is true.

But there's no peace in that, right?

There's no peace in trying to figure out the future and trying to figure out

how you're going to respond to this and how you're going to respond to that.

And I found that there's great freedom really in just trying to trust

the Lord day by day and live day by day just for today.

Well, I would like to just because I want people to leave today's pockets.

I wanted them to get what we gave them yesterday.

I wanted them to realize this is not a game, this is not a joke.

And what you're dealing with is way beyond that.

But you've been dealing with it now, how long?

I started noticing symptoms when I was 30.

And I'm 45 now.

We started, we found out it was Pompeii and I started getting treatment in 2014, right?

2012.

12 years?

She knew that she had limb girdle before animals here.

So Anne just turned 14 a couple days ago.

So she knew she had limb girdle.

What I want people to see here is God has given you a lot of great damage.

Yes.

Very much so.

Even the way he allowed us to figure out that she had Pompeii.

Because the doctor that we went to, you know, I like to think of it like this.

He lives in us.

And Jesus is actually alive in all three of us.

And he's living his life through us.

Galatians 2.20.

I'm crucified across.

I'm alive though I'm dead.

But Christ lives in me.

And the life I live and the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God.

I really live in, I don't have enough faith to make it through here.

But Jesus does and he lives in me.

And so the Holy Spirit did lead y'all to the, in everything.

And we, like our circumstances, I feel like they were very miraculous.

Yeah.

Well, I really, I believe they were.

And we're, I won't talk about treatments in a minute.

Some of the things happened there.

But you knew something was wrong with Charlotte.

At least when you were climbing the stairs carrying Charlotte.

Yes, okay.

Was that enough fare?

It was, yeah.

There were, I, we, I would talk to Robert and I would tell him that there's something.

And my wife told you, Betty told you something was wrong.

And that's all?

How long ago?

Well, Charlotte was an infant.

Over 15 years ago, about 15 years ago.

So you couldn't have any more children?

When we, when I started seeing the doctor, then that's when we found out I was expecting Ann.

So, so you could have more children.

Yes.

So God was good enough to give you another beautiful daughter.

You're like my granddaughters.

So I kind of like them a lot.

And then that's not all.

You adopted.

Another beautiful granddaughter.

They're not blood related, but they're my family.

And so, now you have three daughters.

Yeah.

The oldest is.

Rhea's 20, Charlotte's 15 and Ann's 14.

So God's giving you a lot of good days.

You can see us very much.

Every day that you say, like you, we can find the good in every day.

I was, I thought it was a bad gift.

They're in time.

It's like it's a mutated gene that she has.

And we don't have mutations that make us stronger like, you know, like the X-Men or something like that.

Our mutations make us weaker.

And I thought it was wicked.

I thought it was evil.

It's like this is sin-curged.

But I knew that every good gift and every perfect gift comes from the Father above.

I just didn't think it was a good gift.

I just thought it was like part of the curse.

You know, I really do believe God never wanted you to have this.

You know, I think it's easy.

If you're having a problem and you're dealing with it, you think, why'd God do this to me?

I don't think I did this to you.

I think the Bible teaches that God had us in a perfect paradise garden.

And we chose to ignore Him and to push Him to the side and decide that we would do what we wanted.

And basically Adam and Eve started this whole thing that we do where we want to be God.

We want to decide.

And so then we have to hide and mask ourselves.

But God takes what the devil meant and what sin meant to hurt you.

And God brings out Amen.

So I don't ever think I don't ever think I challenge those of you listening.

Don't blame God.

Amen.

The really is, I would agree with Robert that every day there's something good to be found.

Well, gratitude is the language of the Christian of heaven.

Because we're saved by grace.

We live by grace.

We deal with all the stuff that life brings.

And can we be honest, Christians aren't the only people that deal with Pompeii.

There's a lot of people that a lot of people deal with.

A lot of people deal with the can't try.

And so it's not a matter of, oh poor me, look what God did to me.

It's what living in a sin cursed world does.

But God takes the and turns it for good.

To speak of grace and something that really revolutionized my thinking early on.

And I listened to a sermon on this preacher was preaching about suffering.

And he said that that God will often take you where you wouldn't go,

so that he could produce in you something you could, you could not achieve on your own.

And that was really super helpful to me.

And then his response to that, he's like, do you know what the Bible calls that?

He said he, the Bible calls that grace.

He said a lot of times we think of grace as a soft pillow to lay our head on.

And he said that kind of grace will come, but mostly on the other side of heaven.

But the grace that we are given now is seen where God takes us, where we wouldn't go on our own

so that he could produce in us something that we couldn't achieve on ourselves.

And that really kind of that helped me think through this differently,

that it's not, it would not, it would be something that I would choose.

And I don't, and I don't think that, and I do agree with you that this is not something that God would want,

would have wanted me or anyone else to have.

But he does promise to bring beauty out of ashes.

That's what he does.

And he does promise to give us joy out of mourning.

And that's what he's done every day. That's what he does.

He should, there's always something that I can look to to say,

thank you for this grace.

It's wonderful.

I was talking about like the, when I thought about Pompeii, I always thought it,

like I said, it was negative, it was bad.

But then I realized that God gave me Kelly and got a loud Kelly to have Pompeii.

And there was a missionary that came in preach of the church,

and he preached about the death blind.

And I don't know if you remember this.

It was just missionary in Peru, Lima, the Joe Kotvis,

and he was talking about the death people.

And he brought up Exodus that God said, when God was speaking to Moses, he said,

I made the dumb.

I made the death.

And Joe brought out something that was pretty powerful.

We look at those deficiencies, and we think it's a negative thing.

We think it's bad.

But he said, God made him.

And I was teaching little kids actually this Wednesday.

And I was like, you know, God made us each fearfully and wonderfully made.

He made us awesomely.

And he made us all different.

And everyone has different stuffs.

And some people have genes that are really good genes.

And some people have really good blood pressure.

And some people have really bad blood pressure.

And some people have pumpay disease.

The reality is, is he allowed it all.

And I out oftentimes, you can look at that and you say, well, this is bad.

You know what I mean? This is bad.

But I couldn't.

I can't look at that because God gave me Kelly.

Does that make sense?

And she's a great gift.

She's one of the best gifts I've ever had.

Also, my salvation is the best.

And he gave us pumpay.

He allowed it to be.

I don't know if he, I don't know if he, I don't want to get it all that stuff.

But he allowed it to be.

And it's like, there's something good about it.

Does that make sense?

Because I looked at it and I was like, pumpay causes my wife not to be able to walk fast.

And so I had to slow down and I had to walk with my wife.

And then I stopped and I think I was like, wait a second.

Everyone else doesn't have to think about their wife.

You know what I mean?

The men can walk four feet in front of their wife and they don't even think about it.

I, I have to think about it.

So I get to spend more time with her.

And so this God was doing something in me.

Does that make sense?

Like he, he gave this because he knew I was, if I didn't do this, I'd probably walk five feet in front of her.

I wouldn't even think about her.

I wouldn't, I wouldn't consider her and I wouldn't try to be more kind and more gentle.

And, and all that stuff I feel like is, is me being more like Jesus because Jesus is kind and he's gentle.

And he, he walks with those and he's always with us.

He never leaves us.

He never, he never fails us.

And so if I look at pumpay and I just say it's a bad, it's bad.

You know what I mean?

I miss, I miss on a huge blessing.

I miss on a huge blessing.

And it's not, it's not a lesson that I've learned.

And like, oh, I learned it.

So I'm, I'm really good.

No, it's a lesson.

I got to teach myself over and over again.

No, it's good.

I get, it really is because I get to, I get to spend extra time with my life.

I get to, I get to spend, I get to take time to look and see what she needs as opposed to if she was self.

You know what I mean?

If she could do everything by herself and she didn't need me around and she didn't need to do this or this.

I get to spend more time thinking about her and how I can help her and how I can minister and how I can be gracious to her.

And you say, so what's good in that?

Well, I mean, let's just be honest.

I mean, isn't the church the bride of Christ?

And how much time does he spend on what we need and taking care of us and spending time with us and helping us to be all that we need to be?

I mean, that's what that, that's what he does and he redeems us and he makes us something special.

I don't know, maybe it's a wrong way of thinking, but that's the way I tell myself every day, don't tell myself every day.

I try to tell myself, is that every good gift and every perfect gift comes from the Father above.

And he gave me Kelly and I thought it was a bad gift, Pompey, but it was actually really, it was a really good gift.

Because he's allowed us, he's open doors for us, he's allowed us to minister in specific ways, he's allowed us to see him work through us.

Like, and help strengthen our faith, does that make sense?

And so like, I can look at it and say, I missed out on this, this, and this, and this.

And I've totally failed to see, no, God's been with us this whole time.

He's allowed us to get through it.

He's allowed this to change me. I feel like to be a little bit more like him.

He's allowed us to help minister to other people and give them a little bit of hope.

And so in reality, what I thought was there going to destroy us was actually what was actually making us and building the platform for us.

If that makes sense and I couldn't have done it myself, it was on him.

Beautiful.

Well, before we close for the day, Kelly, on a day-to-day basis, would assume that you have some days that you're just strong as an ox.

And some days you're spiritually speaking here and some days you're not.

And I thought maybe you might tell people, what are you doing the day you wake up and it just floods over you and your self-pity comes?

Does that ever happen to you?

Yeah, it happens.

I talk to the Lord.

I mean, I try to talk to him every day, all day.

And when I pray without ceasing, it's much, you know, just being a constant as I can.

Communication with him, but those days I spend more time talking to him and asking him to help me.

How do you get the strength to walk out of that depression?

I mean, well, physically, I don't allow myself just to wallow.

I mean, I keep my schedule full and busy.

I have make sure that I have lots of obligations so that, I mean, if I slow down and I'm still, and I just like,

decide I'm going to just lay in bed all day, then all I'm doing is just giving my mind.

It may just beat you.

You know, one time you used a little bit rude to me in the parking lot.

Do you remember that day?

I remember that day.

I looked down and Robert had left you in the lower parking lot, and you were walking to the church.

And I was a little aggravated at Robert, and I came down to, I was going to get you.

And you said, no, I ask him to leave me here.

And I can't give up. I can't quit.

I got to keep fighting.

And so this is good for me.

You remember that?

I did.

And so Robert wasn't being a bad husband.

He was helping me.

He was helping me.

And my request.

And so tomorrow we will bring up a whole lot more.

I want you to realize that in the middle of all the chaos and all the depression that can come,

Kelly and Robert don't let it beat them.

That doesn't mean it's like you.

They have bad days.

They have days when it hurts and yet God gives them strength.

But he's also giving them wonderful children, three wonderful daughters.

He's also giving them a ministry.

And I can't wait for you to hear.

Just how Kelly keeps beating Doctor's expectations.

So don't miss the next one.

Thank you for being with us.

God bless you.

Thanks for listening to Followed by Mercy with Also Gardener.

If today's message spoke to your heart, share it with someone who needs to know

God hasn't given up on them.

Remember, your pain is at the end of your story.

In Jesus, it can become praise.

Thank you.