People Who Inspire
David and Jennifer Humphrey: Seeing is Believing
Obstacles in life either forge one’s faith—or erode it. Jennifer Humphrey chose to let health issues refine hers. In the last five years, she has battled cancer, Lyme’s disease, and rheumatoid arthritis. However, these illnesses have not eroded her trust in God.
“God promises that no evil will overtake me (Psalm 91),” Jennifer said. “He works all things for my good” (Romans 8:28).
Her steadfastness is commendable. In 2016 shortly after she received a breast cancer diagnosis, her husband David had a horrible motorcycle wreck and ended up in a trauma center. Soon after, Jennifer and David had surgeries on the same day. Yet both acknowledged God was with them.
Two years later, Jennifer experienced sudden and severe pain in her joints. Tests revealed another problem: she had Lyme disease contracted during gardening from the bite of an infected blacklegged tick. Symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis threatened to disable her. “I couldn’t bend my knees to lean down or sit. It quickly got to a point where I could hardly walk.”
More attempts to get well only led to disappointment. The outlook was bleak and a sense of brokenness set in. Encouragement from another believer helped Jennifer turn to God for guidance. She wasn’t going to continue looking at circumstances that kept her from looking up at God.
“I had to get a vision for going forward,” Jennifer said. “The world says ‘seeing is believing’, but God says ‘believing is seeing’.”
Jennifer leans closer to God every day for wisdom to manage the impatience and frustrations of waiting. “God is working in increments,” she said. “There have been steady small gains.” Though she doesn’t have full healing yet, she does have complete confidence in the good that is ahead.
The couple is grateful David’s healing allows him to do most anything as before, including riding again. Not even a shattered left wrist could keep him from clutching joy.
A Bible verse that has secured them throughout many upheavals comes from Romans 8:24-25 NIV: “But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”
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To find out more about Lyme disease, you can read the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s information at https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/index.html.
Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
