Faith and Resilience in the Face of Chronic Illness

What happens when faith meets the harsh realities of chronic illness? David Libby, author of "A Different World: God's Sovereignty in the Face of Suffering," joins us to share his deeply moving journey. Through candid conversations about his family's battle with Lyme disease, David explores profound philosophical and theological questions that arise from enduring such hardships. He opens up about how his faith and passion for apologetics—ignited by thought-provoking dialogues with his now-wife, Lisa—have guided him through these trials, offering listeners a powerful narrative of resilience and spirituality. This episode isn't just about surviving suffering; it's about understanding and finding strength through faith.

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9S8SK5M?ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_XR0A7GW13YHJDPZ4EAWH&ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_XR0A7GW13YHJDPZ4EAWH&social_share=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_XR0A7GW13YHJDPZ4EAWH

Chapters

• 0:01 Journey Through Suffering and Faith
• 16:00 The Power of Faith and Healing
• 24:40 Finding David Libby's Book on Amazon

Transcript

Ana Murby: 0:01

Welcome back to Honest Christian Conversations. I'm your host, Ana Murby, and this is the start of Season 3. I'm very excited for this season. We have some amazing guests coming on sharing their testimonies, starting with today's guest. His name is David Libby and he is the author of A Different World God's Sovereignty in the Face of A Different World God's Sovereignty in the Face of Suffering. His story is both heartbreaking and heartwarming, because his love for his wife and his two daughters has surpassed anything else in the world that he can think of. That could possibly be more important, and he has chosen a life of servitude and a life of dedication to not only his family, but to God as well.

Ana Murby: 0:50

You are going to leave this episode feeling encouraged and blessed and empowered to live out your faith to the fullest. Before we start, I want to remind you please share this episode with whoever you feel could use this kind of empowerment, because everyone is going through something, they're suffering through something, they need hope. So share this episode so they can also be blessed. All right, let's get into it. Hey, david, welcome to the show.

David Libby: 1:45

Well, thank you, I'm glad to be here.

Ana Murby: 1:48

I have started reading your book. The first chapter was heartbreaking but also encouraging at the same time. I loved hearing about how you and your wife both have a love for homesteading. You both grew up with that sort of lifestyle and I think that's very cute. If I could say that, Sure Amazing that you found somebody who loves the same thing you love doing. That's rare to find someone who loves it the same as you do, so I think that's wonderful.

David Libby: 2:22

Yeah, thank you. It is very rare, isn't it?

Ana Murby: 2:26

Yeah, I mean, my husband and I have some of the same things that we like doing, but we don't have not nearly that way. If he wanted to go camping, I don't want to go with them. Let's just say that Okay yeah. But you live in Maine, right?

David Libby: 2:45

That's correct, yeah.

Ana Murby: 2:47

I heard you speaking on the Refuge Freedom podcast and you mentioned New England and I was like, oh, I live in New England as well because I live in Connecticut.

David Libby: 2:58

Yeah, okay.

Ana Murby: 2:59

Not too far. I've been to Maine a few times. It's beautiful over there.

David Libby: 3:04

Yeah, sure is, isn't it?

Ana Murby: 3:06

Yeah, all right, so let's get into your book. What is your book about?

David Libby: 3:13

Well, my book briefly tells the story of my family's intense suffering, intense battle with chronic illness, and then it seeks to answer some of the very difficult questions, difficult philosophical and theological questions that are prompted by a life of suffering. You're starting with the question how could a good and all-powerful God allow suffering in this world? You know that sort of thing.

Ana Murby: 3:36

That is a question that is on everyone's mind every single time something bad or kind of bad happens to them. So that is definitely something that is going to make people want to run and get this book, because I'm starting to read it and I'm noticing that you really love apologetics. That's something that I have just started getting into. I would not say I'm a scholar at all. I haven't taken classes. I just listened to a lot of different podcasters who have done those things and I'm learning things, so I'm really new to the idea, but it is something that interests me and I'm excited to finish reading your book so that I can understand more of your perspective on everything that you and your family have gone through. So did you go to school for apologetics or is that something that you just started learning on your own?

David Libby: 4:38

Well, I didn't go to school officially for it in the classroom. But I have studied very deeply and I guess my education started when I first met my wife, lisa, and we were not married, of course, and she was not a Christian, she was not following the Lord at the time and we were not romantically involved, we were friends and she began asking me very difficult questions about my faith and I could not answer them and I didn't pretend to be able to. So I realized I need to know the answers to these questions. So that kind of sparked an interest in being able to defend the faith and it went on from there. But I have studied very, very deeply I just haven't done it in a classroom setting, in a seminary or anything like that A lot of studying on my own yeah, I think it.

Ana Murby: 5:29

I think it gives God glory a little more when it's something we're doing on our own, rather than we went to school for it, because I feel like he's going to shine more in what we learn and how we present it, because we're just everyday human beings, you know.

David Libby: 5:42

Yeah, I think that's wonderful. I agree, Ana. I actually I think that there's a usefulness to a classroom education, a formal education, but I often think it's kind of a lesser education, because what ends up happening is people absorb information that the professor wants them to absorb. You know, the professor tells them what the right answer is. They don't really think about it and they're doing it just to get a passing grade, so they can move on to the next um. You know, stage in life is, you know it's not um, is it really a heartfelt conviction, as it has been for me? I've I've studied these things simply because I want to be able to defend the faith well, because I love the Lord and want to glorify him. So I agree with what you said.

Ana Murby: 6:24

Amen, sister, all right your wife's story of how she found out she had Lyme, the pain and everything. It really resonated with me in a sense, because I have a friend of a friend who currently has Lyme and she has it really bad. She lost her sight, like it went black Just one day, just went black.

David Libby: 6:51

Oh, wow.

Ana Murby: 6:51

She didn't know what happened. She right now.

Ana Murby: 6:56

She needs help walking.

Ana Murby: 6:56

Our friend is so wonderful. She's helping her, she has allowed her to live with her and her family to take care of her. She's got support, so that's good. But she went through the same things that your wife went through going to doctor to doctor, trying she found out what she had. All the stress that you said that your daughters went through, frustrated because nobody was able to understand. She's going through that now and she went through that and she went to doctors who thought that she was crazy or thought that she was making it up. And I, just while I was reading that, I was like my friend needs to hear this, she needs to read this book. That's all I thought was. She needs to read this book so she knows she's not alone.

Ana Murby: 7:52

And I love that you wrote this book, because there are people out there suffering with this who may not know they have it yet, and because you had the courage to write this book. They're going to be able to hear that they aren't alone, and they will be able to find peace in that. So thank you for writing this book.

David Libby: 8:10

Oh, you're welcome and thank you for saying that. And yeah, you're exactly right, we felt totally alone as well for a long while, and eventually we learned that there are other people out there like us and you know we're not alone.

Ana Murby: 8:28

And of course, ultimately we're not alone, because the Lord has promised to never leave us nor forsake us, but it is very hard. Your church has been very instrumental in helping you as well, because I remember hearing in part of your book you mentioned that they helped you with a lot of different things. Would you like to share what kind of things they helped you with Would?

David Libby: 8:43

you like to share what kind of things they helped you with. Sure, yeah, they were very supportive. Not everyone's church experience has been like that, but we had a very supportive church. I don't think a single Sunday went by where they weren't prayed for openly from the pulpit, which we appreciated. But also, all three of my wife and both girls became so ill they couldn't attend church in person anymore, and so the pastor you know, I guess a lot of churches are doing this now, but this was back, you know, before it was really popular he found a way to get the church service accessible over the computer, so my girls were able to attend from home. So that was, you know, huge. It was huge.

David Libby: 9:24

It was wonderful that they would take that biggest step just for us. They did it just for us and we had a lot of friends who were constantly asking and asking how they can help because of a genetic mutation they have. In combination with that and Lyme, it killed the body's ability to deal with toxins. So we had to get out of our house because of mold toxins. So we had to build a new house and the church was very helpful in that. You know, free labor, manpower, come help build. There was one man who had quite a lot of carpentry experience and he was retired and he pretty much worked there full time. So we had a lot of help and it was wonderful.

Ana Murby: 10:10

That's awesome. That is what the church should be, and I believe that is what Paul in the Bible was talking about when he was talking about. This is the church. Yeah, they're supposed to come. They're supposed to help in your time of need and you guys had a need. You still have a need and it's great that you have found a church that is willing to come alongside you and help you guys and be there for you. That is very important.

David Libby: 10:38

Yes, it sure is yeah, yep.

Ana Murby: 10:42

All right, so I want to know who is Bill Keef?

David Libby: 10:48

Oh, he's the best friend we have. We met him. How did this happen? He was pastor of a different church and we met him when we were helping a friend move. The was taking a stand for sound doctrine. But it was a painful split and he was going through a really tough time and he ended up needing a place to stay. He stayed with us and he was just an amazing friend. He really helped bear our burdens in ways that most people never would and we're still really close friends. He's a dear brother and close friend.

Ana Murby: 11:40

And we're still really close friends. He's a dear brother and close friend. It's very important to have close friends, to have people you can connect with, especially in your dark times yeah, someone who can mentor you, who can come alongside you and hold you up. Right, I think how Moses had Aaron to help him lift the staff when he couldn't do it any longer. He needed that help.

Ana Murby: 12:02

And you and your family needed that help, and it's great that God provided just the right person for you at just the right time, and I love how God does that. He's done that in my life many times. Yeah, isn't it?

David Libby: 12:16

amazing to see God's hand at work like that. He's done that in my life many times. Yeah, Isn't it amazing to see God's hand at work like that? And that's exactly how Bill would put it too. He would say that he was God's instrument. We've never heard him boast about anything. He's the most humble man I've ever known.

Ana Murby: 12:35

And he would give all the glory to God, just like you just did. That's good. We need more people willing to come alongside and help people in their dark times.

Ana Murby: 13:11

You wrote it in your book and I love that you wrote it. How we have this kind of comfort culture, we don't want to think I have been learning about more and would love to talk to you about more on a different episode. Okay is a serious issue in regards to our everyday lives. I mean, like you wrote in your book in chapter three at the beginning, you wrote how your world messes with their ideology, basically because they believe that God wants us to be happy and wealthy all the time. But here you guys are Right. I love it. I love it that you went there.

David Libby: 13:50

Yeah, well, thank you, thank you. Yeah, I don't want to pick on any of my brothers and sisters, but I do that. That false doctrine is a pretty serious problem in the research today. And, uh, you know, god, god does want us wealthy and healthy and happy sometimes, but not. But. He also promises us hard times and difficulties and and I know people who've been really jaded by that you know false teaching. People who really believed it and, you know, didn't get the miracle they were believing god for and they end up jaded, walking away from the faith. And if they just understood that god doesn't promise you a life of perfect health and happiness and peace, and if he's, if you understand that he has actually done the opposite. He's promised you hardship and adversity, but he's promised to be with you through it. He's promised that these hardships and adversities will refine you like you know, silver in a furnace, and they will sanctify you. If you understand those things, then you can actually be encouraged by so long to switch over and realize that it is okay to suffer.

Ana Murby: 15:07

The Bible says we're going to and to walk in. That it's really hard for a lot of people and I love how you and your family have been able to walk in, that you talk about how you guys don't really care too much about the simple things, that I don't want to call them everyday people, but everyday people for lack of a better term.

Ana Murby: 15:32

And you use an example of the person who came from a different country and he was talking to you guys or talking to someone, and they asked you know, what does he think about the economy? And he was like we don't. He wasn't thinking about the economy. Your mindset has changed.

David Libby: 15:51

Yes.

Ana Murby: 15:51

You guys live in a different world, as your book title says.

David Libby: 15:57

Yeah.

Ana Murby: 15:57

Go ahead and tell us about that.

David Libby: 16:00

Sure, yeah, in fact that book title was inspired by a fellow sufferer. He was somebody we knew pretty well. He did not suffer from Lyme disease, but I'm forgetting what it was. I don't recall what it was, but it was a debilitating illness and serious chronic pain and he was degenerating fairly quickly. He was not an old man and he unfortunately did not have a family that was quite as supportive as they ought to be, and he told me once that he told his wife you know, you don't understand the world that I live in.

David Libby: 16:31

I live in a different world than you do, and that kind of inspired the title of the book and it really resonated with me because we don't really live in the same world that I guess we could say normal people, people who haven't suffered intensely for a long time, live in. We don't hold the same values, we don't have the same dreams and aspirations, we don't have bucket lists, we're not looking forward to retirement. We're not looking forward to retirement, we're just trying to get through each day. But, as followers of the Lord Jesus, when I say we're just trying to get through each day, it kind of sounds hopeless, but it really isn't, because what it's done is, it's transfixed our hopes and aspirations to the next life, you know, to eternity. You know that's where our retirement account is it's in heaven.

Ana Murby: 17:22

You have a quote in your book that I really loved and I think it's going to stick with me for the rest of my life because it was very profound.

Ana Murby: 17:31

You wrote on page 56, you said our faith does not name it and claim it, kind of stuff that's a mindset change that we need to have, that we don't have to have all the faith in the world to get God to do what we want. God does what he wants when he wants, how he wants it, and we just have to have faith, no matter how small it is, that what he's doing is the right thing. We can't make him do what we want him to do.

David Libby: 18:11

Right, right, yeah, that is a radical departure from the Word of Faith doctrine, isn't it? I grew up with some of that Word of Faith doctrine. We would buy it pretty heavily when I was a teenager and accepted it. I was part of that for a while, and what I was taught back then and this comes from guys, I don't even know who the modern word of faith is out, but I'm thinking of guys back in my day like Kenneth Copeland and then his spiritual father Hagen, and then it goes back to Catherine Kuhlman and so forth and what I was being taught by these people back then was that it was really a very incorrect, unbiblical view of metaphysics. I was being taught that faith is actually a force and words are the way that we manipulate that force. And if we learn how to manipulate the force of faith, we can essentially create our own reality. They would associate a lot of power with faith, but they would associate the powers coming from the faith itself as if faith were some kind of metaphysical force. But what God's Word teaches is that there is real power associated with faith, but that's because the power is found in God, not in the faith, in the object of the faith. So it's a real radical shift. And what you said, anna, is really dead on.

David Libby: 19:31

I heard from these Word of Faith teachers years ago that the Lord taught that if you have faith like a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, be removed and cast into the sea. And they would say, hey, just imagine what you could do if you had an even bigger faith. But if a mustard seed faith has that kind of manipulative force, then what would an orange-sized faith or a basketball-sized faith have? But that's not the point. The point is the power is not found in the faith.

David Libby: 19:57

A very small faith that trusts in a very powerful God can accomplish big things. The power is in God, not the faith, or an analogy that I've heard sometimes. Actually it's a very good analogy, I think. If you have all the faith in the world in a quarter inch of ice, then you're going to get wet when you try to cross the pond. But if you have a very weak faith in two feet of ice, then you'll get across without falling through. It's not the size of the faith, it's the strength of the object of the faith. That's where the power is found.

Ana Murby: 20:29

I used to be very heavy into the word of faith. I tried really hard to have positive thoughts. If my kids said something negative, I'd jump on them and say don't talk like that Just really went into it and it can get pretty toxic pretty quickly if you stay in it long enough, because then when something happens that's bad. What are you going to do?

David Libby: 20:55

Right.

Ana Murby: 20:55

How are you going to stand firm in your faith when you feel like you've had all the faith in the world? How are you going to believe that God is always good and he's there with you right now, if you think that your faith wasn't enough?

David Libby: 21:09

Right, yeah, it is very hard. Yeah, well, you know, lisa and I had some friends years ago who were really deeply into that and we went over to their house for dinner one time and their kids were all very sick. They had a lot of.

David Libby: 21:21

I don't want to be gross, but a lot of green snot running out of their noses, and they did not allow the kids to even wipe their noses because to do that would be a negative confession. Right, you're acknowledging the sickness and couldn't talk about it. We just had to pretend that it wasn't there. And then, when dinner was over, we went to watch a show on television that they wanted to watch and the television had no picture. It was just fuzz. All it was is audio, but we had to sit there and pretend like there was a picture. So it was kind of emperor has no clothes theology. But again, like you said, the real problem comes when, if you believe this, the real problem comes when God does send you real, serious trials and he sends them to his people for their sanctification, for their good. But you end up rejecting that because you've been taught that these things don't come from God. So it's not an innocent heterodoxy, it's very damaging, it's very destructive.

David Libby: 22:13

There was a man I knew a number of years ago. I bumped into him once and asked him, and he was involved in that Word of Faith theology. And I asked him how he was doing and he said well, I've got a backache. He said it's not real bad but it hurts. And he said, honestly, it's really shaking my faith. I'm wondering if there even is a God. You know that sort of thing. So that's the destructive nature of that false doctrine. It can really turn people away from God when they have things like simple backaches.

Ana Murby: 22:35

Yeah, yeah, I agree. Before we get ready to go, I have another question for you. I want to know how are your wife and your two daughters doing today?

David Libby: 22:50

your wife and your two daughters doing today. My book ends with Bethany still in a clinic in Florida. She was in a clinic for five months, which actually saved her life. They were still doing pretty poorly, but the book was completed four or five years ago, so today things are really quite different. They still have their struggles, but they're really doing remarkably well. Both girls ended up getting married my youngest daughter just last October. They're living out of state. They're both working, which is remarkable. Back four or five years ago Bethany was locked away in a soundproof closet, so they're doing remarkably well. Now. Bethany misses work from time to time. She missed as much as eight weeks recently because of her illness. So she's still struggling, but they're doing remarkably well. By God's loving kindness and grace We've seen amazing improvements, but it's been long and hard.

Ana Murby: 23:37

Yeah, I admit, how's your wife?

David Libby: 23:41

She's doing okay. She's a lot better than she was years ago, but we still see the lingering. It's still there. It's still there, but she's doing a whole lot better. She's a lot better than she was years ago, but we still see the lingering guilt. It's still there. It's still there, but she's doing a whole lot better and she's able to do an awful lot now that she wasn't able to do it Certain times, as chapter one in the book mentions, she was actually bedridden for weeks at a time and we thought she was headed for a wheelchair. She was awful close to a wheelchair at one time and now she's up and walking and moving about and working in her gardens and doing a whole lot better, but still not 100%. But we're looking forward to the next life. That's where the 100% improvement will be found. But yeah, thank you for asking, Ana.

Ana Murby: 24:19

Yeah, I love your faith. I am in awe at how you all are handling this situation. It's truly. You can see that God is in the midst of it and he's getting the glory, and again, I thank you for writing this book. It's going to help so many people. Where can people get your book?

David Libby: 24:44

Right now it's available on Amazon. We're working on getting it available in more places, but right now Amazon and I'm not a computer person, but people tell me that if you look up my name, david Libby, have been blessed by your book so far and I am blessed by this interview with you too, and I pray for your daughters and your wife.

Ana Murby: 25:13

I actually was praying for them earlier today and I will continue to pray for them and for you and anyone who's out there listening right now who could benefit from this episode. Make sure you share this with your family and friends, because we all have struggles that we go through and we need to know how to handle them in a way that honors God and is healthy for us as well. David, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

David Libby: 25:41

Well, thank you, Ana, it's been a great privilege, and many blessings to you and keep fighting the good fight, sister.

Ana Murby: 25:46

Thank you, have a good day.

David Libby: 25:48

Yeah, bye.