Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
The following program is presented by the Far East Broadcasting Company, because stories of people living out the gospel with their lives inspire all of us. FEBC, taking Christ to the world through radio and new media. Learn more at febc.org.
Don't assume God doesn't care. Tell Him how you feel. Assume that He loves you and trust He's writing a good story. Because in the middle of it, we can't see it. But one day, you will be thankful for everything you are going through. Benita Reisner knows that's true and we'll hear why as you join us now for First Person. Welcome, I'm Wayne Shepherd. Benita has experienced much physical and emotional pain and she'll begin to tell her story in a few moments as we talk.
First, let me thank you for listening to each week's interview here on First Person. Our goal is to find people from all walks of life who have surrendered their life to faith in Jesus Christ and trust His Word to save them and carry them through life's ups and downs. If you didn't know, these interviews are all archived at our website, firstpersoninterview.com. Just click on the listen button or download them as a podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
And one more thing, these programs are made possible by the Far East Broadcasting Company, who rejoices at the testimonies of people who trust Christ and follow Him. Learn more at febc.org. Our guest, Vinita Reisner, contracted polio as an infant, which has led to lifelong pain and complications. In addition, there have been several life events causing emotional pain.
As we began talking, I asked Vanitha how it is that her faith in God is stronger today given what she has experienced. That's a great question, Wayne. I think I would say that because of my experience with God. God has been more close to me in suffering than He ever was outside of suffering. I feel like I knew Bible verses. I knew theology. I knew that Christ died for me.
But I didn't know personally that God was with me. And the more that I've suffered, the more I see the reality of that. So my faith has actually gotten deeper with each hard thing because God has proved more faithful. And Jesus is...
beside me, whereas before I knew he was with me, but I didn't really know what that meant for my everyday life. Whereas now I know if I can't do something physically, I need to just call out to Jesus for grace. Whereas when I could do everything, I didn't need to ask for that. I understand. Well, the difficulties you speak of started very early in your life, didn't they? Let's start with that episode with polio. Yeah.
Yes. Well, I was three months old when I contracted polio. Now, polio vaccine had been out for over a dozen years, but in India, they give the vaccine at six months old and I was three months old. And so when I went to the doctor, they had no idea what it was. They thought it was typhoid actually. I had 105 degree fever. So they gave me cortisone to lower my fever, which it did. But within 24 hours, I was a quadriplegic. And
And then the doctor said, she had polio. We didn't realize that, but there's nothing that we can do at this point. So my parents who were believers just prayed and asked God for wisdom on what to do. And the doctors told my parents, you should probably leave India because in India, there's really a stigma with the disability. So there's not a lot of services for people with
any kind of disability. And so my parents wanted something more, wanted surgeries, wanted to see if there was something they could do. So my father, who was a professor at a university in India, left and went to London, took a job installing telephones just so I could get medical care.
So I had my first operation in London when I was two years old. And that was followed by many operations, I understand. Yes. By the time I was 13, I'd had 21 operations and lived in the hospital, actually. When I was in Canada, we were in a free hospital, in a Shriners Hospital. Well, I'm sure some people are thinking to themselves, I thought polio was eradicated by the time you would have been born.
Yeah, they, I mean, and you would think that very few people would have it, but I guess like any disease, once there's a vaccine, it doesn't mean that there's no one that gets it. So if you don't get a vaccine, you're very susceptible to it if it's there, which is why there've been outbreaks all over the world, I think because of that. So because I was too young to be vaccinated, I got it. Okay. And you still live with the effects of polio today, don't you? I do. I do. And about...
I guess close to 20 years ago, 18 years ago, I was diagnosed with post-polio syndrome, which I didn't even know what that was. And you may not know what it is, but it's basically a condition that happens to about 70% of the people who had polio. And the more...
the disabled you were from the polio, the more likely you are to have post-polio syndrome. And what that is, is when you first get polio, your motor neurons die, or this is what they've told me, but your body sprouts out secondary motor neurons. So I was a quadriplegic, but then I was able to walk and I lived a fairly normal life. I've always had very weak shoulders and a pronounced limp. But besides that, my life has looked very normal.
But those secondary motor neurons mimic motor neurons, but they have a limited life. And so every time you exercise, every time you do anything, you take away from this limited life that they have. It's kind of like money in a bank. And every time you make a withdrawal, you're losing money. And I didn't know that. But when I was diagnosed with post-polio, they told me that
And they said, everything that I've done is starting to go backwards, all the gains I had from exercising. And so eventually I will be a quadriplegic, most likely. We don't know what God has for me, but I've seen my strength go down remarkably. I cannot do nearly the things I could do 20 years ago when I was diagnosed. But having that as a child, I know you were bullied because of that. Can you talk about that experience?
Yeah, that was hard. I lived in the hospital and so I thought all I could think about when I was in the hospital was getting home and being with my family. But when I was home, I realized I was so different from everyone else. I had a very pronounced limp. And when I was seven, right after I'd gotten out of the hospital from being in a body cast, a group of boys came up to me and they called me a cripple and they threw stones at me and knocked me down. And
I remember that day thinking, I don't fit in. I don't belong here. I'm not like everybody else. And just the sense of shame started to creep over me as kids would bully me, make fun of the way I walked. I think from the time from then to probably through high school, there were a lot of questions and a lot of imitating me because I was different.
And I really struggled. I was very angry at God at that point. I didn't really believe that God existed because I didn't think a good God would let me go through that. Because it seemed like one thing was to go through the hardship and then there was another to feel ashamed because other people felt I was different and were making fun of me for it.
When did you turn to faith? When did Christ come into your life, Vanitha? I was 16 years old, and I was involved in FCA, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which is kind of funny because I was not a Christian or an athlete, but I went to fellowship with the athletes. So all the popular guys in my high school went to FCA. Oh, I see. Yeah, I see right through that. I wanted to go as well. Yeah.
That was a good, it was a good plan. I sat in the back with one of my friends and talked about all the guys in our class until one day she went away on a retreat. And I still remember it. She came back, invited me to her house, said, I want you to know that God is real.
And I thought, oh, no. And I remember she gave me the passage from Exodus where the slave said, if you want to be a slave for life, you can pierce my ear. And she said to me, Jesus pierced my ear. I want to be his for life. And I thought, okay, I don't even know what you're talking about. And I don't even want to know. This is way more than I signed up for. And I left immediately.
She kept talking to me about it, not in a real pushy way, but just I could tell she was different. And so I went home one night and I said, God, if you're real, show me. And honestly, Wayne, I said it sort of arrogantly. I didn't say it with this wonderful, seeking, broken heart. And I woke up the next day and I said, okay, God, are you real?
And I remember getting a Bible I had gotten from confirmation when I was not a believer, but everybody in our church got confirmed. So I had this Bible on my nightstand and I pulled it out and I flipped it open. And I remember reading something in Leviticus about don't boil a cat in its mother's milk or something like that. And this is what I thought about the Bible. This is not relevant. And then I asked one more time, God, why? If you're real, why did this happen to me?
And I flipped open the Bible to John 9 and started reading. And it's when the disciples are going by and they ask Jesus, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? And Jesus says, it is not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the work of God would be made manifest in his life.
And I was stunned because that was the question. Why did this happen? And Jesus was saying, it wasn't because of your sin or anyone's sin. It was because I'm going to use this. And that was radical. It was the exact answer to the question I had been asking. And I really remember thinking something is shifting in me.
That day, I got on my knees and cried out to a God that I didn't know, but I knew God knew me. It's interesting that your suffering was the very first question that you had for God and about God's existence. Why would he allow such a thing? You must think of that often. It's funny because that question, I wish I could say...
was the only time I've asked it. But I ask that question when suffering hits me. Like, why me? Why are you doing this? So I wish I... I look at some really amazing believers and I look at their lives and I think some of them are to the point where they don't ask that. They just say, God...
I accept everything that you bring. And I feel like God brings me to that point, but I'm one of those believers that every time something hard happens, I go to God and I say, why are you doing this to me? But God is so gracious in that he takes our weaknesses and he brings me back to that point of saying, I'm going to use this. And he reminds me he's writing a good story in my life.
Well, we're going to talk more about what you've endured, but I know that the Word is very important in your life, and I know John Piper and his exposition of the Word has meant a lot to you. What are some of the things you've learned? I've learned that the Bible is living. I think before...
tragedy started hitting my life or calamity, I think I thought the Bible was something really good to read in the morning. It was something really good to memorize so you could evangelize. There were lots of really good things about the Bible, but the Bible wasn't my companion. And yet in suffering, I have found God has given me words that
to cry out to him, either to comfort me, to ask him questions, to even yell at him. I mean, God gives us all of these words in the Bible. And I have found my quiet time has been and continues to this day to be my favorite time of the day, because I feel like this is the time when I get to hear from God. I hear him throughout the day, but I feel like
We hear very imperfectly. So I might hear from God when I'm sitting outside. I might hear sort of a small whisper, but I think Paul Miller says, God, the Holy Spirit and Satan and our own conscience all come through on the same channel. And so sometimes I can't differentiate what is God speaking from?
But when I opened the Bible, I know this is God speaking to me. And it has been incredible. That is what gives me my strength. I think that's what's taken me through the hardest times. You know, when you walk through the rivers, I will be with you. There's more we can learn from the suffering of Vanitha Reisner. We'll continue in just a moment on First Person.
Hi, I'm Ed Cannon. And as you know, situations around the world are changing quickly. Stay current with FEBC's ministry and get a deeper understanding of people who need to find hope. Hear how you can feel the pulse of God's Spirit moving through the hearts of believers dedicated to reaching the lost. Be sure you join me for the podcast until all have heard. Discover how the gospel is making a difference around the world.
Search for Until All Have Heard on your favorite podcast platform or hear it online at febc.org. My guest is Vinita Rendell Reisner. She is an author and speaker. She has a couple of books, her memoir, Walking Through Fire, a memoir of loss and redemption, and her book, The Scars That Have Shaped Me, How God Meets Us in Our Suffering.
Vanitha, it would be certainly more than enough for anyone to suffer what you have physically, more than enough to sort of put us over the edge spiritually. But God has been faithful and met you in that suffering. But that's not the only suffering you've been through in your life, this physical, this after effects of polio in your life. You've had other scars as well. Yes, I have. And it was funny, Wayne, after I had come to Christ at 16, I had this idea that everybody has one problem.
That was sort of my theology was you have one hard thing. I had mine. I remember actually talking to people thinking, you have no idea when your big suffering is going to hit. Mine is already done. I'm good. And so when I started to encounter suffering in my life, it really shook me, shook my faith.
I had a miscarriage. I got married to a guy I met in grad school. And my first pregnancy ended up with a miscarriage. Then I had a child, had two miscarriages after that. And then I was pregnant again with a son that we found out had a hypoplastic left heart, which means he just was going to be born with half a heart and would need surgery at birth or he would die. And I remember...
feeling ripped off that why would God let me, who'd been through all this suffering, have a child with a heart problem? And I had lots of people tell me if I prayed the right way, then maybe he would be born without a heart defect. And that was a lot of pressure for me feeling like, how do you pray the right way?
and really struggled with that. But Paul was born, he did have his heart defect, but he had surgery and was doing amazingly. And so I went from being really discouraged to really excited thinking, wow, God has given me a child with a disability and I can parent this child well because I understand what it means to have limitations.
And yet when Paul was two months old, we took him into the doctor just for a checkup. He was doing really well. And the regular doctor was not there. There was a substitute and he impulsively took Paul off his medication. And within two days, Paul died. And that really pulled me from God, Wayne. I didn't know what to do with that. I remember speaking at Paul's funeral actually. And I did say, God never makes a mistake.
got up in front of the whole congregation and was really excited to share God's faithfulness. And two weeks later, I wanted to pull every word of that back because God felt distant and I was afraid. And I didn't know whether I could trust this God who had let my son die. And I had begged God not to let him die. And so that was a real sort of crisis of faith for me. And I spent months sort of pulled away from God and,
I'm a pleaser, so I have to say I didn't really let people know I was doing that because that's not what quote-unquote good Christians do. So I just sort of buried myself in my own life and didn't talk to people about my doubts, but I was very far from God. What was the turnaround? How did God lead you through that crisis?
Well, once again, I was in the car, Wayne, listening to the radio. Then I thought, okay, I probably need to listen to something maybe that's more spiritual because I had felt so dry and so distant from God. So I pushed in a cassette tape and just there was some worship music playing. And all of a sudden I just said, God, I need you. I need you to be here. And he was. He was.
And God's presence filled my car. I turned off the cassette and just felt God flood over me. Just the sense that I cannot describe to this day. So I feel like I'm doing such an injustice to it. But I felt that if this is heaven, I'm ready to go. It was this sense of joy that I have never experienced before.
And I thought, okay, this is a taste of where Paul is, and this is a taste of what God has for us. And it really changed my view of what the good life is because that moment was the best life. And I got it through suffering. And so that really changed me. And then...
Soon after that, a friend had asked me if I'd heard of John Piper and I had not. She said, you might want to listen to this. It was a cassette tape and she gave it to me. It was in my car for a long time because I didn't know who he was and I didn't particularly want to listen to it. When you are grieving, I found you get stacks of books. I got books in the mail, tapes, magazines. Everybody wants to give you something to read.
or listen to. And that's often the last thing you want to do. But I put it in and I heard his voice and I heard him talk about the way he loved God. And I did not have a love for God that way, but I thought I want that love for Jesus. So that's,
That sort of made me start thinking about suffering in an even larger context. And John Piper was quoting Charles Spurgeon, who was 57, dying of Bright's disease and gout. And somebody asked Spurgeon, how can you handle this knowing that God has allowed this in your life? And Spurgeon said, allowed it? If I thought that God had not allowed
caused this to the very drop, I wouldn't be able to stand it. That's my very loose paraphrase, but it stopped me. I replayed that over and over thinking, Spurgeon is saying that God has measured our suffering to the very drop.
And thinking about that reframed my whole life for me. And that moment, that suffering, that loss of Paul felt like God is going to use this and really took me back to that verse that I had read
read when I was converted, but didn't even fully understand. And I'm still understanding it, but that this happened, that the work of God would be displayed in his life and realizing that was going to be my verse throughout my life, not just to convert me. I know there's been other deep pain in your life, and we don't have time to go into everything that you've been through, Vanitha, but you know that we're talking to someone right now who's on the edge that you've been on.
They don't know what to think. They don't know where to turn. They don't know what to think of God because of what they're going through. You've written books about this. You've studied God's word about this. Look that listener in the eye, so to speak, and just talk to them. Counsel them through what they're feeling right now. God is writing a good story for your life. When you're in the middle of it, it may feel that you are in the pit and this can never be a good story.
And yet God will bring beauty from ashes. So lean into him, learn to lament. God wants your words. He wants your trust. And that can mean saying how you feel. Because when I thought I had to say the right thing to God, I turned away because I didn't know how to say the right thing to God. But open up Lamentations 3. There's a lot of things you can say to God.
that are honoring to God, and they will bring you to a place of trusting him when you lean into that. So I would say don't walk away. Don't assume God doesn't care. Tell him how you feel. Assume that he loves you and trust he's writing a good story because in the middle of it, we can't see it.
But one day, and I don't know when that one day will be for you, you will see pieces of it as you walk through the suffering. But one day you will be thankful for everything you are going through right now. Are you in any way surprised by how God is using you despite what you've been through? I am surprised in that.
I feel like I'm a pretty ordinary person, and I feel like God has entrusted me with suffering, and I feel like I don't handle it the way some people do. And yet at the same time, I'm not surprised because God uses the weak in the world to shame the strong, and God uses our weakness and our vulnerability, I found, far more than He does our strength.
So I feel really weak, Wayne, but I'm not surprised because I think God uses that more than anything. My thanks to Vinita Reisner for sharing both her story and her expression of trust in Christ. I recommend her books to you, including The Scars That Have Shaped Me. You'll find links to the books and more about Vinita at FirstPersonInterview.com.
That's also our website where these interviews are kept online for streaming anytime. Or if you want to download interviews and make them portable for on-the-go listening, use our free smartphone app, First Person Interview, found in your app store.
Bringing you these weekly interviews is made possible by the support of the Far East Broadcasting Company. Why? Because the stories of lives changed by Christ are celebrated by all of us, and FEBC wants you to rejoice at the stories of people turning to Christ wherever programs are heard. Go to febc.org for more. Now, with thanks to my friend and producer, Joe Carlson, I'm Wayne Shepherd. Thanks for listening to First Person. ♪