As part of our stewarship campaign, several in our church family will be sharing a witness from their journey and how they have seen God work in their lives. We believe these stories from our faithful will inspire you as you consider your own walk with Christ. These will come both through e-mail and social media and will feature both the written word and videos.

Heartache to Healing - Betty Sims,
(October 20th)

A heartfelt thank you, dear Church, for all the prayers you sent up for our girls and us in the past several years. God held our hands and hearts through our oldest daughter Libby’s cancer, recurrence, and her last treatment which was a bone marrow transplant, completed in February. And, through our youngest daughter Lisa’s heart attack due to her Hodgkin’s Disease that she had in high school, treated with mantle radiation to the chest. This radiation caused shrinkage of an artery which led to her heart problem. We are so thankful and can report that both girls are doing well. Libby is a miracle and is back at work at her design firm in Atlanta, Sims Patrick Studio. Lisa, who lives in Florence and is a nurse practitioner and an artist, is slowly healing. 

We keep saying the good times in our family have certainly outweighed the bad. We all are so thankful and remain optimistic and a happy family. I don’t want to overwhelm you, but I will briefly mention things that have happened in our lives, starting years ago. Libby experienced thyroid cancer at age 13, with many surgeries, followed by Bill’s mom who died of ALS. Lisa had Hodgkin’s Disease, followed by aggressive breast cancer, meningitis, and eventually the heart attack. In the meantime, Bill, Jr., came down with ALS and died at age 43 in 2007. All three girls, including our second daughter Sheri in Atlanta, have had bilateral mastectomies.

Thank goodness Bill and I are optimistic souls and have had a strong marriage and with God’s help and our strong faith have remained optimistic. To God be the Glory!