Overcoming Suffering with Faith | Sydney Bennett’s Inspirational Story On Purpose & Spiritual Growth (Inspirational)

In this deeply inspirational episode, Reginald D sits down with Sydney Bennett, author of Fearfully and Wonderfully Broken, to share a powerful story of faith, suffering, resilience, and spiritual growth.

Just two weeks after her honeymoon, Sydney’s life changed forever when she was suddenly struck with a severe neurological condition that left her battling paralysis, seizures, chronic pain, and loss of basic bodily functions.

This motivational and inspirational conversation dives deep into what it means to live through pain, rebuild identity, and find purpose when life doesn’t go as planned. Through raw honesty, Sydney shares how she navigated depression, fear, and uncertainty while learning to trust God in the middle of suffering.

Sydney's Contact Info:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.annegirl/?hl=en  

Website:     www.sydneyannebennett.com 

Sydney's Book: Fearfully and Wonderfully Broken releases April 28th, 2026.

Transcript

Reginald D: Welcome to Real Talk with Reginald D. I'm your host, Reginald D.

On today's episode, I have Sydney Bennett. Sydney is an author,

and her new book, Fearfully and Wonderfully broken, releases on April 28, 2026.

Welcome to the show, Sydney.

Sydney: Thank you so much for having me.

Reginald D: Thank you. Thank you for taking the time out to be on the show with me.

So, Sydney, can you tell us a little bit about your childhood and where you grew up?

Sydney: Yes. So my family, I'm actually Portuguese Hawaiian. My parents and generations of our family were born and raised on Hawaii. So that's where I was born, on the island of Oahu.

And I lived there for my early childhood years. And then my siblings and I were the first generation on the mainland. So we moved when I was about 6, 6 or 7.

And I grew up mostly in Western Washington,

and then I moved to Idaho when I started college, and that's where I still live today.

Reginald D: Okay. So, Sidney, I read something about you, and I want to talk about this a little bit. So two weeks after your honeymoon, your entire life changed?

Sydney: Yes.

Reginald D: Can you take us back to the moment you realized something was seriously wrong?

Sydney: Yes.

So if we backed up anymore before that, for about a year before we got married, I had unexplained chronic pain,

and it was getting worse and worse. It continued spreading throughout my body. And we had a number of tests done, but no one could figure out what was going on.

I had no real diagnosis.

So we got married knowing that there was something medical happening that was causing pain. We had no idea that it was neurological,

and we didn't know what was going to come in the next couple weeks. So two weeks after a honeymoon, like he said, we were driving back from the date night, and my hands became paralyzed in the car.

And that was the first sign that we recognized maybe this is something neurological.

So we rushed to the emergency room. But at the time, my husband was stationed in Junction City, Kansas.

So not a lot of great medical testing that they can do out there. And they ended up sending me back home with my hands still paralyzed. They said, we just don't know what's going on.

So in the two weeks that followed that I lost many bodily functions. So the ability to walk,

ability to speak, sense of taste,

sense of touch. I would have periods of paralysis where I wasn't able to move any part of my body.

Intense chronic pain,

and started having seizures and hallucinations.

And we went back to the emergency room several times because I wasn't on the military insurance yet.

And then eventually he Said,

we don't know what's causing this, but you're probably dying from some sort of rapidly degenerating brain condition,

so don't come back here. He told us to not come back to the er.

So it took about a month after that visit before I received the diagnosis from a neurologist of functional neurological disorder.

And thankfully we found out that I wasn't dying and,

but it was a truly life changing illness and it's something that I'm still living with today.

So it basically means that my brain doesn't communicate properly with my central nervous system.

And because your brain and central nervous system control everything in your body, it can really cause a large number of symptoms.

And three months after I received that diagnosis, my husband was deployed overseas. So that first year of disability and year of marriage was kind of spent trying to figure out how I was going to live with this on my own.

Reginald D: Yeah, and I know that was tough. I mean, it had to be tough not only being newly married and then this happened and then your husband goes overseas, like, wow, I gotta figure this out.

You know, that's really tough. So let me ask you,

and it's kind of hard to explain to a lot of people because, you know, a lot of people have an episode or a sickness or something and then they recover.

But when you find out you were diagnosed with this,

this one situation, what was the hardest thing to grieve? Was it the loss of your health or the life you thought you were going to have?

Sydney: Hmm, that's a really good question.

I,

looking back now, when I tell that story, I say, thankfully, we found out that it wasn't a terminal diagnosis at the time.

I actually sunk deeper into depression after I received that news because I felt like I was dying. Like when the ER doctor told me I was probably dying, I felt no surprise inside.

I thought I knew I was dying as well.

I was losing a new bodily function every single day. I was completely bedridden and in enormous amounts of pain. And so when he told me that, we were thinking, we just need to know why this is happening.

So when I received the diagnosis of functional neurological disorder,

there's not much research on it, and the neurologist who explained it to me made it sound like it was actually psychological instead of neurologically based.

And he said, the only treatment I can offer you is to send you to a psychiatrist. And he canceled all of my neurological appointments, all of my brain scans,

every physical therapy test that I had coming up. And he said, here's a referral to A psychiatrist.

And after he did that,

I could not get in to see any other doctor who understood my illness or understood my diagnosis. So the way the neurologist explained it was completely wrong, based on very outdated medical information.

But it also made me feel like this is my fault. Like this is somehow, in my head, I have some sort of fake disease that I'm causing,

but my life is completely altered. I still feel like I'm dying, and I might actually live a really long time feeling this way.

So I struggled a lot with that initial diagnosis and with feeling like,

yeah, there was a lot of grief for the life that I thought I was going to be given. I, you know, you. We just got married. I was looking into a future that I had imagined with my new husband, and we wanted to have kids and raise a family together,

and we wanted to go on adventures and travel and all of these things. And I thought, I'm just going to be a burden. And in our marriage, and it's. It's barely started.

And I was very active, independent, ambitious, outdoorsy kind of person.

And I still felt that way inside. But I now had a body that could no longer keep up with where my heart was.

And that was really hard, too. So there was a physical loss,

for sure, that I was grieving, but it was also needing to become a kind of person that I didn't think I actually was,

or my body was forcing me into this. This position of isolation and dependency and a very restricted, restrained lifestyle when I was the kind of person that loved being independent and pushing past those limitations.

Reginald D: Yeah, so you kind of described it like living in a body that feels like it's unraveling,

and that's a hard thing to do, you know, and people deal with that. So what does that actually feel like day to day? Because, you know, people,

a lot of times in life,

they deal with week to week, month to month, year to year, depends on what they got going on. But day to day, things like that, what does that actually feel like, dealing with it day in and day out?

Sydney: Yeah, it's interesting with FND and other neurological conditions, but I think this one in particular, people I've talked to it almost at the beginning. I described it as, it feels like I'm waking up.

It feels in the body of someone with a new disability every single day because the symptoms fluctuated quite rapidly. So I could have very good days where I would be able to walk and speak, and then I could have a seizure and wake up from the seizure and have no bodily function left,

not Be able to move my limbs, not be able to get words out of my mouth, not be able to see properly and do. Waking up, never knowing what I was going to be able to do or what.

What I had lost during the night,

it was really hard because there was no stability.

So it wasn't as if, you know, there was a turning point and something happened. And then now this is what my life looks like. It was losing the same things over and over.

And I remember one day in particular I really struggled with after my seizures,

needing to learn how to speak again.

And my husband, he would pull out a book, and he was so patient, he'd have me repeat after him all of the letter sounds. And I would try to get my brain to say the right words again.

And then we would start moving through these books, like, very, very slowly. And the words were so hard for me to say.

And none of the sounds that came out of my mouth during those times sounded at all human.

It was just all floundering and so much stuttering, a lot of slurring.

And slowly, my sense of being able to speak would be able to come back.

I think the longest time that it lasted was about three days of being unable to speak.

And I remember this one time in particular, poring over this book, and then I had another seizure and lost it all over again.

And as soon as I woke up, he pulls the book back out and is like, all right, let's start over.

And I looked at him like he was insane. He's like, there's no way I'm doing this all over again right now.

And what he told me is that when you're losing the same things over and over,

and then you sink into that discouragement and you feel like this just isn't worth it anymore. You're actually rejecting something that God is offering to you again.

So he helped me to see it not as losing the same things over and over, but as regaining the same gifts again and again.

And now I so much more appreciate the ability to speak and read out loud, the ability to move my hands and my limbs,

because I have those fluctuating symptoms. And I'm much better at managing those things when they happen.

But I. I rejoice in the ability to use my body right now because I know what a gift that is.

Reginald D: Yeah, exactly. Your husband is the godsend man your life.

Telling you he is.

He is a Godsent man. I mean, he hit it right on the head when he said what he said. So he brought you books and had you reading books Again and all this kind of stuff.

Now you have a new book.

Sydney: Yeah.

Reginald D: So tell us about your new book, Fearfully and Wonderfully Broken and why you decided to write it. Cindy.

Sydney: When I first got sick, before we even had the diagnosis, there were a lot of nights that I was in so much pain I couldn't sleep.

So I would kind of hobble or crawl out to the living room and I would write because I didn't know what else to do. It was just a way to process what was happening to me.

And while my husband was deployed, there were some weeks where I couldn't get out of bed. I didn't hear another human voice for days or a week at a time.

And I would continue writing during those really hard moments. And I thought, no one else is going to ever be allowed to see these things that I'm writing these pages because they were so vulnerable and so broken.

And there was a part of me that felt, Christians don't think these things. Like, we're not allowed to think this way about ourselves, about the life that God has given us, about God.

And I thought that there was no way, if other believers could see my brokenness, that they would ever look at me the same way.

And it was through eventually connecting with mature Christians who had also been through suffering.

And then seeing the suffering that's woven through the Bible that I've realized God actually,

he not only understands our brokenness, but he's actually given us language that is profound and raw in the Bible to describe our brokenness.

So the things that we think, oh, I'm afraid to say that out loud. God actually says it for us.

And in the Bible it says things like, my bed is swimming with tears and I forget what happiness feels like.

Things that are really raw and heavy, that if we said out loud at church today, we might think, oh, wait, wow, I can't believe that just came out of my mouth.

And God actually gives that language to us in the Bible. And as I continued writing over the years, I realized that God was really shaping my understanding of what Christian suffering looks like and what God gives to us within our suffering, especially long term suffering.

Suffering that doesn't have,

you know, a recovery date or an end date in this life.

I might be in this disability, in this disabled body forever,

or not forever, but for the rest of my life. And what do you do when you can't give someone a progress report?

That can feel very isolating in itself. And so I wanted to,

I wanted to take some of those early writings,

but now from the Perspective of understanding a little bit more of what God does through Christian suffering. And I wanted to help give other people the language that I needed back then in that first,

the really, really painful season where I thought I was the only one feeling this way. I know that all of us experience suffering at some point in this life. And if you haven't, then you will.

And it's coming. There's no way that you can get through this life and through the suffering of this life without knowing who Jesus is in that, because it will crush you without the Lord and understanding that there is language for it in the Bible.

And then what does God's faithfulness look like when you're going through suffering that doesn't feel like it's going to end? What. How do we actually get hope in a suffering like that?

That's what I wanted to talk about in the book and what I wanted to encourage other Christians to see from someone who's. Who's still walking that road herself.

Reginald D: Yes. Because I know a lot of people, even people that's Christians,

you know, they have life situations that happen and they started questioning God,

why me? Or why am I going through this? And you supposed to be this for me and that.

But I think what I heard from you is one thing about it. When you come to God in a humble and a vulnerable state and show him your heart,

you know, this is where I am. This is what I feel. I don't understand it all,

but I'm trusting you to help me get through it.

Sydney: Yes. Yeah. Take those feelings and tell them to God instead of trying to hide them from him.

Reginald D: Right, Exactly. So your relationship with God had to be strong.

How did you feel when you put in your mind saying one day,

hey,

you know,

I'm praying for healing,

but it hasn't been answered yet.

Sydney: Yeah. My relationship with God did not feel strong at the time at all.

And I felt very distant from God. I thought maybe God was punishing me. It was hard to even make myself want to pray or read the Bible or anything because I just felt all I felt was my suffering.

I didn't feel any goodness in it or any presence from the Lord in it. And the turning point for me,

and I say turning point tentatively because I don't think that there's usually a turning point where we step over this line and we feel this closeness with God and then we never go back again.

There's constantly ups and downs in our Christian walk. And sometimes in our Christian walk, it's relearning the same lessons over and over again, just like I was needing to do in my physical disability.

But it was understanding that those broken thoughts, God was big enough for them.

And I kept trying to think I needed to solve them myself and feel the desire to pray before I actually prayed.

But it's actually in the act of faithfulness and coming to God when those feelings are not there that God uses to help create those feelings, create that tenderness toward him.

And so my first prayers to God were a lot of, you know, God, I do not feel like praying to you anymore.

And I feel far away from you. I feel broken. I don't feel your presence.

I don't understand what you're doing. I don't know how you can bring any good out of what I'm going through.

Just extremely raw and honest. And the things that you think I can't say to another person, much less to God.

And God heard those prayers, and they were things that I prayed over and over again.

I kept going back to this one quote that I read from a lovely lady, Vanetha Joy Risner, who also has an extreme disability,

extreme chronic pain, a lot of suffering in her life. And she said, pray to God even when it feels like you're talking to a wall and read the Bible, even when it feels like you're eating cardboard.

Because there's seasons of your life where it's going to feel like that. And it's not the feelings that gets you close to God. It's the act of obedient faithfulness, even when there are zero feelings there where God will eventually meet you in the faithfulness of your obedience, and you'll realize that he was actually doing something in all the prayers that you thought were unanswered.

Reginald D: Yes. That's great. And I like the fact that you roll with it with God, you know, and people think you have to have this thing down pat, how to say it, how to,

you know, start your conversation with God and, you know, and things like that. And God in the Bible says he calls us friends.

So you talk to him as a friend, even though he's our God. Because there's been many times in my life, Cynthia, where I was going through things and I was like,

God, hey, man,

what we doing? You know,

what are we doing today?

Where you at? You know what I'm saying?

So I think that was the biggest, best way for me to get clarity from him by being honest from within myself,

you know? So now you've been through all the things that you've been through in life, Sydney. And what does a meaningful life look like now compared to what you imagined before?

Sydney: Hmm, that's such a good question. I think I still oftentimes struggle with grief for the life that I thought I was gonna have.

But if I knew back then, if you had told me the kind of life I'd be living even today, five years later,

I would not have believed you.

I have two beautiful daughters, two year old and a six month old,

and I parent them from my wheelchair. And it's been wonderful experiencing motherhood that I never thought I would experience.

Now when my husband does military trips, I'm able to manage my symptoms.

I am joyful,

I'm confident,

I feel the presence of God. I feel close to Him. I'm raising my daughters to be close to Him.

And I think that when I look at my further understanding of what my future will be,

a lot of what I think of is experiencing deep contentment in wherever God places me.

And I think that contentment has to be grounded in an understanding that God is truly good and that he gives good gifts to his children.

And even in the times where I lose,

you know, last night I put my baby to bed and my hand was paralyzed again and I couldn't move it the whole time.

But even in those times where I'm losing another bodily function again,

understanding that God is going to give this back to me, whether it's in this life or in the next life, he's going to give this back to me. And the Lord promises that this future redemption that we are heading toward in Christ is so powerful that it actually works backward in time and it makes the pain that feels meaningless right now.

It actually gives it meaning and it gives it purpose even if we can't understand it.

And I think that the whole Christian walk is actually learning dependence,

which is kind of counterintuitive to how we feel a lot of the time, like in even raising our kids as a mom now. Like, there's a way that I'm teaching them independence and I'm teaching them to not have to rely on me like they are now as little kids.

And a lot of times as adults, we feel like we're still trying to reach that place of independence, whether it's from moving away from, you know, our family, moving out of the home, or in our job security, things like that.

But the entire Christian life in a different way is learning dependence on the Lord.

And I think that that is true for anyone whether you have a disability or not.

But a disability is a unique gift because it forces you to actually be dependent In a way that you might not have understood before.

It forces you to realize the dependency that was already rooted deep inside you and the need for the Lord that was already there when you didn't see it.

And if. When I look at a full life now,

it's a life of dependency on the Lord, on His goodness, on his faithfulness. And that means that if your hope is bigger than this world,

then you can actually cope with the things that will happen in this world, because there's a better promise coming. And maybe my full, beautiful life isn't ever going to be realized in this lifetime, but I know that one day I will receive a fullness that I can't even imagine right now that no one in this world can imagine.

So I don't know what the future holds for me. I hope that it's more of this.

More stability and being able to manage my symptoms well and raising my kids and having a beautiful family.

But who knows what's going to happen? And that thought doesn't scare me anymore,

because I know that God is good and I know that he writes good stories.

Reginald D: Absolutely. Cindy, you're so powerful. You are so powerful. So what would you say to someone who feels forgotten by God in their suffering? Because I know you've been down that road.

You thought about it. And I think it's very critical for the audience because I'm pretty sure that people are dealing with things. So what would you say was to someone who feels forgotten by God and their suffering?

Sydney: If you feel forgotten by God, you need to tell Him.

And it's really hard to pray when you feel like maybe God's not listening.

But if you're feeling abandoned by God, you know, your first prayer can be, lord, I feel like you've forgotten me. I have one dear friend who ministered to me during my husband's deployment.

She says that there was one time that she prayed, lord, I feel like you hate me.

Like, there's a sense of honesty that you can get with with God because he's big enough for your suffering. He's big enough for your anger and your despair.

And if you feel forgotten by God, that is the first step. You need to tell God that you feel forgotten by him.

And the Bible talks about reminding the Lord, reminding the Lord of the promises he gives us.

And in scripture, there are so many promises that we all know. You know, God says, I will never leave you or forsake you,

or, you know, you will mount up on wings like eagles, and you'll walk and not be weary and run and not be faint. And there's many times where we read those promises and we feel like, I am not receiving this promise, Lord.

So in your prayer, Lord, I feel like you've forgotten me. Remind God of his promises to you.

That's one of the best ways that we actually refresh our own souls. God uses those promises and tells us to remind him of them.

Not because he's forgotten, but because we often feel like there's a gap between what God promises us and what we've been given.

And by saying that out loud to the Lord,

he often helps us to close that gap a little bit, even if it doesn't feel like it in the moment.

And then also telling someone else, someone else who loves the Lord, who trusts in the Lord.

A lot of people ask me, like, where do I find.

Find a person that I can tell this to.

And if you're part of a church, I would say go to the elders of your church.

That's what I did. That's how I connected with my mentors. And I remember one elder, if they aren't able to, like, walk you through what you are experiencing, because they have probably heard what you're saying countless times,

so you know that you're not the only one thinking them. But my elder, he said, you know, we can meet right now. I'm going to give you what I'm able to.

But I've never walked through physical suffering like this. But I know someone. You has.

And because your elders are receiving,

they're giving counseling and support to so many different members in the church. There is a good possibility that they could also connect you with someone else that you may not even know has walked through a period of suffering like this and connect you with them.

And then there's a vulnerability that you can express with that person before the Lord. And you can actually say those things to another Christian who you know you can trust and who will understand it because they've been there too.

Reginald D: Yes, absolutely. Well put. So I have what I call quick fire questions.

Sydney: Okay.

Reginald D: No pressure, no answer. Right?

Sydney: Right.

Reginald D: So what's one thing suffering taught you that comfort never could?

Sydney: What strength actually looks like?

Because like I said before, I loved my own strength, my physical strength, my mental strength. I thought I was a very strong person,

and disability robbed me of that.

And understanding that it was only in my weakness that I could actually experience the strength of the Lord. Paul says, I boast in my weakness because in my weakness Christ is strong.

That has taught me what strength is. Now I feel like I also rejoice in my weakness, because that's how I've received the strength of Christ.

Reginald D: Yes. So, next question. Do you think faith is stronger when it has no answers?

Sydney: Hmm, yes. Well, it depends what you mean by no answers. I know that's not a quick reply. What do you mean by no answers?

Reginald D: So I'm thinking that, you know,

when you pray to God and you don't hear from him when you want to,

do you think your faith is stronger then,

or is it stronger after the fact?

Sydney: I think it'll be stronger.

Well,

faith is looking to the Lord. So if you're feeling that brokenness and your first thought in that is actually looking to the Lord, then that does show a lot of faithfulness.

But it probably won't feel like a lot of faithfulness. It won't feel stronger till after the fact.

Reginald D: Yes. So what's the truth about pain that people go through and the truth about pain that most people avoid?

Sydney: That most people avoid?

Reginald D: Yes.

Sydney: That some pain isn't fixable.

Everyone wants to fix someone else's pain, and it's really uncomfortable when you can't.

And learning how to sit in that discomfort with someone and knowing that you can't do anything about it. But you both know God and you can go to God.

Reginald D: Okay, and have you found God more in healing or in struggle?

Sydney: In struggle. That's still hard for me to say, but yep.

Reginald D: In struggle,

yes, absolutely. Because I'll tell you, man, that's.

I've been through some things, but I think the struggle really was the thing that brought me closer or made me understand more.

You know, when you're in the struggle. Because when you're in the struggle, a lot of times it is what it is, and you got to depend on him, and, you know, you got to be still, you got to be quiet, and then you have to just go through it,

and that's the biggest thing.

And you can't go through it alone. You got to have him, you know, you gotta have him with you.

Sydney: Yeah, absolutely. That's the struggle.

Reginald D: Yes. So, lastly, Sydney, how can my listeners follow you or purchase your book or anything you got going on?

Sydney: So I'm on Instagram and YouTube. My handle is the Ann Girl.

And then my book is called Fearfully and Wonderfully Broken.

It's available on Amazon through the link on my Instagram page. You could just look it up. It has a website as well, so you can find me in all of those places.

And I'd love to meet you if you wanted to message me.

Reginald D: Okay,

there you have it. Cindy Bennett. Cindy, I'm telling you, you are a remarkable, strong woman.

I mean, you have a purpose for your life out of this whole conversation. That's what God kept telling me.

Sydney: Purpose. Thank you. It's all the Lord.

Reginald D: Yeah, yeah,

yeah. He's gonna walk with you. He's going do some remarkable things within you,

you know,

And I don't think the suffering is going to be that long. Trust me. He's going just stay faithful to what you're doing and what he's called you to do.

And I'm telling you, he honors you and he's proud of you.

Sydney: Thank you.

Reginald D: All right,

so there you have it. Sidney Bennett,

thanks for listening to Real Talk. Reginald D. If you enjoyed listening to Real Talk with Reginald D, please rate and review on Apple Podcasts. See you next time.