Chronic suffering and faith in God collide in a way that most of us hope we never have to face, but today's guest has lived inside that collision for five years and come out the other side with a hope I found genuinely convicting. My guest today is Sydney Anne Bennett, a writer, disability advocate, and speaker who became disabled almost overnight two weeks after her honeymoon and was later diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder. She lives with daily seizures, chronic pain, and mobility loss, and she has built a community of over 300000 people by being honest about what it actually looks like to keep believing when your body will not cooperate and your prayers do not get answered the way you hoped. In this conversation we talk about what it means to lament honestly before God, how she learned to receive help from her husband Colton without feeling like a burden, and what she has learned about motherhood while raising her daughters Hadassah and Felicity from a wheelchair. I would love to know what stood out most to you, so leave a comment below and let me know, and if this conversation encourages you, please subscribe so you never miss an episode.

This episode is really about learning to trust God in suffering when there is no clear timeline for healing and no easy answers to hold onto. Sydney speaks honestly about depression, anxiety, and the fear of relapse, and how faith through chronic illness has shaped her marriage, her parenting, and her relationship with the Lord. We also talk about the difference between theological answers to suffering and actually living through it, and how finding God in suffering often looks less like certainty and more like showing up again and again in weakness.

Find more from Sydney:
the.annegirl (@the.annegirl) • Instagram photos and videos: https://www.instagram.com/the.annegirl/?hl=en
the.annegirl - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the.annegirl/videos
Sydney Anne Bennett: http://www.sydneyannebennett.com

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— Chapters —
00:00 - Introducing Sydney Bennett
01:04 - Becoming Disabled Overnight After Her Honeymoon
02:48 - Facing Disability Alone During Her Husband's Deployment
04:09 - Growing an Online Community and Writing Her First Book
05:50 - Growing Up in a Pastor's Home and Facing Real Suffering
07:04 - A Mentor's Lesson on Honest Prayer in Suffering
09:06 - What Daily Prayer Looked Like in Her Hardest Season
11:42 - Why Prayer Gets Harder in Seasons of Stability
12:39 - Tammy's Own Healing Journey Through Cancer
13:54 - Finding Time to Pray as a Busy Mom
18:53 - Why She Started Sharing Her Story Online
21:52 - The Story Behind Her Handle the Anne Girl
24:31 - Being Open About Faith Without Fear of Losing Followers
27:26 - There Was No Single Turning Point to God
30:07 - Still Struggling With Depression and Anxiety
32:34 - A Mentor's Words on Suffering at a Young Age
35:06 - A Current Flare of Symptoms and Severe Seizures
37:36 - Learning to Respond Faster to Fear of Relapse
39:19 - Discussing Psychiatric Medication
41:59 - Receiving Help From Her Husband and Redefining Motherhood