Welcome to Hope in the Morning. turning tragedies and tears into testimonies of hope. 2 Corinthians 4, 17-18 says, For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. If you've ever felt far from God's reach, if you feel like you're sinking in sin and sorrow, then today's message of hope is for you. Joining me to share his testimony of suffering and how that led to his salvation is Wynne Schaddinger. Wynne, thank you for joining us today.
Emily, thank you for having me. I'd love to just dive right in and talk to the viewers and the listeners about. the beginning part of your testimony, what the Lord has brought you through in your suffering.
Okay. It really kind of starts. I was born with cervical palsy. I was kind of all drawn up on my my right side. My heel wouldn't touch the ground and my arm was kind of like a chicken wing.
And then when I was five years old, They did surgery on my leg so that my foot could go flat, and they. Pried my arm open, and the Lord's been kind to me, you know, since then. I can function, I can walk, I walk with a kind of a bad limp. Um, but but that was just you know, kind of the start of things. Um, and this background is kind of important because, um, Yeah.
When I was in high school, I fell and had an x-ray and I had a spinal fusion in 1975. And then in college, I wrecked my car, broke it, had another spinal fusion. And then, after 30 years of career, my wife, my back had gotten really bad. And in 2016, I had a massive spinal fusion, titanium screws, and rods.
So, that just kind of sets up the fact that I was horribly addicted to doctor-prescribed opioid pain medicine. Wow. And I had been taking them on and off for years. But more so in the past five years, more on than off.
Okay. And pretty high quantities, the doctors, it just was awful. And all the bad things that that does to your own life, to the people that you love, that you live with. Yeah.
So I guess that would lead me to Talking about spiritual things is I was in college, and someone shared the gospel with me. One summer I was out selling books and um I said a prayer, I asked Jesus in my heart, I believed he died on the cross for my sins, and I made a profession of the faith. Um But I quickly fell away and went back to my life. You know, back then it was sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I mean, that's kind of how I grew up, and that's how I lived for a long time.
So we'll come back to that because I think it's important for people to know the people who are like me.
So that was college. And I was self-deceived. I said I was a Christian. I said I believed The church I now go to, my wife and I started going to in 2014. It's Grace Emmanuel Bible Church in Jupiter, Florida.
Okay. And my wife, Lola. Got saved in 2015, got baptized. And I attended church. I went to Bible studies.
I was under the teaching of our pastors. And I was self-deceived. And everybody knew it. You know, my wife shared with many people to pray for me.
So other people knew they could tell that you were not saved, but you still thought that you were? Yes. Yeah, I kind of thought that I was. You know, I prayed all the time for Jesus to save me. I had no assurance, you know.
But our church is very steeped in the word and in the truth. And our pastors are very good. We know, you know, because our lives are getting, our church, we get in each other's lives.
Okay. We just don't go and say, Hey, how you doing? We are in each other's lives. And I have a number of men now that we're very transparent with. You know, we share, you know, our toughest battles with each other and pray for each other.
So they knew, they knew.
So, you know, I was self-deceived and I was doing all these drugs.
So, Lola, my wife of 38 years, uh we met in January of fifth of eighty four. We got married six weeks later. Wow. Uh and on February eighteenth. And we were married thirty eight years.
And uh when we got married, she had a five and a seven year old. From her previous marriage, I adopted them, and we had two other children, little girls of our own. You know one of them. And then we ended up adopting and raising our grandson and adopting him.
So my grandson's son. Oh, yeah. How how old was he when you adopted him? Uh Well, we got him when he was eight months old. We didn't adopt him until years later.
Okay. So that you know he would have you know anyway so um So after And twenty twenty twenty one, July Lola had been waking up with a backache for a long time. She was one that didn't like to go to doctors, didn't like to take any medicine. And uh finally it got so bad that she decided to go that day in uh Januar uh July. Of 21.
And I didn't hear from her. And finally, I got a call from her, and they had sent her to the hospital to have a CAT scan. And she said, Dreaded words, when I have cancer. Um And that was the beginning of a year. That was a tough year.
You know, she she she wanted to fight it, but You know, looking back, hindsight's always 2020, right? Yeah.
She. She had a very large tumor. It was stage four. And statistics say that people in that situation live about a year, except for, you know, some very rare situations. But she decided to take the chemo.
It's the strongest chemo that man knows. Wow. And so she died a year later on July 2nd, 2022. Wow. So that kind of sets up, you know, part of it.
Um I guess I should mention, though, it's important that in her battle. Um She stood on that verse that you just read in Second Corinthians. And. And it her faith was amazing to the end. Was that was that a testimony to you?
Yes, it was. To see her. in the worst of circumstances. You know, when she died, she was like 80 pounds and looked like she was in Auschwitz. I mean, that's what that medicine does to you.
And uh In the very end, she's in hospice, and our pastors come over to the house, and she's just asked them to read scripture to her. Wow. And they would sit at the bedside and read to her. She knew. A minute after her death, where she was going to be.
So, anyway, that was a big testimony, yeah, to me. Did you going back to that real quick? Did were you able to see like a contrast between your faith and her faith? Did that make it more apparent to you that you did not have saving salvation or not? Yeah, that's a good question because I saw A progressive I saw what we're going to do the book we're going to talk about in her life.
Okay. Okay. From the time she was saved in 2015 until she died in 2022. I saw her grow and grow and grow. She was being discipled by a woman in our church every other week for nine years.
Wow. She was very involved. She played handbells. Everybody knew her. And so, yeah.
But maybe this is a good Part point to tell you, Emily, is that I didn't want to give up my sin. I was the most important person. in my life to me.
Okay, more important than my wife, more important than my children. Uh And uh I think self-absorbed and self-deceived. And so, It's good for people to note because um Yeah. It's kinda like what Scripture talks about with with Self-idolatry. You know, I mean, we all worship something.
And so if we're if we're not worshiping the one true loving God, more often than not, our worship becomes self-focused. What we need, what we want, and that's what drives our life. Yeah, that's what Jesus said. If you want to be my disciple, you have to deny yourself. And take up your cross and follow me.
And I wasn't willing to do that. I didn't maybe know that at the time, but now looking back, I can see that that's what it was.
So let's go back to 2022. Lola died in July, right? Yes. So in January. That little seven year old boy, that I got when I married her, Shane.
He was 47 years old. In January, he died of a fentanyl overdose.
So Lola had to go to his funeral when she was six months into taking chemo. It was very, very hard for her. Yeah, that's heartbreaking. Yeah.
So she died in July.
Now, in October, My oldest daughter, that other, the other, the five-year-old that I got when I married, well, and adopted Betty. Um, she moved into RV, I had outside all set up like a hotel room to help me because I was a mess. Yeah, yeah.
So, on top of the meds I was taking, I started drinking a fifth of vodka every few days. I didn't leave the house, I cried all the time. You know, again, self-absorbed. Poor me, God, why how could you do this to me? Yeah, you know, again, it was all about me.
It was sad to look back on it now. Um, so. I didn't see Betty for a day, so and she was kind of a troubled young lady. And then finally, I decided, wow, I didn't look in the trailer. I went out there, and she had died the night before of a fentanyl overdose in the trailer.
In the trailer.
So that also speaks to the testimony of the example that a father. gives to their children. They saw me use substances to escape life. And that's what I say in my testimony: it's an escape. And in my testimony, I don't want to go down a rabbit trail, but I think this is important.
In my testimony, I shared with the young people at my church. About marijuana. Because I had a friend, quote unquote, who turned me on to smoking marijuana when I was 15. And it is a bridge drug because you try that and then people, oh, well, this makes you feel better. And you try to escape life by using substances, alcohol, whatever.
And so I warned, and I would like to warn any young people that Don't go there. It's a trail that leads to destruction. Yeah.
You know, real quick, you you talked about the example of a father. Did you struggle in in the days after Shane and Betty's passing feeling like any part of that was your fault? Um Yeah. No, yeah, I did, but you got to keep in mind I hadn't quite been saved yet. We'll get there.
So she died in October. The three of them died in 2022. This is October.
Now for 18 months. I wallowed in self-pity after they all died. And that's the time I was telling you where I started drinking. And I was like a recluse. I didn't go to church.
I didn't go anywhere. I wasn't paying my bills. I was, I, you know, I was destitute. And I actually thought of taking my life. But my mother did that.
And I saw what it did to those of us who were left behind. And so for me, that was not an option.
So in November 23. I reached out to my daughter. And she had struggled with a life of addiction, too.
So, my third son, right? Going back to the father's example, and this is part of her testimony.
So, I'm not telling you anything that she would be embarrassed about. But she struggled, and she almost died a few times of overdoses. And the Lord spared her because He had things for her to do. And I took her to our church in 2016, and the pastor started working with her. And then she got saved and totally just an amazing young, godly woman now.
She's married to a young man that grew up in our church who's in seminary. They have a beautiful family. She had two children from a previous marriage, and he adopted them. Wow. And they've had another child.
Yeah.
So I sound familiar. Yes. Well, I mean, we can clearly hear how the Lord has just allowed sorrow upon sorrow upon sorrow in your life. And when we come back, Back from the break, we're going to talk about how the Lord redeemed that sorrow and what purpose you have found in your pain.
So, join us in just a moment on Hope in the Morning. Yes, thank you. Hope in the Mourning allows you to lean into the suffering of others and helps equip you to purposefully mourn with and meaningfully minister to those suffering in your midst. May these testimonies cause you to see our God with fresh and thankful eyes. And may you seek to be His hands and feet to every weary heart.
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Well, then we welcome you to visit hopeinthemorning.org and see how you can join us in these ministry endeavors. May you be encouraged by who our God is as you continue this episode of Hope in the Morning. To learn more, visit us at hopeinthemorning.org. Have you ever struggled to comfort a grieving friend? John 11:35 says, Jesus wept.
When Jesus was told by Mary and Martha that their brother Lazarus had died, Jesus wept. Today on Hope in the Morning, we invite you to learn what it looks like to weep with those who weep. Learn what it means to sit in the ashes and be encouraged that even in our morning, there's hope. His name is Jesus. Visit hopeinthemorning.org to learn more.
All right, joining us again today is Wynne Shattinger. And Wynne, your testimony has been so powerful that as I read through the written testimony that you gave me when you got baptized, it actually inspired me to write a little poem about your testimony.
So this is what I wrote, and it's called Now I See. In the mire sank I fast and deep, With eyes wide open, yet soul asleep. Clinging to pleasures that wrought me blind Then Jesus sought me, fierce and kind. Stript of earthly treasures, sweet, Brought humbly to the Saviour's feet. intoxicated by his love, With heart now focussed on things above.
Ezekiel 36, 25-27 says this Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness, and from all of your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you. And I will remove your heart of stone, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
When you just shared with us so many different sufferings that you have faced in your life, from multiple surgeries from the time you were young to becoming addicted to opioids as a result of those surgeries to the loss of your precious wife and two of your precious children, what What purpose have you found in your pain, and how did Christ get a hold of your heart?
So, picking back up from where we were in November 23. Um, I was at the end of myself. And I called my daughter Peyton, who I just spoke about before the break. And she'd gotten saved, married a young man in our church, and just Really? amazingly.
Godly woman in my life now. And she helped me get myself in a hospital to detox because that's the first step.
So you just can't stop taking those meds. You know, Culture. You can, but you get deathly sick. And so I went in the hospital. And so when I was getting ready to go, it's an anxious time for an addict because you know that you're getting ready to give up.
what you love. Sure. And as I've already told you in the first part of the um interview that You know, I love that sin so much that, you know, to the detriment of all the people that I love.
So, yeah, so anyway, we're getting ready. My son's taking me to the hospital. I'm putting stuff in. And my wife has had every book that the church recommends is somewhere in this house.
So I saw a book. I said, well, I'm going to have to read.
So I took my Bible, my MacArthur Study Bible, and I threw Free to Be Holy Book in there, which is a book that my pastor, Jerry Ragg, and another pastor, Paul Shirley, co-authored. Yeah.
Can you tell me the title of that one more time? Free to be holy. Free to be holy. Yes, yes. Um, so I threw that in the bag, so I and I went and checked myself into the hospital.
So it's a seven-day uh detox that they get you through the hardest part, okay? Um, so of it. Um, so, um So I was reading this book and Free to Be Holy is a book that I like to call it it's a it's a manual on progressive sanctification.
Okay, so when we're saved, we're justified. When we die, we're glorified. And the time in between, We grow and grow more and more in Christ's likeness in our lives.
So, our church, so we have a saying: it's not your perfection, it's your direction.
So I'm reading this book. And keep in mind, it's a man. It's for believers, right?
So I'm reading it, but towards the end of the book, there's a contrast. Like, there are a lot of contrasts in scriptures. And there was a contrast of a man. That professed to be a Christian, whose life had no resemblance of what the Bible says a Christian man's life is supposed to look back like. In other words, he was self deceived, as you've already heard me say about myself.
And at that moment, that night, I just surrendered, I submitted my life to God. And I said, I'm not done a good job of this, and I need you. For real, and when I woke up the next morning and went out of that hospital room. I knew.
Something was different. Wow, I saw all these people in that senior adult ward that I thought this is a psychiatric hospital. That I thought were like weird people. And I saw them with compassion. It's like, you know.
And so I knew that I was his and he's mine.
So yeah, so um uh Then I went home, you know, and it took another four or five weeks to detox. And I used my daughter Peyton and her husband as my accountability partners. And, you know, at first they were a little cautious about what I explained happened, even after talking to me. And we talked about it earlier, about people in the church knowing that I wasn't saved. You know, we're kind of trained to be able to understand what it means to be saved.
And part of it is a total life change. You know, yeah, and you're not a slave to your sin anymore. You hate your sin, yeah, and you love the word of God, and you want to be around God's people. You know, uh, James, James will tell James, the book of James, has all the tests in there, yeah, uh, and uh, so, um. I met started meet with my pastor, Todd Murray.
And I explained to him, and he told me on the first meeting Emily a few weeks after I recovered. He'd been meeting with me for nine years.
So he knew. Yeah.
He said, when the eyes are the windows to the soul. And this is the first time that I've really seen you. Wow. But was that because it was one of the first times that he had seen you sober, or because there was just such an evident. change in your spirit.
So, yeah, so he knew I was sober, but. he could tell that you know That there was a difference, and for him to say something like that, I mean. He's uh he's an amazing pastor and shepherd and he counsels many people.
Well, even what you were saying as far as while you were still in the facility, God giving you eyes of compassion to see people in really one of their most vulnerable states. You know, when you're in those detox facilities. It's a very vulnerable time in your life. But the Lord gave you eyes to focus not just on yourself, but on those around you. What a beautiful testimony of how He instantaneously changed your perspective.
Yeah, yeah, that's what he does. He gives you that new heart that you just read about in Ezekiel. Yeah.
I had that on my testimony because, you know. I said, that, my friends, is being born again. You know, yeah, well, and the reminder, like, I love that passage in Ezekiel. And again, you know, I got that from your testimony because your testimony was so beautifully written. And for those of you that are going to watch this episode on YouTube, we will actually put a link to his testimony on there for you to see his baptism, which is incredible.
But I love the fact that in Ezekiel there's no there's no There's nothing that we do. You know, it says that God will sprinkle clean water on us and you will be clean. And it's an instant thing. It's not, well, you'll be clean over time. It's going to take time because you were really dirty.
It's the Lord is going to wipe. Clean all of your sin and give you a fresh slate. And he sees Christ when he looks at you when you accept that free gift. And there's nobody. whose sin is so egregious.
that the Lord's blood cannot cover at all. Amen. Amen. Yeah, so I I have new thoughts and new desires now, you know, and I'm very much aware of my sin. We don't stop being sinners.
Right. But the Holy Spirit that He gives us as a promise and You know, he works on us and he prunes us, and as we submit to him, he grows us, and that's the whole, you know, sanctification part of it.
So I said in my testimony that now I know I have assurance that I can trust my entire life. to him, to God. No matter what he has to teach me, And what sufferings he has planned for my good to make me increasingly more and more like Christ. And he's given me his spirit.
So one of my favorite verses is Roman 8:28. And God causes all things. all things That's a pretty strong statement. All things to work together for good to those that love God and to those that are called according to his purpose. And I just remember that.
So, in my physical sufferings, the pain that I live with now with no meds, the pain's amazing. Right now, I need a new hip. I wore out my left side. I got a new shoulder last year. And I'm also looking at having the rest of my spine fused up into my neck because of the problems I'm having.
Yeah, but That's what he has for me, and it's all gonna be for his glory and my good. Yeah.
For some reason.
So, knowing that not only you have those impending surgeries coming up, and you're saying that you will not be having any narcotics. What does your prayer life look like with that, with entrusting the Lord with all of your, not only your sorrows, but your physical pains? Yeah, so, um, I think about Paul and the thorn in the flesh. He prayed and God said, My grace is sufficient for you. Yes.
And I rest on that, and I rest on God's sovereignty. Our church teaches us. what that means and what God being sovereign, not only in creation, but in our lives. That he's involved in everything in my life.
So, yeah, so. I I rest on that. Yeah.
So I'm totally clean of everything. I haven't taken anything since that last dose in 23. I'm very involved in my church. I serve on several ministries, a communion team. And I just got, we have a seminary.
Okay. It's a video conference of 13 like-minded churches around the country. Is that the Expositors Seminary? Yeah.
Okay. Yeah.
Oh, what happened? Can you. I I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yeah, I accidentally hit a button.
There we go.
Okay. Okay. So. Am I frozen? I think you're good.
I know, I think we're frozen. Yeah, so the expositor seminary.
So, members are allowed to audit classes, which means as a layman, I can pay a nominal fee and go sit in on class and be exposed to it.
Now, I'm not there to take the test and get a grade.
So, a friend of mine and I took a class that Jerry, Pastor Jerry taught last semester, and this semester we're taking First Timothy. But I got accepted to be a proctor. And what a proctor does, we run all the audio visual for the classes.
So, I get to sit through three pastors' things on Tuesdays now. Wow. And I love it. And I can't, Emily, I can't believe. Yeah.
I am doing those things. I mean, it still astounds me. You know, when this is so incredible to me to hear how the Lord has taken all of your suffering, and you've suffered a lot, you know, throughout your life, but the Lord had such a purpose in it. You know, he used it to really lead to your salvation. And what an incredible thing and work he is doing in your life.
And we so appreciate you coming on the show today and pray that the Lord would bless you and your ministry to other people, that he would continue to give you a heart of compassion. And I just thank you so much for joining us today on Hope in the Morning. Thank you. It was a pleasure to be here. Hope in the Morning is a non-profit ministry that seeks to encourage the hurting.
equip those who walk beside them, and evangelize the lost with the hope of Jesus Christ. To partner with our ministry or to make a donation in your loved one's honor, please visit hopeinthemorning.org. Your donation helps keep these stories of hope on the air and helps tangibly meet the needs of the hurting.
