Disabled woman relies on God for happiness

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Wheelchair-bound Bernadette Todd relies on God, not health for her happiness. Her husband Jeff (r) invited her to church before they were married.

MIAMI (FBW)-“Have you ever been faced with a situation so dark you wonder where God is?” Bernadette Todd asked the congregation at Stanton Memorial Baptist Church in Miami March 21.

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Although Todd’s “dark situation” could indeed lead most to despair, she testified of a godly hope and a joyful life of ministry. In a strong, expressive voice Todd told her story, which she titled “From Despair to Faith.”

A childhood habit of eavesdropping led to an earnest fear at only five. She crawled to a crack in her parent’s bedroom door and overheard them talking and weeping. Doctors had told the couple their daughter Bernadette had been diagnosed with infantile spinal muscular atrophy, a form of muscular dystrophy. She would never walk and most victims of the disease, in which muscles deteriorate from birth, do not live more than eight years.

“That was the beginning of my private sorrow,” Todd said.

She began praying to be spared-to live to be her parents’ age of 30.

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Bernadette Todd, a member of Stanton Memorial Baptist Church, Miami, teaches a home Bible study.

Todd related the difficulties of being disabled in her native Kingston, Jamaica, where medical treatment is limited and schooling rare for those physically challenged. Although Todd’s parents wanted to care for her themselves, they sought help from even exotic sources. They naively left their wheel-chair bound daughter for several weeks in the hands of a “voodoo witch doctor” about two hours from her home. He promised complete healing. Todd witnessed animal sacrifices, was chanted and danced over, and made to “drink and eat things” by the light of a fire.

“I thought even God had forgotten me,” Todd said.

When her parents returned for her, the practitioner asked for money to continue, since Bernadette was a “hard case.” After she had only hinted to her parents of the “treatment,” they “drove a 100 miles per hour all the way home,” she said.

As her eighth birthday neared, Todd’s parents began preparing for a family occasion, which the young girl assumed was her funeral. For three years she had dreaded death on her eighth birthday. As they prepared for her birthday party her mother and father reassured her, telling her “only God knows when you will die,” and encouraging her to keep praying to live to be 30.

Bernard and Yvonne Lilly and their three children moved to the United States in December 1976, confident they would find schooling and medical treatment for Bernadette. By that time, scoliosis had made her barely able to speak or breathe. Surgeons placed metal rods next to her spine to correct the condition. Although the surgery was successful, her recovery was difficult, forcing her into a body cast for a year.

That year she was home schooled and was ready to enter high school after her recovery. The popular student was a member of the bowling team and was crowned homecoming queen of North Miami Beach Senior High School in 1984. She also hoped to find a boyfriend.

“I began noticing other girls had boyfriends,” she said. “I wanted love-someone to love me just like I am. But who would want someone totally dependent?”

During her second year at Miami Dade Community College, she met Jeff Todd, who won her heart by opening doors and carrying her books. After their first meeting she announced to her mother and best friend that she had found her future husband. She recounted their different reactions.

“Mom said ‘just because someone is nice to you, Sweetie, doesn’t mean he wants to marry you,’” Todd laughed. “My friend brought over a Bride magazine.”

Todd asked Jeff to join her friends in her 20th birthday celebration. He accepted the invitation with one condition-that she attend church with him the next day.

“The pastor’s message that day on Psalm 139 was just for me,” she related. “God knows all about us and He knows what we are going through. That changed my life forever. I realized I am not a mistake.”

Todd began a new life in Christ that day, although she says she “called on God before I knew Him.” Just a few days later, on Valentine’s Day, 1987, Jeff Todd asked Bernadette to marry him.

“I thought that maybe he didn’t know what he was getting into. I told him I would be in a wheelchair for life; I’ll be losing strength. As I get worse, more will be required of you,” she said.

He answered his fiancée: “I love you. It doesn’t matter. One day with you is worth more than a lifetime without you.”

In May, the couple will have been married 17 years. Jeff, who Bernadette describes as “the most amazing man on the planet,” brushes her teeth, brushes her hair and bathes her - all while servicing swimming pools to earn a living for the couple. Although her movement now is limited to her right hand, she leads an active life, she told Florida Baptist Witness. The Todds teach a young married couples’ Sunday School class at First Baptist Church, Perrine; and the 37-year-old Bernadette speaks in churches, teaches home Bible studies and works on a book about her life.

In her talk at the church, Bernadette cited the passage in John 9 in which Jesus is asked if a man’s parents sinned, making him blind. Jesus said his affliction is “so that the work of God may be displayed in his life.”

“Are you allowing the work of God in your life?” Todd asked. “Do not be discouraged in your circumstances. Happiness is not a position, but a disposition.”

Bernadette Todd may be contacted at BernadetteTodd@aol.com.