It's been a rough night for Cindy Deyo. Sitting upright in an inclining hospital bed, she seems agitated and out of sorts. The lady in the next room wailed all night long, it turns out, keeping her awake when she desperately needed rest. Her head aches, but then Cindy apologizes for her grumpiness. Her daughter Ashli begins to groom her, and Cindy begs forgiveness for her in-hospital looks. Her husband, Wendel—director of Athletes in Action—plops in a corner chair, tuckered out but smiling. He interrupts the grooming several times to kiss his wife.

The good news has come from the doctor that Cindy can now go home. The virus that attacked her body is under control. As Wendel and Ashli gather her belongings, Cindy realizes there are too many flower-filled vases in the room to take home. She knows what to do with them. As a parting reach toward the wailing lady, Cindy asks the nurse to deliver some of the flowers to her. She writes a note and places a "Steps to Joy" gospel tract in a bouquet.

Although she hadn't actually seen the lady, Cindy recognized her voice. She would recognize the voice of suffering anytime. Cindy is especially sensitive to the pain of others because for 25 years she has been afflicted with multiple sclerosis (MS), a debilitating disease that has ravished her immune system.

MS has robbed Cindy and Wendel of much of the "good life" they had in mind when they married as college kids at Otterbein College in Ohio. They were high-school sweethearts. He was a college football star and she a cheerleader and homecoming queen. Winsome and well-liked, they were among the key student leaders in a spiritual revival on campus. They sensed God calling them into full-time service.

Directly after Wendel graduated from college in 1972, the Deyos joined the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ, with baby Alisha in a basket. Two years later, Wendel pioneered the pro-athletes ministry of Athletes in Action.

As chaplain for the world-champion Cincinnati Reds and the football Bengals, Wendel found himself serving in a lofty place for such a young man in ministry. And Cindy, by then a mother of two little girls, often found herself ministering through song, her favorite platform.

While all was going so well, God had in mind for them a platform for ministry so unappealing they would never have chosen it themselves. "We had always counted ourselves 'blessed' because we never really had to suffer," Wendel recalls. "Like most people, we assumed that pain and suffering is all wrong. But we have come to see what a shallow value system we had. We have found suffering to be rich."

	Arm-in-Arm | Through years of caring for Cindy in her suffering, Wendel came to see that her sacrifice has been greater than his own. "Despite her illness, Cindy feels compelled to be a wife and a homemaker," he says. "She has felt guilty because she couldn't always carry her own load. I could never relieve her of that burden."

Nobody knows for sure how MS claims its victims. It is a disease of the central nervous system that results in the destruction of the insulating (myelin) sheath which covers nerve fibers, leaving multiple scarring (sclerosis). There are a variety of treatments and therapies, but no known cure.

The one thing certain about the disease is its uncertainty. Symptoms vary considerably, appearing most noticeably in hot or stressful conditions, and sometimes disappearing for long periods. It is terminal, but not predictably so.

"One of the beauties of this [affliction] is that God has taught us through all the uncertainty to run to the one place that is certain," says Wendel. "The Scriptures clearly tell us we can expect suffering in this world. Suffering just for the sake of suffering is worthless. But put suffering in the context of God's plan for our lives, and you'll see He is doing something beautiful.

"I had to learn to be totally honest with God about how I was feeling. I do not like the pain. I hate the MS for what it has done to Cindy. But instead of running from the pain, we have learned to run to the truth. That's where we've found comfort—in the presence of the Lord."

Six months after Ashli was born in 1974, one of Cindy's eyes became mysteriously paralyzed. She was hospitalized, but no diagnosis was given. Her eye corrected itself, but for the next two years one leg kept tingling, and her feet were always ice-cold.

Adam was born in 1977. While nursing him, Cindy discovered she couldn't see his mouth when she closed her right eye. By then, Wendel and Cindy had studied enough medical books to suspect she had MS. After another series of tests, a neurosurgeon told Cindy, "I haven't told you it is MS, because I don't want it to be MS. I wanted to find something wrong with you that I could help."

Through the years, Cindy has found some reprieve from the disease's encroachment by following a strict dietary and exercise regimen. Her singing, once an avenue for ministry and personal worship, is now also a vital means for keeping her lung capacity full.

"Everybody who has MS has trouble breathing deeply," Cindy explains. "So the therapists try to teach you deep-breathing. But the Lord taught me how to deep-breathe through singing. So I say, 'Thanks, Lord. You gave me a step up on this.'"

"When Cindy sings, she never performs," says Wendel. "She worships."

In times of remission, Cindy kept up the pace with her busy husband and their ministry. Wendel went on to become the national director for AIA. She befriended the wives of the athletes and her home was as open as her heart. She was a busy, well-organized mother and homemaker. She played church softball and tennis.

During a 1991 golf outing, Wendel was winding up to tee off when he shouted to Cindy, "Watch this, sweetheart!" Swinging with all his might, his shoulder lifted and the ball shot straight at Cindy, striking her above an eye.

"I rushed over to her, and all I could see was blood and bone," Wendel recalls.

A Family Affair | The Deyos are an unusually close-knit family. "My parents are probably my best friends," says Adam (wearing baseball cap). "I have such respect for them. Sometimes it's been hard, but they've never hidden anything from us. I've seen how much Dad puts into his job, and all he does at home when Mom is sick—cleaning the house, washing the laundry, doing the dishes. He's so passionate in all that he does."    "A few years ago we had a family discussion," adds Alisha Deyo Huner (far left). "We talked about Mom maybe never walking again. We all agreed it's not about her walking—the most important thing about my mom is her heart."

Adam remembers his mother lying in the hospital, her head so wrapped in gauze she could barely see out of her good eye. "There she was, already writing notes to people she had met in the hospital," he recalls. "She was redistributing flowers from her room to other patients."

That incident took a toll on Cindy's health, but it also made an indelible impression on her son. "Mom sometimes had to use crutches," Adam, now 23, recalls. "She started having seizures. One night we were watching TV in the dark, and Mom was sewing something. She began to cry, so Dad turned on the light. Mom had stuck the needle through her finger. But that's not why she was crying. She was crying because she didn't feel it. When the needle got stuck and she couldn't pull it loose, she realized what she had done."

Adam was an all-star soccer player in high school at the time. When an opposing player trying to guard Adam became angered by his elusiveness, the boy sucker-punched him so hard the skull above his nose was crushed in. When Adam turned toward him, the boy swung again, flattening his nose across his face.

"On the way to the hospital, I had a supernatural peace that God was in control," Adam remembers.

Wendel cried over what he saw in the hospital. His son's face was unrecognizably beaten. He was choking with blood in his throat, yet he was trying to share the gospel with the technician running the CAT scan.

"I didn't need to wonder how I would respond," Adam recalls. "I had seen my parents do the same so often in tough times."

Adam underwent six hours of surgery. He had been struck to within a thousandth of an inch of permanent brain damage.

In a subsequent meeting with his still-defiant attacker, Adam extended his hand as a gesture of forgiveness. The boy was flustered. He walked away, then turned around and ran to Adam, apologizing for how badly he had hurt him.

	No More Fear | When Cindy's MS was first diagnosed in 1977, she feared she would never see her little girls grow up and marry, nor her son graduate into manhood. "I look now at my kids and four grandkids, and I have a lot to give thanks for," she says. "God has done exceedingly above all I could ask or think."

After Adam recovered, the family took a much-needed vacation to Mexico. Cindy was unaware of how much her own health had deteriorated during the months of watching her son's recuperation. On the airplane, she needed oxygen. When they landed, flight personnel took her off the plane in a wheelchair.

Cindy has since started a treatment called cell membrane replacement. She takes megadoses of multivitamins and mineral pills each day, and intravenous injections every other day. It seems to be working—no new lesions have shown up on her CAT scan since 1996.

But still, her strength ebbs more than it flows. "On a good day," says Wendel, "Cindy has enough strength to hold her index finger straight, so that she can clean her ear with a wash rag."

But still she finds strength to share her source of strength with others. "People notice me walking so slowly down the aisle in an airplane," she says. "They can see I'm not a perfect person, but if I sit next to them, they can see I'm still happy.

"These are people who have everything. They're dressed to the max. They have great professions. Yet people will tell me they're not really happy. People pray and receive Christ with me, tons. And they don't even know much about me."

But Cindy insists she wouldn't have a hard time saying goodbye to the ministry MS has given her. "It's not the platform I would have chosen for myself," she says. Then her eyes twinkle: "I'm trying to convince the Lord He could heal me now, instead of waiting until I get to heaven.

"I love to sing, and that was a lot more fun than this."

Jim Morud, his wife, Linda, and their three children live in Warren, Ore., where Jim serves with the Global Resource Department of Campus Crusade.