When All You Can Do is Wait

As Cynthia Hunter supports her daughter through adult onset epilepsy, she leans heavily on God and considers Moody Radio her constant companion

by Anneliese Rider / September 12, 2025

“Between divorce, seven years of long-distance marriage, and her daughter’s adult onset epilepsy, Cynthia Hunter has experienced more than her fair share of waiting and grieving. But she has rock-solid faith that God is in control during the unknown, and thanks to Moody Radio, she is constantly reminded that she’s not alone.

No treatment, no cure

“I’d get these horrible calls from the emergency room saying, ‘She’s here,’” Cynthia says. “And I’d say, ‘Is she responsive? Can she talk? Because she needs to tell you about her allergies.’”

For more than a year, Cynthia Hunter’s newest challenge has been something no mother would ever choose: having an adult child with an ongoing, seemingly untreatable health issue. In January 2024, one of Cynthia’s daughters, Ginny, started having seizures.

“They said, ‘Oh yeah, you have classic epilepsy,’ and they put her on medication,” Cynthia says. “It didn’t help.”

Unusual health problems are nothing new to Ginny and Cynthia, but before now, they’ve been able to find an answer. It started out as chronic allergies, Cynthia explains, listing numerous things—most fruits, vegetables, and some grains—that Ginny can’t eat or even touch.

“When she was young, at Halloween, she couldn’t carve a pumpkin because her hands would blow up,” Cynthia remembers.

The malady morphed into asthma in Ginny’s teen years. When she started fainting regularly, they discovered that she also had POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome), but Ginny managed it by standing and moving slowly.

But the seizures were different—nothing seemed to help, and as a special education teacher, having regular seizures was not ideal for Ginny.

“Sometimes she’d just have a seizure in front of people, or in a bathroom, and she’d be out for an hour and no one would know where she was,” Cynthia explains. The actual seizure typically only lasts three to five minutes, but the whole experience can last several hours from beginning to end.

“It’s very frightening for people to see, even medical professionals. People think she’s awake and she’s not, she’s not functional, anyway.”

Eventually, Ginny was laid off. The seizures continued, and with them came another long list of things to avoid: cooking alone, driving, even taking baths. Before long, the firemen and EMTs in Ginny’s town got to know her from frequent visits to her house. Her medical care team has been searching for answers and solutions, but even a weeklong stay in the hospital to determine what is triggering the seizures didn’t give them any explanations.

The fruitless search for a solution is discouraging, but they haven’t given up hope in God’s plan.

“God’s got a reason, I’m quite sure of that,” Cynthia says. “But I don’t know what it is. We’re still struggling with it.”

‘God redeems things’

Even in the waiting, Cynthia is no stranger to trusting God in the ups and downs. She grew up Protestant, married a Catholic man, and raised their daughters in his church.

“There were things that I didn’t agree with, but there were also things that I could agree with,” Cynthia says. “I could still sit there and worship.”

They settled in Springfield, Illinois, and Cynthia pursued a career in the adult literacy field. After 23 years of marriage, her husband divorced her, and Cynthia was devastated.

“That was maybe the time when the Lord was closest to me in my whole life,” Cynthia says. “When people get divorced, one of the most hurtful things is that everybody has hopes and dreams and those particular hopes and dreams stop.”

Cynthia returned to the Protestant church and continued working at the Illinois State Library, and 12 years later she met a sheep farmer named Larry who drove delivery trucks for the interlibrary loan. After getting to know each other, they agreed they wanted to marry—but they lived two hours apart, and neither could relocate at the moment. This didn’t stop them.

“We married, but we didn’t live together. We visited each other on weekends for seven years,” Cynthia says, admitting she never would have expected this outcome to come from the betrayal and hurt of 12 years earlier. “God redeems things. He just steps in and gives you blessings.”

After her retirement, Cynthia moved to Larry’s farm in western Illinois, a few hours away from both of her adult daughters, Clarissa and Ginny. Life continued as normal on the sheep farm until Ginny’s seizures began.

A lifeline to hope

Cynthia started listening to Moody Radio more than 30 years ago, and it has become a lifeline of hope for her. Whether it’s Open Line, Chris Fabry Live, or one of the online music channels, Cynthia is always tuned in to Moody Radio.

“On one of my rough days, I was driving to the hospital,” Cynthia says. This route to the hospital is a frequent ride for her, as she has become used to dropping everything to go see Ginny after a seizure. Moody Radio was on her car radio, and the hosts were talking about how listeners pray for each other. “That morning, I thought, Okay, God’s sending me encouragement. People are praying.”

Whether it’s with encouragement that she’s not in this alone, the reminder that God will provide, or a story that hits home at the exact right moment, Moody Radio has been Cynthia’s constant companion.

The journey hasn’t been easy—and it’s not over yet—but while they wait for answers, Cynthia and Ginny are holding on to what they know is true: God is working, and He is good.

“I know that looking back, I’ll be able to say, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s what He was doing,’” Cynthia says. “Right now I can’t see it, but He’s there. He’s always there.”