Service Details
Date: SUN 7:00pm 18th October 2026
Testimony: Mrs. Lynette Seaton
Bible Reference: Isaiah 43:1-2
Podcast
A Testimony of Grace Through Trial by Lynette Seaton
It is a privilege to stand in this building and share what the Lord has done in my life. For many years we waited for a building like this, and it never came in our time, so there is something precious about being here now. We have such fond memories of the old school house, and it is lovely to see the plaque preserved. I have joked that I use it when I misbehave, because it is very heavy. It is good to be among you, and it is good to be singing I Am Redeemed, because if I were not redeemed there would be no point in my being here tonight. You would not be interested in anything I had to say. I gave my testimony in Ballynahinch in January, and on that occasion Stephen McCra took his watch off and left it sitting, and I put something over it without noticing. So I am putting my watch here now, because I know David wants to bring a word at the end.
My Early Years and My Family
I want to read a few verses first. You do not need to turn to them. The first is the verse the youngest child would know, John chapter three and verse sixteen. To me it is the most precious verse in the whole Bible.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Then some verses from Isaiah chapter forty three that have meant a great deal to me over the years.
Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour.
And one verse from Psalm forty six and verse ten. Be still, and know that I am God. Those are verses that have been special to me over the years.
You would not know it by my accent, but I was born in Vancouver in Canada. I have a twin brother, Adrian, who sadly is still not saved, and a younger sister, Joanne. My parents were from Northern Ireland, and in the fifties many young people were emigrating. My father and his friend decided to go to Vancouver. They were builders, and they intended to start up a business and then send for their fiancees, who were my mother and my father’s sister. They were married out in Canada in Vancouver in a double wedding, and within the year both brides were expecting babies.
Adrian and I came three weeks early. A few weeks before my mother was due, she was told to go and get another one of everything because she did not know she was having twins. We were very impatient. My cousin came at the end of May. We lived there until my mother’s own mother became very ill, and my mother wanted to come home to see her. So we came home in January nineteen sixty, just before we turned four, and we never went back as a family again. I did go back for a holiday, and we went back ourselves, but not together.
Home, Church and School
When we came home we moved into a house on the road nearly at the Holy Land, Penrose Street, if any of you know it. There were thirteen of us in that house. My granny and granda, my granny’s sister, my mother’s mother and her sister and brother in law and their three or four children, and the three of us. We were topped and tailed. Very soon my father got a bit of ground and built a house, a lovely bungalow between Cardyke and Dromore, if any of you know where the left road is at the Ballyknock Road. It was around there, and that is where we lived until each of us got married.
We were brought up thankfully with parents who were saved. My mother was about eleven when she was saved and my father was, I think, seventeen. We were brought up in Balmagarry Gospel Hall, so from no age at all we knew we needed to be saved. We were very happy there.
When I was about eleven, some workers from the Bible Club Movement came to Ballyknock Village, and they were having a wee five day club. I am so thankful looking back that my mother and father had the presence of mind and the desire to see us go to that, because Balmagarry was very strict. They let us go to that five day club, and the result of that club, looking back, changed my life and shaped everything that was to happen in the future.
Through that club my brother went to Bible Club Camp in Dundrum that year, and he loved it so much that I went the next year, when I was about twelve. I went from then until I was twenty nine. To me, camp is amazing. You either love it or you love it. I do not think there is a happy medium. I loved it, and we met lifelong friends there.
When I was sixteen, as a lot of us did, I went to work, unless you were going to university, and no one really that we knew went. I went to Drumbo Primary, which I absolutely loved, and then to Newtownbreda. Newtownbreda had only been opened one year when we went. A brilliant school, obviously, and I loved it.
Coming to Faith
I was due to start work on the first of September. On the Friday of the week before, I went to camp, still in Dundrum at that stage, in the Nissen huts, and the missionaries were the Bells from the seashells. I do not remember much about any of that, but I do remember that on the Friday night I was determined I was not going to my bed until I got saved.
That was nineteen seventy two, and the Troubles were really very bad at the time. I was going to start working in the College of Business Studies, which was in the very centre of town, and then I moved to Rupert Stanley College to work in the office. I knew that if I had been blown up or shot, because things were really bad then, I knew I was going to hell, and I was determined that night that I was going nowhere until I got saved.
As the rest went to the campfire, my counsellor Elizabeth Spence and I went aside onto a wee bridge, and it was pitch dark. It was late at night. Do you know, I have a real thing about memory verses. To me, when you are doing a memory verse you need to concentrate on it. You do not go on to the next one until you have learned that one, because what is the point. The children will not absorb it if you do not. It needs to be in your mind.
We were there on this bridge, pitch dark, and in those days you did not have a mobile phone with a torch, and even if you had had your Bible with you, what would have been the point, because you could not have read it. I struggled. Somebody brought up in a Christian home, who knew from no age that I needed to be saved, and I could not get it. I just could not get it.
Then the strangest thing happened. Over the way from where we were was a pub, and all of a sudden there was this absolutely massive sound of men singing. I Believe would have been number one at the time, the Bachelors’ song in the seventies, and they were singing I believe. I thought, what, they are saying I believe, and I am trying to believe and I cannot get it.
Then all of a sudden the Lord opened my eyes, and he brought that beautiful verse, John three sixteen, and I saw it as I had not seen it before. We had been singing How Great Thou Art, and that beautiful verse about God not sparing his Son, and I saw that if there had not been anybody else in this whole world, only me, because I am a sinner and sin can never enter heaven, that God would still have had to send his Son down to die just for me. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Friend, you can put your name in that whosoever. I did, and there and then I accepted the Lord as my Saviour. That was the twenty fifth of August, nineteen seventy two.
The strange thing was that Eric and I had not met then, but he had actually been saved on the twenty second of August, nineteen seventy one, the year before me, when he was sixteen. When I was eighteen I got baptized and was accepted into Balmagarry.
Marriage and Family Life
The next year a Free Presbyterian from the Martyrs came along, and we started going out, and then we planned to get married. We were married during the Queen’s Silver Jubilee week. Anybody that knows us knows of the Satan curse, and that is us, sorry. It started before we got married. We were to be married on the eleventh of June, and the registrars went on strike. I wanted an organ. I wanted to walk down the aisle to an organ. I thought it would be lovely. Balmagarry did not have an organ, so we decided to get married in the Crescent. The Crescent had only been open then. It had been Victoria Hall and had just been renovated, and we were the third wedding.
Ian from the Martyrs came and played, but Mr Paisley could not marry us because Robin Newton was getting married that day, and David McIlveen was busy. So we had to go to the City Hall and get married the day before. Whenever I walked down the aisle I was already married, and we were signing what was supposed to be the registrar’s book, but it was a visitor’s book. That is just how our life started, and I have to say it has continued that way, and I am still smiling, so what can I say. There was an advantage, though. John Grant actually took the service, and he took part in our wedding as well. Eric does not remember either date, so there you go.
We went to live in that house I was telling you about, the one on the road where the thirteen of us had lived. There were three of us then. We did not have a baby, we had a wee pup. We went on our honeymoon and came back with a wee Shelty pup who was my wee baby for eight years before we had children. We lived there, and then we moved the next August up to Cardyke, next door to Rita and Wesley, our houses attached. I knew Wesley because he took me to school. He drove the bus when I was at school, and we lived beside them for nearly twenty three years.
When we had been married about five years, both Eric and I felt the Lord calling us to the mission field. David McIlveen came out to see us, and David explained that sometimes the Lord can call you, and he might not want to send you to the mission field, but he will call to see if you are going to go, if you are going to say yes. Later on someone explained to us that we did have a mission field. We were involved in children’s work, we taught in Sunday school, we helped with lots, and I fostered for years as well. We had a mission field all through.
Children and the Hard Years
When we had been married eight years, the Lord gave us the desire of our heart with a beautiful baby boy, David. Then a couple of years later, Jonathan, and later on Lydia, and later Zara and Thomas. We have five absolutely beautiful grandchildren.
Then came the hard times, and that is where those verses come in, about going through the waters and the Lord being with us. In nineteen ninety six and ninety seven, Eric’s daddy took ill and Eric landed in hospital, and then I had to go for major surgery. I had not been well for a lot of years, and I had to go and have major surgery the day David started the big school, which was sad.
Sadly, Eric’s daddy died before Christmas in ninety six, and my mum and dad the next March had a very severe robbery in their house near Tandragee. It was treated as an attempt at murder. Then that November my mummy was found dead. That was a really hard time.
Ten years later, by this time in two thousand and one, we had moved to Cardyke, and then we moved to Drumara. I hope Reverend McCluckin does not mind me telling you this, but the week of prayer was on, and we were going through negotiations for the new house. I was praying, oh Lord, please be with us, help us through this. David was praying, close the door, Lord, close the door, and he did not know what he was doing, and he did not know for a wee while, a couple of years, until he found out. But the Lord did not answer his prayers, and we went to Drumara. The Lord had moved us on. We were very sad to leave here. Our kids grew up here, the older ones, and we were so happy, and the kids had gone up to the Carr school.
Then ten years later, in two thousand and seven, we had four Smith funerals. My maiden name is Smith. My sister in law sadly lost her battle with leukaemia, but she had got saved and showed oh my goodness, she showed God’s grace, coming round, century old, everybody, it was just amazing. Three months later, at the end of October, my aunt died. Three months later my daddy was found dead in the bath. Three months later his brother died. Again, a dreadful time, and the Lord got us through it.
Ten years later my mummy passed away in the January, and just the next week our oldest son David, who was in his thirties then, was getting married. He got married in the January, and then in the July Carla and Arne joined our family.
The Deepest Trial
For years I had done poems, and I had actually written three books. I was writing my first one, and I was just about to hand it in, when on the twenty third of September, two thousand and twenty one, our lives changed like that. Our youngest daughter Zara, twenty two, sadly tragically died, and she left a wee boy who was not even three. It was just devastating.
How do you get through that. How do you get through it as an unsaved person, I have no idea. But as a Christian it is hard. It is so hard. Joe Costley phoned me up because I was just finishing my book, and I said, Joe, no, I am not doing the book. Then I decided to wait and I would dedicate it, and Joe gave me a piece of advice, a brilliant piece of advice. He said, Lynette, ask the Lord for grace to get through each day. That is what I did. Each morning I would say, Lord, give me the grace, give Eric the grace and the family to get through this day, and then the same the next day, the next day. The Lord got us through. Not easy, and we will never understand why.
Charlie is nearly eight now, and he comes to us every other weekend. He went to a totally godless home, but he comes every other weekend to us, and he gets to Sunday school, and he was getting to the good news club with me on a Friday, and he comes to camp, and the five day club, and we try everything we can. Sadly, then our youngest son Thomas, it totally cut him, and he and Zara were very close. He could not hack it, and things have not been good. But he is in touch every day. Just pray for Thomas and Charlie especially, and for household salvation.
Illness and the Lord’s Faithfulness
So I did go ahead and I wrote the book, and I have had two more since then. Two years later I went for my mammogram at the end of July, and in August I was called back, and then I had to go to the Ulster to get my results from the consultant, and he said, I am telling you what you have got, breast cancer. I thought, my goodness, at the time I thought, Lord, why me. Then I thought, Lord, why not me. I would rather it was me than someone else that I loved.
I have to thank the Lord, because what they found was a cyst, and when they drained the cyst, my tumour was hiding away down, and it would not have been found for quite a while. It was a grade three, very aggressive cancer, but it had not got out to my lymph nodes. So then I started the journey of surgery.
I remember on the way down to the hospital for surgery, I remember saying, how can anybody get through this if they have not the Lord. How can they. And you know, not only that, I realised then that you need people. You need brothers and sisters praying for you. I did not want to spread the fact that I had cancer, but I put it in our WhatsApp group, and the ladies in the church, and explained it, so it came from me, and I knew exactly the right way of it. But what the doctor had said to me was, it is treatable. So I had my surgery, I had my chemo, and I had radiotherapy, and I am on medication as well.
You need a positive attitude, because if you get down, that is it. You have to keep up. Whenever I was told that on the fourteenth day of my treatment my hair would fall out, the fourteenth day of my treatment, it was like, oh, my hair is falling out, and it is horrendous. That is one of the hardest bits of the whole thing, even if you are not vain, which I am not.
I had started to wear a wig, and I was going out for my chemo, and it was a very windy day, and my wig, there were fellas at the lane beside us sitting in a van, and I was not going out holding my wig. Then Eric phoned our son David and he says, David, could I have the loan of the van. David says, Dad, what do you want the van for. He says, well, your mum is losing her hair and I have to take her to the hospital and I do not want all this stuff all over my car. There was total silence, and then David heard me laughing, and then the two of them started about getting bungee cords to hold my wig on. You have to try, you know.
Eric had just left his job, and the Lord makes no mistakes, because he was then able to be with me for every single treatment and visit and everything. But thankfully I am through the other end, and I was seventy in March, and you would not believe it, I am now a DJ. I have done lots of things through my life, and I am now a DJ at seventy.
Last year Clifford Hopper, who is in charge of country and southern gospel, had asked if I would take a programme, and so after much thought and much prayer we decided yes. On the fifth of September last year, I wanted Ari to be able to do it with me, and we started Singing in the Valley, and it is with country and southern gospel, and we are on every Friday morning at eleven o’clock, and it goes out on Facebook and YouTube and on the website. I have wee things here if anybody wants to take one. It is going all over the world, and there are at least two thousand views for each, but that is views, that is not even people, because you think there will be a few people in a house. It is amazing, and it is something we never thought we would have been doing, but we thank the Lord for the privilege, and we do not want to ever mess it up. We pray so hard about it.
A Harvest Thought
Just to finish, I am hopefully doing another book, and hopefully I will get it done next year. But just a thought, seeing it was the harvest, maybe I should do this wee one.
Praise God for the harvest. Autumn has arrived and nights have closed in, and it is harvest time once again. So when you get stuck behind a tractor, praise God they are busy, and do not complain. Farmers are kept busy both day and night, with machines constantly up and down the road on their way to gather the crops from the fields and then returning with their heavy load. They cannot put it off until tomorrow. They must get up and at it today. If they wait too long it could be destroyed or might die and wither away.
As you attend your harvest service this year and see beautiful provisions on display, thank God for the bountiful gifts you observe, fruit, veg, flowers, and perhaps a bale of hay. Without some rain and favourable weather the harvest would never be able to flourish, so we would not have the food on our table to keep us healthy and nourished. Remember to pray for the farmers, for healthy crops and the milk they provide, and gardeners with flowers and fresh produce, many toiling in terrible weather outside.
The Bible says the harvest is plentiful, but sadly the labourers are few. Will you help spread the gospel message. God always has a job you can do. You can pray for those who faithfully sow the good seed of the gospel, that the Lord will grant them a precious reward to reap the seed that falls on good ground. God promises his word will not return unto you void. Do not be weary or discouraged at all, as the Holy Spirit waters that good seed, someone’s safe soul will answer God’s call.
In church as we gaze at the harvest display, admiring fruits of their labours folk bring, with the harvest safely gathered in for the winter, great is thy faithfulness we truly can sing. Jeremiah chapter eight and verse twenty tells us, the harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved.
Thank you.
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