Chances are if you have attended a wedding at Antique Rose Ville with harp music, a funeral, social gathering for charity, experienced illness or hospice therapy, you’ve heard Bette Sobel Vidrine play. If you were lucky enough to know about the annual Christmas Harp Concert at the Affiliated Blind of Louisiana campus in Lafayette, you not only were moved by the choir of harpist with varying degrees of skills — playing hymns like angels from heaven —you observed the work of Vidrine to bring healing to others through music. Winning a silent auction fundraiser bid years ago at the Lafayette Community Health Care Clinic, a harp therapy session began a friendship with the harpist that has been filled with blessings of joy. Her story is a result of an invitation to a special Mass held in the Vidrine’s Lafayette home Aug. 17 — a celebration of a year of Jubilee. These excerpts are reprinted by permission from the booklet Vidrine gave guests at her celebration, a snapshot of her life, by faith, followed by actions.

Why is this year significant about your spiritual journey?

This year, 2019, marks the 50th anniversary of my being born again as a new creature in Christ and healed of ulcerative colitis. It has been a wonderful journey, and I would like to share four highlights. I have received many graces and miracles from my Lord, but I have chosen four that I think have been the most meaningful in my life. I was born into a secular Jewish family. We were Jewish, and we celebrated Hanukkah, Passover, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but we did not belong to any synagogue or temple. My father was an outright atheist. My parents were very liberal about religion. They had Christian friends we celebrated with at Christmas. I will be forever grateful to the Heinlein family. When I was in first grade, my mother bought me a little Golden Books series of Greek, Roman and Norse mythology, the Old and New Testament. I read them all. I was not told to believe or not believe, but my mother taught me a night-time prayer. “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Bless the bed that I lie on. Four corners to my bed, four angels round my head; One to watch and one to pray and two to bear my soul away.” At about the same time God called me asking me to believe in Him. I told Him I could not, because my daddy would be mad at me. He did not insist. God called again in 8th grade, again I turned away. In high school I was known as Miss Atheist, very confident in my belief there was no God. My parents had joined a synagogue and wanted me to be confirm in 9th grade, but we had to sign a pledge to remain Jewish always.

I refused.

So how did an atheist Jew become a Christian?

When I was 20 I married Emile Vidrine. I quit smoking and got the shakes for about a month. Within a year, I started discharging blood and having bad pain in my left side. I had bloody diarrhea and went to many doctors. They could not find what was wrong with me. I got very tired of doctors. We moved several times. My pain and bloody diarrhea kept getting worse, and then better. One of my coworkers, Fred Kelsey, saw that I was very sick and urged me to go to Northwestern University Medical School, Wesley Hospital. The receptionist told me they were all filled up for the next six months. I told her I didn’t think I would make it that long and she suggested another gastroenterologist, “but she’s a woman.”

I got an appointment the following week. With my history she knew exactly what I had, ulcerative colitis. I later found out Dr. Florence Lawson was the foremost specialist in the world in ulcerative colitis. I had the best. She treated me for a couple of years. Eventually I could no longer work, I had no strength to even walk the 10 feet from my bed to the bathroom. Dr. Lawson told me I had precancerous cells and I needed to have a colostomy within six months or I would die. I didn’t talk to anybody about this. I decided I would rather die than have to live the rest of my life with a colostomy bag. I was only 25 years old. I could not face it.

Did you give up?

We had a friend, Ken Weir, who visited frequently, always talking about being born again and believing in Jesus Christ. I did not want to listen. I finally told him he was welcome in my home but don’t come talking to me any more about Christ. After I made the decision not to have the surgery, I started thinking about God, who I didn’t believe existed. I reasoned, “if he exists, then by definition he made everything. And if he made everything, he can fix anything.” One day I went to the bathroom and was discharging a lot of blood. From the rare occasions I had gone to synagogue with my grandparents, I remembered a verse from the Bible, “the life is in the blood.” (Lev. 17:11) I felt my life pouring out of me with the blood. I knew I was dying. I looked up and said, “God, if you’re there, please heal me.”

The ceiling opened up and I saw angels walking up and down on a ladder. God punched me in the stomach, not pain, but pressure. At that moment I received a firm belief in the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I thought, “if God heals me, I never want to have any doubts or think that maybe the medicines finally started to work, so tomorrow I will throw away all my medicines.” I did it. I threw them away the next day. I knew if God didn’t heal me, I would get much worse again and die sooner, but I didn’t care. “Two weeks or six months, what’s the difference?” — Was how I felt. A month later I went back to the doctor for my monthly proctoscope. She said, “it’s a miracle. Your whole colon has regrown and there’s no scar tissue.” She had seen people go into remission before, although not people with such an advanced condition, but in remission they had a lot scar tissue. She explained to me that my colon looked like a brand-new baby’s.

Editor’s Note: Read about other Vidrine’s healings next week.