Healing through sacrifice

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, July 1st.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Honoring loved ones after death.

In 1 Thessalonians the apostle Paul encourages Christians not to grieve as people who have no hope. But while we trust in the promise of the resurrection, grief is always difficult. And when a parent loses a child, the pain can be unbearable.

EICHER: Steve and Anjie Lynchard lost their son Jared at age 23. Amid their grief and shock, they began to look for ways to honor his memory, and it resulted in an unexpected reunion.

WORLD senior writer Emma Freire visited the family at their home in Maryland to hear their story.

EMMA FREIRE: Jared Lynchard and Philip Carroll became best friends when they were 10 years old. Their families lived across the street from each other.

ANJIE LYNCHARD: Philip would even come to the house before Jared was awake. [Group laughing]

That’s Anjie Lynchard, Jared’s mom. She and her husband, Steve, are reminiscing with Philip’s mom, Mary Ann Carroll, about those care-free days.

ANJIE: He would knock on the door, and I'd say, ‘Oh, Jared’s still asleep.’ And then Jared would get up. He's like, ‘No, I'm not mom.’

The boys were inseparable until the Lynchards moved away.

After Jared grew up, he struggled with mental health issues, especially during the pandemic. He saw a Christian counselor and eventually joined the Marine Corps. His parents believed his struggles were behind him.

STEVE LYNCHARD: Since then, we've learned we kind of characterize it as emotional cancer, just like a liver cancer or any sort of other sort of bodily, biological cancer. It's an emotional cancer that his emotional immune system just eventually failed him.

Jared died by suicide in March 2024. His parents’ grief was beyond words.

STEVE: It was like a nuclear bomb went off in the family, as you can imagine.

To help deal with their grief, the Lynchards resolved to find ways to honor Jared’s memory. They went on two foreign missions trips shortly after his death.

ANJIE: I knew that if I didn't do something, I would just cry all day at home and just probably go to a deep, deeper depression than I was already in.

Around that time, their former neighbor Mary Ann Carroll showed up at their house to give them a prayer shawl. She had gotten one herself from a friend when her father died.

MARY ANN CARROLL: That was the only thing I could think of that I could, could do to bring them comfort in such a trying time.

As the two women talked, Anjie noticed Mary Ann looked unwell. She asked her what was going on.

Mary Ann told her she’d been struggling with health issues for several years. Eventually, doctors diagnosed her with a rare liver disease. The only cure was a liver transplant.

CARROLL: I had actually, you know, started thinking about making sure my beneficiaries were all updated, doing all that stuff with your wills and everything.

A healthy person can donate a portion of their liver due to the organ’s special ability to regenerate itself. But no one in Mary Ann’s own family was a match.

Anjie offered to pray for Mary Ann. But later, when she saw Mary Ann’s Facebook post asking for a live liver donor, Anjie felt God calling her to get tested to see if she was a match.

ANJIE: That stuff that we did in our mission trips was so healing … It felt so good to help other people. I said, I want to keep this going. I'm gonna see, I told Steve, I'm gonna see if I'm a match.

She was a match and doctors at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore performed the surgery on December 3, 2024. The day afterwards, hospital staff got Mary Ann up and she made her way to Anjie’s room. They were wearing matching pajamas that Mary Ann’s daughter got them. Steve remembers the joy that filled the hospital room.

STEVE: I remember the general sentiment was just how grateful and thankful they both were from each of their own individual perspectives. Yeah, you know Mary Ann, of course, you know a chance of you know renewed life and Anjie, of course. You know, honoring Jared by the grace of God, to have the faith and the courage to go through with it.

Mary Ann still has some health struggles, but she is feeling much better since the transplant. Anjie says her liver grew back within 4 to 6 weeks and she is fully recovered. But healing from Jared’s loss will be a lifelong process.

Paul Tautges says that’s how it should be. Tautges is a pastor and the author of several books on grief. He says in our modern era the grieving process is often cut short .

PAUL TAUTGES: I think that we live in such a hurried culture that I fear we are rushing through grief, which is naturally a slow process. I think that God created grief to be a slow process.

Tautges thinks an act of love like Anjie’s can be helpful.

TAUTGES: I think that acts of remembrance, acts of service - whatever you have to do to make remembrance active rather than passive - I think it helps the healing process, because it takes the initiative to process the emotions, rather than just waiting until they show up.

For their part, the Lynchards hope the benefits extend beyond their family.

STEVE: Because at the end of the day, we're hoping people not only will get saved through organ transplant or what have you, but hopefully you know, hear this story and consider their eternal perspective as well.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Emma Freire in Ellicott City, Maryland.

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