Charles Billingsley and his wife Shae had just celebrated their 26th wedding anniversary when he began to feel the symptoms of the illness he ’d soon learn was the coronavirus.
Laying in a hospital bed in Lynchburg, Virginia, the award-winning worship leader tearfully admitted during an interview with Faithwire, “I got real angry with the Lord, because He wasn’t healing me like I thought He should.”
“I felt so convicted for that for so many days, and almost embarrassed, but I’ll tell you, this thing will do a number on you mentally as much as it does physically,” he explained.
Now on the mend — though his doctor told him his outcome could have been devastating had he not been in such good physical shape — Billingsley said he’s learned a great deal about himself and God over the last 30 days.
“I’m thankful for the incredible moments of worship that I had just between me and the Lord,” said Billingsley, a teaching pastor at Thomas Road Baptist Church. “It’s made me regret all those moments in my life when I worshipped the Lord and was a little inhibited because of maybe what people think or because of the environment I was in. I just don’t care anymore.”
The gratitude that comes with such a harrowing experience, he added, will lead people to praise God “in a whole different way.”
After initially thinking he had the flu, and soon thereafter being diagnosed with COVID-19, which brought on two weeks of intense symptoms, including likely blood clotting in his legs, and a 103-degree fever, Billingsley landed a three-day stay in the hospital.
It was then, while he was alone, that his latest album, “I Was Made for This,” debuted.
With a laugh, Billingsley said, “What timing.”
But it was the songs on that new album that brought the singer-songwriter a sense of comfort during those lonely days.
“This record took on a whole new meaning to me,” Billingsley said. “The lyrics to some of the songs … every song on that record … those songs really spoke to me in a whole new light, and so I just thought, ‘Wow, the timing of this is incredible.’ Who on earth could have ever planned this?”
Finally, on April 20, his wife’s birthday, Billingsley tested negative for the virus.
Billingsley reminded those who might be anxious about the coronavirus that the likelihood they will recover is “very, very high,” and rather than resting in fear, the recording artist urged people to “come to the Lord.”
“I just decided, you know, after I got over my frustration and anger with the Lord, ‘I’m just gonna thank the Lord in advance for healing me,’” he recalled. “I just started praising the Lord for His healing hand before it came, and that brought so much peace to my heart and it brought so much life back into me.”
To learn more about Billingsley, or to purchase his new record, click here.