Testimonies Blog

Nearly eight years after my marvelous conversion, toward the close of 1897, my health failed rapidly. Doctors disagreed in their diagnosis. My strength was steadily slipping
away, but as long as a strong will could stir up a sick body, I went on with my regular work in a Sunday School Mission Band, and the State work of my religious Denomination, where I was for five years President of the Woman’s Missionary Society. I did not know the Lord as Healer, and had heard of only a few who had been healed, but I asked for strength from day today, so that I did not have to take to my bed. Suddenly an attack of a violent nature brought the real cause of my illness to light, a tumor located internally was rapidly becoming cancerous. Several physicians agreed that the result would be a fatal hemorrhage, or else blood poisoning, which the last doctor declared had already begun. He said the only hope was an immediate operation, in the event of which I had one chance in a hundred for life. I knew by unmistakable symptoms in my body that they spoke the truth; the odor and discharge were very
offensive, so much so that the nurse who was present at my last examination, was so overcome by what she saw in my body that she was obliged to leave the room, lest she should faint. An acquaintance in a nearby town was brought back in a coffin after an operation for a similar trouble from the very same hospital where it had been planned that I should go. In my extremity I decided to wait on God until I knew His will for me. My friends were much disturbed, thinking I would lose my little chance for life by this delay, but I stayed at home, read my Bible and prayed, until I received the assurance that if I obeyed the Lord in the anointing with oil, and having prayer offered for my healing, according to James 5:14-15, He would heal me. I at once sent for my Pastor and his wife, and they prayed for me as best they could, but assured me that they had not the faith to pray for their own crippled son.

Another Pastor of a neighboring church said, when the work of a surgeon was required, it would do no good to pray. Up to this time, it had not occurred to me that I would have to leave home in order to be healed. Like many others, I had said, “God could heal me at home as well as anywhere else. “While this was true, so far as His power was concerned, I could not believe so fully. Many, I believe, fail God at this point; they do not recognize that the unbelief of others around them hinders their faith. Naaman had to travel a long distance in order to be healed, and I needed the help and witness of others to this truth, of which I then knew so little. I corresponded with Mrs.
Dora Dudley of Grand Rapids, Mich., where a dear sister-inlaw had been healed about four years before. I decided to go to her Home called “Beulah”. It was a perilous trip for me, and had it not been for the assurance I had from God, I could not have accomplished it.

It seemed as though I were in another world. I had prayed, and received answers for spiritual blessings but when they prayed for fuel and food for the family of fourteen, and also for the hay for their horse, etc., I was confounded. When we arose from our knees, I was glad to help a little, with what money I could spare; but soon we were called to a praise service. A lady in New York, who had been healed of cancer in answer to their prayers, had sent a gift of twenty-five dollars. Fuel and food soon arrived, and later we had a nice dinner. When they prayed for me in the afternoon meeting, I gave myself fully to the Lord, and told Him if He would heal me I would give Him my life. My faith was uplifted by the wonderful testimonies of healing, which I had heard in this
meeting, and the fact that Jesus Christ was “just the same today”. I had read this many times but these people seemed to get hold of this truth in a new way. I went to my room, and knelt down, asking God if I needed to do anything more to obtain healing, to show me something from His Word. Upon opening my Bible I saw the first text which was ever illuminated to me by the Spirit Jeremiah 39:17 stood out as if it were written in capitals, “And I will deliver thee in that day, saith the Lord and thou shalt not be given into the hands of the men, of whom thou art afraid, but thy life shall be for a prey unto thee, saith the Lord, BECAUSE THOU HAST PUT THY TRUST IN ME, SAITH THE LORI).” Right there my faith gripped the promise. How afraid I had been of the surgeon’s knife! But from that time I was loosed from the bondage of fear, and the
mental suffering, taking my position as standing on the promise. That night I had a terrible battle. An awful chill seized me and the devil reminded me that this was one of the first symptoms of blood poisoning, and that I was a long way from home. How could I return in the bitter winter weather, when I was so very ill? I clung to the promise, “I will deliver thee”, and remembered that the children of Israel routed their
enemies when they began to praise God. I had wondered at the way the dear ones in the home praised God for all things. I began to praise God, speaking very feebly at first, but soon I felt relief, and then I praised in earnest. Full relief speedily came. I could only stay away from home a few days, as I was a busy farmer’s wife, but how I did long for fellowship with those who believed this precious truth. I tried to think of some
plan by which I could remain longer, but this I could not do. I dreaded meeting with friends who did not understand what to them was a new doctrine. But God wonderfully sustained me as I went back to my work, and I was upheld by supernatural power, going about my very strenuous duties without even a sense of weariness. I had not forgotten my covenant with the Lord, to give my life for His service, and when in three months time all traces of the tumor had disappeared, and I had fully recovered, I arranged to have Dr. and Mrs. Eldridge, of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, hold a meeting in my home town, two and one half miles from my home, as the churches, to my surprise, did not accept healing; the doctrine was so new to them. I hired a Hall. Mrs. Dudley came from Grand Rapids, and I am sure that some of the seed then sowed
still brings forth fruit.

Excerpt from “Triumphs of Faith” Magazine 1919.