Nothing Is Impossible With God Kathryn Kuhlman PDF

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD
NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD
by
Kathryn Kuhlman
Published by Bridge Publishing, Inc.

All photographs of Kathryn Kuhlman
are by Doug Grandstaff.
Nothing Is Impossible With God

Library of Congress # 92-081627
ISBN 0-88270-656-X
Copyright ©1974 by The Kathryn Kuhlman Foundation
Revised Edition 1992
Published by:
Bridge Publishing, Inc.
2500 Hamilton Blvd.
South Plainfield, NJ 07080
Printed in the United States of America.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in
whole or in part in any form without the express written consent of
The Kathryn Kuhlman Foundation.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface by Kathryn Kuhlman_______________________________7
Foreword by David Wilkerson______________________________9
1 The Latecomer
Tom Lewis___________________________________________11
2 No Shortage in God's Storehouse

Captain John LeVrier__________________________________19
3 Walking in the Shadows

Isabel Larios_________________________________________43
4 The Day God's Mercy Took Over

Richard Owellen, Ph. D., M. D._________________________61
5 When Heaven Comes Down

Gilbert Strackbein_____________________________________73
6 Speak to the Mountain

Linda Forrester_______________________________________99
7 Is This a Protestant Bus?

Marguerite Bergeron_________________________________117
8 Healing Is Only the Beginning

Dorothy Day Otis____________________________________131
9 The God-Shaped Vacuum

Elaine Saint-Germaine________________________________143
10 Skeptic Under a Fur Hat

Jo Gummelt_________________________________________165
11 Once I Was Dying...

Keith Purdue________________________________________187
12 Living Temporarily
Marvel Luton_______________________________________197
13 Face to Face with a Miracle

Lorraine Gauguin, Reporter___________________________213
14 The Big Fisherman

Sam Douds_________________________________________227
15 So Much Left to Do
Sara Hopkins________________________________________249
16 Something to Shout About

Evelyn Allen________________________________________263
17 God Loves Us All

Clara Curteman_____________________________________275
18 We Tried Everything but God

Dr. Harold Daebritz__________________________________287
19 Hope for Those Who Suffer

Donnie Greenway___________________________________303
20 Yet in Love He Sought Me

Patricia Bradley_____________________________________323
PREFACE BY KATHRYN KUHLMAN
IN THESE PAGES...
... you'll meet Sam Douds, a brawling, hate-filled sea captain
whose healing of intestinal cancer set the love in him free...
Elaine Saint-Germaine, an actress whose downhill course into
drugs and satanism was miraculously stopped... Dr. Harold
Daebritz, whose wife was healed in seconds of a back injury
that had defied twenty years of specialists' treatments... and
many, many more.
Wondrous, authentic and immensely moving, these unique
stories are irrefutable testimonies to the awesome
transformation God can bring to anyone who seeks Him.
7
FOREWORD BY DAVID WILKERSON
A TRIBUTE TO KATHRYN KUHLMAN
I should think that everybody knows her by now. For nearly

a quarter of a century, she has been a vessel of God that allowed
healing and restoration to flow into the lives of thousands.
She is loved and admired by millions and maligned only by
those who are down on divine healing or who have made no
effort at all to understand her or what she stands for. But I have
seen her behind the stage, before she stood in front of a
multitude to express her unlimited faith in God, and watched
her carefully. Over and over again she cried:
Dear God, unless you anoint me and touch me I am
nothing. I am worthless when the flesh gets in the way. You
get all the glory or I cannot go out there and minister. I won't
move without you.
And suddenly she bursts on the scene. It's explosive and

almost unbelievable. It's not so much what she says—because
that's always as clear and simple as the preaching style used by
Christ himself. I don't understand it, nor does she, but when the
Spirit begins to move upon her—and she feels suddenly
compelled to challenge Satan's power in Jesus' name—miracles
begin to happen. People everywhere—even the most staid and
dignified—fall prostrate on the floor. Catholics and Protestants
raise hands and worship God together—all decently and in
order. Holy Spirit power rolls over the audience like waves of
the ocean. Those in the television media soon learned she was
not a phony or a fanatic. People they had known had been
helped by her ministry. They were no match for her wit and
9
godly wisdom. She is not wealthy, nor is she “hung up” on

materialism. I know! She personally raised and gave to Teen
Challenge the money to build a place on our farm to reach and
rehabilitate hopeless addicts. Her prayers have brought in the
money to build churches in underdeveloped countries around
the world. She has sponsored the educating of underprivileged
children and other talented youth who were recipients of her
love and concern. She has walked with me into the ghettos of
New York and laid loving hands on filthy addicts. She never
winced or withdrew—her concern was genuine. And why this
tribute from me? Because the Holy Spirit bade me do it! She
owes me nothing, and I ask nothing more of her than that same
love and respect she has shown me over the years. But all too
often we pay our tributes only to the dead. Now then, to a great
woman of God who has so deeply affected my life and the lives
of millions more—we love you in Christ's name! History will
say of Kathryn Kuhlman:
Her living and her dying brought glory to God.
David Wilkerson
Author of The Cross and the Switchblade
10
CHAPTER 1
1 THE LATECOMER
TOM LEWIS
Tom Lewis, a retired Army Colonel, is one of Hollywood's best-
known film producers. His list of credits in Who's Who in America
covers as much space as did the ribbons on his chest. He was the
founding producer of the Screen Guild Theatre; the founder of the
American Forces Radio and Television Service, of which he served as
Commandant throughout World War II; and the creator and executive
producer of The Loretta Young Show. A regent of Loyola University,
he holds numerous awards for excellence in television productions,
both at home and for the American forces throughout the world. A
devout Roman Catholic, he is now numbered in that rapidly growing
group who call themselves Catholic Pentecostals.
Last winter my son—a young film director—and a producer
of his own age were contemplating a TV special on the “Jesus
People.” I agreed to their request to write the presentation, but
reluctantly. Since the Jesus Kids were also young, I thought my
son and his associate should staff the whole project accordingly.
My preliminary research on the young people I was trying
to learn about generated my interest and respect. Many of them
had come back from the hell of drug addiction by way of a
reborn faith in Jesus Christ. At this point I had not probed into
the religious motivation of the movement. On the human side,
however, I could not help but be as impressed with the Jesus
Kids' sincerity as I was startled and puzzled by their familiar
manner of speaking about Jesus—as if He were right there with
them.
I had always thought of myself as a reasonably religious
11
man who enjoyed the sacramental life of the Roman Catholic

Church. I didn't go around referring to Jesus Christ as if I met
with Him frequently and personally. As a matter of fact, I
seldom mentioned Jesus by name. I thought it better taste to
shun a more personal approach and preferred the more
reserved reference “My Lord” or “the Good Lord.”
As a part of my task, I was asked to look into the ministry of
Kathryn Kuhlman, a person highly thought of by the Jesus
People. Miss Kuhlman came to the Los Angeles Shrine
Auditorium once a month for a Miracle Service. I asked for two
seats, in the center row on the aisle near the front. It appeared,
however, that this was not how tickets were obtained. One
waited in line and took his chances. The capacity of the Shrine
Auditorium is 7,500 people, and I was told sometimes twice that
many tried to get in. I was amazed, and my amazement didn't
wear off for four or five months, I fear, because it took me that
long to drive down there and get in line.
The day I did so was unseasonably warm for March, even
for sunny California. I turned off the freeway at Hoover Street to
gauge the traffic situation around the auditorium. Normally that
downtown area would be all but deserted on Sunday. But as I
approached the Shrine, every parking space on the street and in
the huge lots appeared to be taken. Bus after bus drove up to the
main entrance to discharge its passengers. Some buses were
marked “Charter” and others bore the name of their point of
origin. I remember one marked “Santa Barbara,” another “Las
Vegas.” To my astonishment, one travel-soiled bus read
“Portland, Oregon”—quite a little trip just to attend a Kathryn
Kuhlman Miracle Service. I was wondering what Miss Kuhlman
gave away in there. It couldn't be dishes, there were too many
people. Nor could it be Bingo—how could one manage 7,500
Bingo cards?
A long line of wheelchair patients was moving along
Jefferson Street toward a side entrance, to gain immediate
12
The Latecomer
admittance. So, too, did many men and women carrying hymn
books—choir members apparently. There were also many
Roman-collared men and somberly dressed women, and I
wondered what the priests and nuns were doing there.
I found a gas station where I parked my car and then joined
the thousands waiting at the main entrance of the Shrine. My
watch showed eleven o'clock. The doors were to open at one.
Normally I wouldn't wait that long for anything, including the
Second Coming. But that proved to be a rash reflection.
More and more people piled in back of me, and I found
myself near the center of a huge crowd. This gave me a slight
feeling of claustrophobia, so I concentrated on taking mental
notes from which I could construct my presentation: big crowd,
orderly; quite a few young in the category of the Jesus Kids.
These young people tended to stick together, forming
islands in a sea of bodies. They sang while waiting—not loudly,
not necessarily for others, not even acting too aware of one
another. They sang in a rather quiet, meditative way. I thought
it unusual and peculiar. It reminded me of a group of Coptic
Christians I had once seen in Rome, praying audibly yet not in
unison, independent of each other yet together.
Now, the crowd had grown very large indeed and someone
inside took pity on us. The doors opened some twenty minutes
before one o'clock. People in back of me surged forward and I
was carried past the closed box office. This surprised me,
because I had my hand on my wallet pocket ready to pay for a
ticket.
A lady right behind me noticed it and laughed. “Money
won't get you nowhere here,” she said. “But if it burns a hole in
your pocket, there'll be a free-will offering sometime later.”
That was the tone of this great crowd: orderly, not festive
like a crowd at a ballpark, rather quiet, not very communicative
with each other although friendly if conversation was called for.
13
I found a seat quite far back and to the side on the first floor
of the auditorium.
The bright, harshly lit stage was full of activity. Men and
women carrying hymnals were finding their places in a
bleacher-like arrangement that filled the stage. Two concert-
grand pianos flanked the choir. There seemed to be hundreds in
the choir, yet here too, as out front, there was no disorder, no
confusion. Despite the constant movement due to late arrivals in
the choir, singing went on as if in a silent cathedral. The
conductor, a slight, aristocratic-looking white-maned man, led
the rehearsal with precise, unquestioned authority.
A lovely-looking older lady sat on my right. For all the
attention she paid me or the thousands around her, she could
have been alone in the Lady Chapel of St. Patrick's Cathedral.
She had an opened Bible on her lap, and now and then she read
from it silently.
A Bible seemed standard equipment for many of those
present. Two young men behind me carried them, but they
weren't reading. They hummed or sang the words of the hymns
being rehearsed on the stage. I didn't like that. I have never
liked the audience-participation type in theaters, concert halls,
or movie houses, especially when the audience participation is
not specifically solicited. But I was to hear more from these
young men.
Meanwhile the harsh lights on the stage were dimmed and
softened, and color was added to them. The many pastel colors
in the street dresses of the women in the choir made a pleasing
contrast to the blue cycloramic curtain surrounding everything.
The rehearsal phase was over, and the choir was singing in
earnest now. Most of the hymns were old and familiar and well-
loved: “How Great Thou Art”, “Amazing Grace”. The singers
were excellent—drawn, I learned later, from churches of every
denomination throughout the Los Angeles basin.
14
The Latecomer
Without pause, the choir went into “He Touched Me.” I felt
a taut air of expectancy take hold of the audience. A spotlight
hovered over an area in the wings on the audience's right. The
audience stood, and here and there people began to applaud.
Miss Kuhlman, a slight and fragile figure in a lovely white
dress, came on the stage, singing with the choir. She crossed to a
beat-up-looking music rack right of stage center, picked up from
it a necklace microphone which she fastened around her throat,
and, without pausing, led the people in several rousing and one
diminuendo chorus of “He Touched Me”. Then, without a word
of explanation, she followed with “He's the Savior of My Soul”.
The audience and Kathryn Kuhlman seemed to agree that these
hymns were special to her. Again, without explanation, she
began to pray aloud. The audience stood, heads bowed;
following her prayer silently.
I knew right then what had been different about the singing
of those islands of young people outside the auditorium; what
was special about the singing of the large chorus up there on the
stage. They were singing, yes, but they were singing plus. They
were not performing, they were worshiping. And the people in
the audience here were reacting with a difference. They weren't
an audience at all, they were a congregation. They sang as one
with the choir when they moved to do so. They prayed as one
with Miss Kuhlman. This wasn't a show, it was a prayer
meeting. I don't know how I felt about this at the time—
impressed probably, and pleased with myself that I had made
an interesting discovery.
I soon discovered something else, however, and it shocked
me. Now and again the young men behind me would give vent
to loud “Amens” and “Praise Gods,” seemingly in response to a
prayer or a statement. Many throughout the house were doing
the same thing. Many were holding up their arms in a
supplication gesture that I related to the stance of those biblical
figures one sees in stained glass windows. No telling what this
15
will lead to, I thought, and looked around automatically for the
nearest exit.
One young man high up in the choir was particularly
disturbing to me. His arms were lifted high most of the time.
This must be the Miracle of the Miracle Service, I thought. No
circulatory system can withstand the strain of a posture like that
for long. Those arms are going to fall right off.
But I forgot him; I forgot them all. Like the lady beside me, I
might have been in a remote chapel, alone except for a Presence
one does not normally find in such a huge auditorium.
Yes, that was it. There was a Presence here, and that was
why this crowd of many thousands was at times so silent I
could hear the sound of my own breathing. This was the reason
for the order here, the consideration among so many people.
That was why one lost track of time. There was something
different here: there was love, specific and actual. Yes, and more
than love, there was this Presence. I remembered the words of a
Jesus Kid's song: “They will know we are Christians by our
love, by our love. They will know we are Christians by our
love.”
The “healings” began—two in the row quite near me. I saw
them before they were called by Miss Kuhlman. I saw the
amazement of those healed, then unbelief, their realization and
their happiness.
There were many, many healings on the stage now. People
left wheelchairs. A crippled nun walked, who had not walked in
years. I saw gratitude among those healed, thanksgiving so
palpable one could almost reach out and touch it. Drug addicts
were delivered, and by the evidence of transformed,
incandescent faces, I saw interior rebirths and moral
regenerations.
I lost track of what I saw, for at some point unknown to me,
I ceased to see and began to feel. I felt to the depths of whatever
16
The Latecomer
consciousness I possess.
I became aware that I was carrying on a conversation, the
most astonishing, nakedly honest conversation of my life. I was
talking to God. Somewhere within myself I was telling God
things I never knew before, or could not or would not admit.
Against the evidence of my flesh, against the visible and
apparent facts of my busy life, the love and companionship of
my sons and their friends, my own many friends, my worldly
interests, my hobbies—against that evidence I was telling God
that I was restless and lonely. Deeply, desperately lonely—and
not for people, and not for things. I had those in abundance. I
told God I was very empty. Next, I was taken over by the
strongest emotion I have ever known: hunger—raw, stark,
primeval hunger.
I became aware that people were crowding the aisles now
and filling the stage. Miss Kuhlman was inviting those who
wanted Christ in their lives to step forward, acknowledge their
sins, accept Jesus as their personal Saviour, and surrender
themselves utterly and irrevocably to Him.
I followed them. I was among them. I, the non-audience-
participator, the self-made sophisticate. I was making my
commitment, and with the most awesome realization of the
scope and responsibility of it. I asked God to keep me from fear
of it. He has.
That night, driving back alone to my little town of Ojai, I
wept. All the way back, I wept. I felt neither happy nor sad. I
felt—cleansed.
During the night I awoke with an instant and full realization
of what had happened. I recommitted myself to Christ, noted
that I neither doubted nor feared my commitment, and fell
soundly and dreamlessly asleep.
Late next morning I walked into the little town of Ojai from
17
my home in the country. I felt very well, rested, and at peace,

the emotions of yesterday far behind me. I passed my parish
church, a small Spanish colonial chapel on the main street. This
was the season of Lent. The time was somewhere around 11:30,
and I knew there must be a Mass going on inside.
There was. I was in time for the Eucharistic Celebration that
we commonly refer to as Holy Communion. I went to the altar
automatically, and because there were only six or eight persons
present, we received the Holy Eucharist in both species, bread
and wine. Instead of returning to the rear of the chapel, I knelt,
for convenience, at the first pew.
It was good that I did. What I had taken into my body was
not bread and wine, not a symbol, not a memento. It was the
Body and Blood of Christ, and the result in me was a most
profound knowledge of the real presence of Christ. It was an
experience of great and unspeakable joy, and my body shook
violently with my effort to contain it.
Jesus, the Christ, was there with me, and every cell of my
body was witnessing to His reality. I rested my head on my
arms and time was suspended for me for a while.
God lives. God truly lives, and He moves among us, and He
breathes out his Holy Spirit upon us. And through the merit of
the blood shed for us by His divine Son, He is preparing us for
whatever lies ahead in this troubled world—and beyond.
Praise God!
18
CHAPTER 2
2 NO SHORTAGE IN GOD'S STOREHOUSE
CAPTAIN JOHN LEVRIER
I remember well the first time I came face to face with Captain
LeVrier. Every inch a policeman, and every inch a Baptist deacon, he
had reached the end of his rope. In desperation he had flown from
Houston to Los Angeles. He was dying. But let him tell his story.
I have been a policeman since I was twenty-one-years old.
Back in 1936 I started with the Houston Police Department and
worked my way up to the rank of Captain of the Accident
Division. In all those years I had never been sick. But in
December, 1968, when I went in for a physical examination,
things changed.
I had known Dr. Bill Robbins ever since he was an intern
and I was a rookie cop. He used to ride with me in my patrol car
when I first started on the force. Following what I thought was a
routine physical examination in his office in the Saint Joseph's
Professional Building, Dr. Robbins pulled off his rubber gloves
and sat on the end of the table. He shook his head.
“I don't like what I find, John,” he said. “I want you to see a
specialist.”
I glanced at him as I tucked my shirt in my pants and
buckled my gun belt around my waist. “A specialist? What for?
My back hurts some, but what cop's back—”
He wasn't listening. “I'm going to send you right on up to
see Dr. McDonald, a urologist in this building.”
I knew better than to argue. Two hours later, following an
even more thorough examination, I was listening to another
19
physician, Dr. Newton McDonald. He minced no words. “How

soon can you go into the hospital, Captain?”
“Hospital?” I detected a tinge of fear in my voice.
“I don't like what I find,” he said deliberately. “Your
prostate gland should be about the size of a hickory nut, but it's
the size of a lemon. The only way I can tell what is wrong is to
run a biopsy. We can't wait. You ought to be in the hospital no
later than tomorrow morning.”
I went straight home. After supper, Sara Ann put the three
children to bed. John was only five, Andrew seven, Elizabeth
nine. Then I broke the news.
She listened quietly. We'd had a happy life together. “Don't
put if off, John,” she said evenly. “We have too much to live
for.”
I looked at her, leaning up against the edge of the kitchen
counter. She was so young, so pretty. I thought of our three
beautiful children. She was right, I did have a lot to live for.
That night I called my daughter Loraine, who is married to a
Baptist minister in Springfield, Missouri. She promised to have
her church pray for me.
Three evenings later, after extensive examinations
(including the biopsy), I sat propped up in my bed at the
hospital, eating dinner. The door to my room opened. It was Dr.
McDonald and one of the doctors on the hospital staff. They
closed the door and then pulled up chairs beside my bed. I
knew busy doctors didn't have time to chat socially, and I felt
my pulse begin to throb in my throat.
Dr. McDonald didn't leave me guessing long. “Captain, I'm
afraid we have some distressing news.” He paused. It was hard
for him to get the words out. I waited, trying to keep my eyes
focused on his lips. “You have cancer.”
I saw his lips move and form the word, but my ears refused
20
No Shortage in God's Storehouse
to register the sound. Over and over I could see the word on his
lips. Cancer, just like that. One day I'm as strong as an ox, a
veteran of thirty-three years on the police force. The next day I
have cancer.
It seemed like an eternity before I could respond. “Well,
which way do we go? I guess you'll have to take it out.”
“It's not that simple,” Dr. McDonald said, clearing his throat.
“It's malignant and too far advanced for us to handle it here.
We're referring you to the doctors at the M. D. Anderson Tumor
Institute. They're known all over the world for their research in
cancer treatment. If anyone can help you, they can. But it doesn't
look good, Captain, and we would be lying if we held out any
hope for the future.”
Both doctors were sympathetic. I could tell they were
moved, but they knew I was a veteran police officer and would
demand the facts. They gave them to me as frankly, yet as
gently, as they could. Then they left.
I sat looking at the cold food on my tray. Everything seemed
lifeless—the coffee, the half-eaten Swiss steak, the applesauce. I
pushed it away and swung my legs over the side of the bed.
Cancer. No hope.
Walking to the window, I stood looking out over the city of
Houston, a city that I knew better than the back of my hand. It
was cancerous, too, filled with crime and disease like any big
city. For a third of a century I had been working, trying to stop
the spread of that cancer, but it was an endless task. The sun
was just setting, and its dying rays reflected against the church
steeples rising above the rooftops. I'd never noticed before, but
Houston seemed to be filled with churches.
I was a member of one of them, the First Baptist Church. In
fact, I was an active deacon in the church, although my personal
faith didn't amount to much. Some of my friends at the
department used to kid me and say I was the same kind of
21
Baptist that Harry Truman said he was, the bourbon-drinking,

poker-playing, cussing type. Even though I had heard my
pastor preach some mighty sermons on salvation, I'd never had
any victory in my personal life. I was a deacon by virtue of my
position in the community rather than because of my
spirituality. Now here I was, face to face with death, groping for
something to stand on. But as I put my feet down into the water,
there was no bottom. I felt like I was sinking.
I looked down from the ninth floor. It would be easy just to
go out the window. I'd seen men die of cancer, their bodies
eaten out by the disease. How much easier it would be to simply
end it now. But something Sara had said stuck with me: “We
have too much to live for....”
I walked back to the bed and sat on the edge, staring into the
gray-black dusk that seemed to be closing in on me. How would
I tell her, and the kids, that I was going to die?
The next day the doctors from the M. D. Anderson Institute
came in. There were more tests. Dr. Delclose, the doctor in
charge of my case, really got honest with me. “All I can tell you
is you had better be prepared to see an awful lot of doctors,” he
said.
“How long do I have?” I asked.
“I can't give you any hope,” he said frankly. “Maybe a year,
maybe a year and a half. The cancer is very extensive in your
entire lower abdomen. The only way we can treat it is with
massive doses of radiation, which means we'll have to kill a lot
of healthy tissue at the same time. However, if we are to prolong
your life at all, we must get started.”
I signed a release, and they started cobalt treatment the same
day.
I believed in prayer. We used to pray for the sick every
Wednesday night at the First Baptist Church. But we prefaced
22
our prayer for healing with the words, “If it's your will, heal....”
That's the way I had been taught. I knew nothing of praying
with authority—the kind of authority that Jesus and the apostles
had. I certainly believed that God was able to heal people, but I
just assumed that He wasn't in the miracle-performing business
today.
Thus, when I went into radiation, my body shaved and
marked off with a blue pencil like a side of beef ready for the
butcher's cleaver, the only prayer I knew to say was, “Lord, let
this machine do what it was designed to do.”
Now that's not a bad prayer, for the machine was designed
to kill cancer cells. Of course, the doctors were trying to keep the
radiation from affecting the rest of my organs, so I was marked
off to the millimeter. The cancer was in the prostate area and
had to be treated from all angles, so the huge cobalt machine
circled the table, the radiation penetrating my body from every
side.
The daily treatments lasted for six weeks. I was released
from the hospital and allowed to go back to work, coming in
each morning to receive the cobalt.
Four months had passed since my illness had been
diagnosed. Easter was approaching, and Sara mentioned that it
looked like it would be happier than Christmas. Maybe the
cobalt had done it's job. Or even better, maybe the doctors had
made a mistake. Then, just 120 days after the first diagnosis, the
pain hit.
It was a Friday noon. I had promised to meet Sara at the
little restaurant where we often met for lunch. She had already
arrived. I grinned, laid my policeman's cap on the window-sill
and slipped into the booth beside her. As I sat down, I felt like I
had been stabbed with a white-hot dagger. The pain surged
through my right hip in excruciating spasms. I was unable to
speak and just looked at Sara in mute agony. She grabbed my
23
arm.
“John,” she gasped, “what is it?”
The pain slowly subsided, leaving me so weak I could
hardly talk. I tried to tell her; then, like the tide moving in over
the salt flats, the pain returned. It was like fire in my bones. My
face beaded with perspiration, and I pulled at my collar to
loosen my tie. The waitress who had come to take our order
sensed something was wrong. “Captain LeVrier,” she said with
concern, “are you all right?”
“I'll make it,” I finally said. “I've just had a sudden pain.”
We decided not to eat. Instead, we went straight to the
hospital, and Dr. Delclose immediately set up more X rays. As
they were preparing me, I put my hand on my right hip and
could feel the indentation. It was about the size of a silver dollar
and felt like a hole under the skin. The X rays showed it up for
what it was: The cancer had eaten a hole all the way through my
hip. Only the outer skin was covering the cavity.
“I'm sorry, Captain,” the doctor said with resignation. “The
cancer is spreading as expected.”
Then in measured tones he concluded, “We'll start the cobalt
again and do everything we can to make your time as painless
as possible.”
The daily trips to the hospital began all over again. Sara
tried to be calm. She had worked in the police department
before our marriage and had been exposed to death many times.
But this was different. I didn't know it at the time, but the
doctors had told her that I probably had no more than six
months to live.
I kept on working, although I was growing weaker and
weaker. It was hard to determine whether it was the cancer or
the cobalt. One afternoon Sara picked me up from work and
said, “John, I've been thinking. I've been out of circulation a
24
long time. What would you say if I went back to work?”

“You've got a job,” I kidded her, “just taking care of those
three children. I'll earn the bread around this house. I've still got
a lot of mileage left in me.”
“Still the tough cop, aren't you?” she said. “Well, I'm tough,
too. I'm going to enroll in business college.”
It began to dawn on me what she was doing—getting things
in order. It was time for me to do the same thing. But before I
could, a new development took place—surgery.
“It's the only way to keep you alive,” the woman surgeon
said. “This type of cancer feeds on hormones. We are going to
have to redirect the hormone trend in your body through
surgery. If we don't do this, you are really going out fast.”
I agreed to the surgery, but within another 120 days the
cancer reappeared on the surface, this time in my spine.
I first noticed it on a Sunday afternoon in June. Sara had
taken the children to a vacation Bible school picnic, and I was at
home, trying to set out a little potted plant in the flower bed. By
now I was so weak I could hardly bend over, but I thought the
exercise would help. I had dug a small hole in the ground, and
when I bent over to pick up the potted plant, a pain like a
million volts of lightning surged through my lower back. I fell
forward into the dirt.
I never dreamed such pain could exist. No one was around
to help me, so I dragged myself—partially on my hands and
knees, partially on my stomach—up the steps and into the
house. Then, for the first time, I let myself go. Lying on the floor
in that empty house, I wept and moaned uncontrollably. I had
been holding back because of Sara and the children, but this
afternoon, with the house empty, I lay there crying and
moaning until the pain finally subsided.
There followed another series of cobalt treatments with
25
more hopeless looks from the doctors. I had received the death
sentence.
Cancer takes you apart from the inside, and I wasn't the only
one in my family who had been hit. My two sisters' husbands,
who also lived in Houston, had died of it. Both of these men
were in their early fifties, my own age bracket. I was next, it
seemed. It was time to finish getting my things in order.
I had always wanted a big old car. I splurged and bought a
three-year-old Cadillac. As the summer ended, we packed the
family into the car and set out on what I thought was to be my
last vacation. I wanted to make it a good one for the children.
Years before I had traveled through the Pacific Northwest, and I
wanted Sara and the children to see that part of the world which
had meant so much to me: the Columbia River Drive, Mount
Hood, the coast of Oregon, Lake Louise, Yellowstone, and the
Rocky Mountains. The children didn't know, but Sara and I both
believed it would be our last summer together as a family.
I returned to Houston and tried to patch up loose ends. But
when life is frayed beyond splicing, it's impossible to pick up
the strings. All you can do is let them dangle and wait for the
end.
One Saturday morning in the early fall I walked into the den
and turned on the TV. Our pastor at the First Baptist Church,
John Bisango, had a program called Higher Ground. John had
come to Houston from Oklahoma, where his church had been
recognized as the most evangelistic church in the Southern
Baptist Convention. What had happened in Oklahoma was
beginning to happen in Houston, as this dynamic young pastor
began to turn that huge church right side up. I was thrilled with
his ministry.
Too weak to get up, I sat slumped in the chair as the
program ended and another one began. “I believe in miracles,”
a woman's voice said. I glanced up. I wasn't impressed—very
26
few Baptists are impressed with a woman preacher. But as the

program continued and this woman, Kathryn Kuhlman, talked
of wonderful healing miracles, something inside me clicked.
Can this be for real? I wondered.
The show closed, and the credits were flashed on the screen.
Suddenly I saw a familiar name—Dick Ross, producer.
I knew Dick, had known him since 1952 when he was in
Houston working with Billy Graham producing Oiltown, USA.
In fact, I had played a bit role in that movie and as a result had
become a good friend of Billy Graham and his team, remaining
in charge of his security detail whenever he came to Houston.
Now, here was Dick Ross's name associated with this woman
preacher who talked about healing miracles.
I had kept in contact with Dick through the years. Whenever
I went to California on police work, I always looked him up. I
had visited in his home, even sat in on his Sunday school class
at the Presbyterian church. I picked up the phone and called
him.
“Dick, I've just watched the Kathryn Kuhlman show. Are
those healings real?”
“Yes, John, they're real,” Dick answered. “But you'd have to
attend one of these meetings at the Shrine Auditorium to believe
it for yourself. Why do you ask?”
I hesitated, then spoke it out. “Dick, I have cancer. I've
already had it break out in three areas of my body, and I'm
afraid the next time it will kill me. I know I sound like I'm
grasping at straws, but that's what a dying man does.”
“I'm going to have Miss Kuhlman call you personally,” Dick
said.
“Oh, no,” I objected. “I know she's far too busy to deal with
a policeman in Houston. Just tell me where I can get her books.”
“I'll send you the books,” Dick said. “But I'm also going to
27
ask her to call you, as a personal favor to me.”

In less than a week, she did call, at my home. “I feel like I
know you already,” she said, her voice sounding just like it did
on TV. “We're putting your name on our prayer list, but don't
put off coming to one of the meetings.”
Although Sara and I both read her books and became avid
watchers of the TV program, I did put off attending a meeting.
“Where have we been all our lives?” Sara asked. “She's world
famous, but I've never even heard of her before.”
Like so many other Baptists, we simply didn't realize there
was anything going on in the Kingdom of God outside the
Southern Baptist Convention. Now our eyes were being opened,
not only to other ministries but to the gifts of the Spirit and the
power of God to heal. It was all so new, so different. Yet I
realized that it was biblical. Despite my ignorance of the
supernatural gifts of God, I had been trained to accept the Bible
as God's Word. As we began to see all these references to the
power of the Holy Spirit, references we'd never been exposed to
before, our hearts grew hungry—not only for healing, but to
receive the filling of the Holy Spirit.
In February I knew my time was running out. Sara and the
children knew it, too. “Daddy,” Elizabeth said, “you go to
California, and we'll stay home and pray. We believe God will
heal you.”
I looked at Sara Ann. Her eyes moist, she nodded and said,
“I believe He's going to heal you.”
On Friday, February 19, I flew from Houston to Los Angeles.
Old friends in Los Angeles loaned me their car, and I found a
motel in Santa Monica. As a policeman and a Baptist, I wanted
to size up Miss Kuhlman before I attended the meeting on
Sunday.
I heard she usually flew in from Pittsburgh the day before
28
the service at the Shrine. I also checked around, using my know-

how as a policeman, and found out where she stayed. Soon I
had all the information I needed.
Early the next morning I was at her hotel. Being a
policeman, I found it easy to get acquainted with the security
officers and pump them for information. Before long, they told
me what time Miss Kuhlman usually arrived.
I took a seat in the lobby and waited. An hour later the door
opened and she walked in, looking exactly as I had pictured her.
I knew I was brazen, but I intercepted her on the way to the
elevator. “Miss Kuhlman,” I said, “I'm that police captain from
Texas.”
She broke into a wide grin and exclaimed, “Oh yes! You've
come to be healed.”
We chatted for a few moments, and I said, “Miss Kuhlman,
I'm a born-again believer in Jesus Christ. I know I don't have to
be healed to be a believer, because I'm already a believer. But
you speak of something in your books that I want as much as I
want physical healing.”
“What is that?” she said, her eyes searching my face.
“I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
“Oh,” she smiled softly, “I promise you that you can have
that.”
“Well, I'm mighty sick, but I'm still strong enough to get to
the auditorium and get in line. I've read your books and know
the plan for the services. I'll be over bright and early in the
morning to get a good seat.” I started to excuse myself and
turned away.
“Wait!” she said. “I've got a feeling about this, and I have to
be obedient to the Holy Spirit. You meet us here in the morning
and we'll drive over together. You can follow us in your car.”
I hesitated. “Miss Kuhlman, I've been a policeman so long,
29
and I've cut so many corners to get into places, this time I don't
want to do anything that might hinder my healing. I'll just go
and stand in line with the others.”
Miss Kuhlman's voice bristled, and her eyes began to glitter.
“Now let me tell you something,” she said with deliberation.
“God is not going to heal you because you're good. He's not
going to heal you because you're a police captain. He's certainly
not going to heal you because of the way you get into that
meeting.”
She had to say no more. The next morning I followed her
from her hotel to the Shrine Auditorium. We arrived at 9:35 A.
M. Although the meeting wouldn't start until one, the sidewalks
in front of the huge auditorium were already packed with
several thousand waiting people.
We went in through the stage entrance, and Miss Kuhlman
said, “Now, you just feel free to roam about this place until you
see me meet with the ushers. When I meet with them, I want
you with me.”
I agreed and wandered off through the vast auditorium.
Hundreds of ushers, who had driven for many miles to
volunteer their time, were busy setting up chairs for the five-
hundred-voice choir, roping off the section for the wheelchairs,
seating those who had come on chartered buses, and preparing
the room for what was about to take place. Even as I walked
through the auditorium, I could almost taste the expectancy. It
was like electricity. Everybody was whispering in hushed tones,
as if the Holy Spirit was already present. How unlike my
experiences in church services! I was feeling it, too, and
suddenly I was no longer a policeman, no longer a Southern
Baptist deacon. I was just a man filled with cancer, needing a
miracle to live. If one was ever going to happen to me, I knew
this was the place.
One of the men introduced himself as Walter Bennett. I
30
recognized his name immediately. I had read his testimony in

God Can Do It Again. His wife Naurine had been healed of a
horrible disease. He took me around to the stage door where she
was standing guard. Just seeing her in such radiant health, and
knowing that she had been dying, gave me new hope and faith.
I felt like I wanted to cry.
“John,” Walter said, “we have something in common. You
are a Baptist deacon, and I was a Baptist deacon, too. Let's go
have a cup of coffee.”
We slipped out the side door and found a nearby cafe.
“After you're healed,” Walter said, “there's a chance that
your fellow Baptists might not want to have anything to do with
you.” He grinned knowingly. He spoke with such faith, as if he
knew I was going to be healed.
“I don't care what anyone thinks about me if I'm healed,” I
said. “Just as long as God touches my body.”
Walter smiled. I felt such love for this new friend.
“Well, one thing we can be sure of,” he said softly. “God
hasn't brought you all this way for nothing. You're going to
return to Houston a new man.” Having this fellow Baptist
deacon speak with such faith filled me with excitement. I could
hardly wait until the meeting started.
Back in the auditorium, Miss Kuhlman was meeting with
the ushers for last-minute instructions before the doors opened.
I joined them on stage.
“We have with us today a man who is a captain with the
police force in Houston,” she said. “He has cancer throughout
his body, and I'm going to pray for him at this time. I want each
of you men to bow in prayer as I petition the Lord in his behalf.”
I realized this was something special. I knew that Miss
Kuhlman's ministry was simply reporting what God was doing
as the great miracle services got under way—and that she had
31
no particular gifts of healing herself. She motioned for me to

come forward and stretched out her hands toward me.
Even though this was the moment I had waited for, I
hesitated. From reading her books, I remembered that often
when she prayed for people, they fell down on the floor. I had
thought that falling was all right for a few Pentecostals, but it
wasn't for a Baptist, and it certainly wasn't for a police captain.
But I had no choice. I stepped forward and let her pray for me.
Bracing my feet in my best judo stance, I waited as she
touched me and prayed for my healing. Nothing happened, but
as I started to relax, I heard her say, “And fill him, Blessed Jesus,
with thy Holy Spirit.”
I felt myself reel, and thought, “This can't be!” I reaffirmed
my footing, one foot behind the other, and I heard it the second
time: “And fill him with thy Holy Spirit.”
It felt like someone had his hands on my shoulders and was
pushing me to the floor. I couldn't resist, and crumpled to the
stage. I struggled to regain my feet just in time to hear her say it
the third time: “Fill him with thy Holy Spirit.” And I was down
again.
This time I remained down for several minutes, like I was
soaking in a bathtub full of love. Someone helped me to my feet,
and I heard her say, “Now find yourself a seat. We are going to
open this place, and in just a few minutes every seat will be
taken.”
I should have listened, for moments later the doors were
thrown open and the people came pouring down the aisles like
lava down the sides of a volcano. I found my way up the aisle,
pausing to look at a whole section filled with people in
wheelchairs. I couldn't get my eyes off their faces. Some of them
were so young yet so twisted. I wanted to cry again. “Oh, Lord,
am I selfish to want a healing when there are so many people
here, some of them so young?”
32
As I stood looking, I heard, for the first time in all my life,

God's inner voice saying, “There's no shortage in my storehouse.”
With new strength, I made my way to the back and slowly,
painfully, climbed the stairs to a seat in the first row of the
balcony.
There was still time before the meeting started. The huge
choir had taken its place on the platform and was doing some
last-minute rehearsing. I spent my time sizing up the various
people sitting around me, and I introduced myself to the man
beside me. “I'm Dr. Townsend,” he said.
“Are you a medical doctor?” I asked, astonished that
medical doctors would attend a healing service.
“Yes, I am,” he said, pulling out one of his business cards. “I
come because I get a great blessing. I just like to see the mighty
working power of God.” Then he introduced me to his family.
“I've brought my dad here from out of state,” he said. “This is
his first meeting.”
Sitting across the aisle was one of my favorite TV actors.
“Well, how about that,” I mused silently. “Doctors and movie
stars way up here in the balcony! They haven't come to be
recognized, just to be a part of the meeting.” I was impressed.
The service started. A beautiful girl, a fashion model whose
face I had often seen on the cover of Sara's women's magazines,
shared a brief testimony of what Jesus Christ meant in her life.
I had been in many evangelistic meetings, but this one was
unusual. Maybe it was the sense of expectancy, maybe the sense
of awe. Whatever it was, this was different from any other
meeting I had ever attended.
Miss Kuhlman was speaking from the platform. “You know,
I have been asked to set this Sunday aside for young people, but
people come from such great distances, and I just don't have the
heart to say, 'Young people only.' However, since there are so
33
many young people here today, I must speak to them.”

Her message was brief and geared to youth. She talked
about the love of God and then gave one of the most
challenging invitations I'd ever heard. Now if there's anything
that impresses a Baptist, it's numbers and movement. And when
I saw almost a thousand young people leaving their seats to go
forward and make decisions for Jesus Christ, I was impressed.
Unlike most revival meetings I had attended, this meeting had
no fanfare, no tear-jerking stories. Just a simple invitation from
this tall woman who said, “Do you want to be born again?” The
kids responded, many of them literally running down the aisles
to accept that challenge.
She seemed to forget the time as she dealt with them on the
stage, praying for many of them individually. Finally they
filtered back to their seats, but the congregation was sensing
something else about to happen.
“Father,” she was whispering, so low I could hardly hear it,
“I believe in miracles. I believe that you're in the healing
business today like you were when Jesus Christ was here. You
know the needs of the people here, all over this huge
auditorium. I pray that you will touch them. In the name of
Jesus, I ask it. Amen.”
Then there was silence. I could feel my heart pounding in
my chest. I became aware of each cell in my body and could
almost feel the spiritual warfare taking place as the forces of the
Holy Spirit did battle against the forces of evil over my body. “O
God,” I prayed, worshiping. “O God.”
Suddenly Miss Kuhlman was speaking again, her voice
coming rapidly as she received knowledge of what was
happening in the auditorium. “There is a man in the upper
balcony, on my extreme right, who has just been healed of
cancer. Stand up, sir, in the name of Jesus Christ, and claim this
healing.”
34
I looked up. She was pointing to the opposite side of the

balcony. It was phenomenal. I could only stare in amazement, as
I felt the excitement building inside of me. This was real. I knew
it was.
“Do not come to the platform unless you know God has
healed you,” she emphasized.
I glanced around and saw the personal workers moving up
and down the aisles. They were interviewing people who
thought they had been healed, making sure only those who
were genuinely healed came forward to testify.
The healings she was reporting seemed to be mostly in the
balcony. They moved across from the right to the left:
“Two people are being healed of eye problems.”
“A woman is being healed right now of arthritis. Stand up
and claim your healing.”
“You are seated right in the middle of the balcony,”
Miss Kuhlman said. “You came today to receive your
healing. God has restored it. Take your hearing aid off. You can
hear perfectly.”
I looked. A woman in her forties was rising to her feet,
pulling hearing aids out of both ears. One of the personal
workers was standing behind her, whispering. I thought the
woman was going to shout as she raised her hands above her
head, praising God. She could hear. The doctor sitting next to
me was weeping and saying, “Thank you, Jesus.”
The healings were coming in my direction across the
balcony. “Lord, don't let them run out,” I prayed. Then I
remembered what He had whispered to me on the floor below:
“There is no shortage in God's storehouse.”
Suddenly Miss Kuhlman was pointing at the left balcony,
right where I was sitting. “You have come a long way for your
healing from cancer,” she said. “God has healed you. Stand up
35
in the name of Jesus Christ and claim it.”

It was so far from the stage to the balcony! She could have
had no idea I was up there. But her long, slender finger was
pointing in my direction.
“O Lord,” I said, “of course I want to be healed. But how do
I know this is for me?”
Instantly that same inner voice, the one I had heard
downstairs when I was looking at the people in the wheelchairs,
said, “Stand up!”
I stood. Without feeling of any kind, I simply stood in
obedience and faith.
Then I felt it. It was like being baptized in liquid energy. I
had never felt such strength flowing through my body. I felt like
I could have taken the Houston phone directory and ripped it to
shreds.
A woman approached me. “Have you been healed of
something?”
“I have,” I declared, wanting to leap and run all at the same
time.
“How do you know?”
“I've never felt so gloriously well. I hardly had enough
strength to get to this seat, and now I feel so good!” All the time
I was stretching and bending, doing things I hadn't been able to
do in more than a year. “I feel like I could run a mile.”
“Then run right on down to the stage and testify,” she said.
I started. But on the way I began to wonder. What if there's
someone here from Houston? I'm going to bound up there on
the stage, and Miss Kuhlman's going to put her hands on me,
and I'm going to hit the floor. What will they think?
Then I realized that I didn't care. Moments later I was
standing beside Miss Kuhlman on the stage. She just walked
36
over to me and said simply, “We thank you blessed Father, for
healing this body. Fill him with the Holy Ghost.”
Bam! I was on the floor again. But this time, because of the
new healing energy surging through my body, I bounced right
back to my feet. The next time she didn't even touch me. She just
prayed in my direction, and I heard her say, “Oh, the power...”
And I was on the floor again.
I stayed there this time, luxuriating once more in that tub of
liquid love. But even there, Satan attacked me. He came on like
a roaring lion. “What makes you think you've been healed?”
Miss Kuhlman had already turned her attention to someone
else. I rolled over and came to my knees, my head in my hands,
praying, “O Father, give me the faith to accept what I sincerely
believe you've given me.”
Across the years I had taken numerous Baptist study
courses. My mind had been thoroughly exposed to the Word of
God, and in that moment a verse came to me: “Prove me now
herewith, saith the Lord of hosts.”
I thought of all those twisted bodies I had seen. “Father, let
me see a visible sign so my faith will be made strong.”
I opened my eyes, and coming to the platform was a little
girl about nine years old. I had never seen anyone so happy. She
was running and skipping, barefooted. She danced all the way
across the stage, right by Miss Kuhlman, who reached out to
catch her but missed. She turned and started back. Again Miss
Kuhlman reached for her, but she danced out of reach. By that
time the child's mother was on the platform. She was holding a
pair of shoes with heavy steel braces.
Unable to catch the dancing, skipping child, Miss Kuhlman
turned to the mother. “What do we have here?”
“This is my little girl,” the mother was sobbing. “She had
infantile paralysis when she was a baby and has never walked
37
without these braces. But look at her go now!”

The huge congregation broke into a mighty roar of applause.
“How do you know God has healed her?” Miss Kuhlman
asked.
“Oh, I felt the healing power of God going through her
body,” the mother almost shouted. “I took the braces off, and
she began to run.”
Right behind her was another mother, holding a two-year-
old child. “What's this?” Miss Kuhlman asked.
“God has just made my baby's foot whole.” The mother's
voice was shaking so hard she was difficult to understand.
Miss Kuhlman reached out and took the baby's foot in her
hands. “Was this the foot?”
“Yes, yes, it was,” the mother blurted out.
“But I see no difference between this foot and the other.”
“But look at this,” the mother said, holding a built-up shoe.
“This child was born with a clubfoot. There have been many
operations. Had you been massaging her foot the way you are
rubbing it now, she would have screamed in pain.”
“On the platform with me are a number of doctors,” Miss
Kuhlman said. “They know me. Is there a doctor in the audience
who doesn't know me and doesn't know these children? Would
you come up and examine them?”
A man stood up.
“Are you a practicing physician, sir?” she asked.
“I am,” he said.
“Where do you practice?”
“St. Luke's Hospital here in Los Angeles.”
“Would you please come up and examine these children?”
38
The doctor came to the platform. “The first thing I say is that
this little girl, running and jumping on these toothpick legs, is a
miracle. Without a miracle she couldn't even stand on them,
much less jump with joy.” Then he took the infant's feet and
held them together. “Miss Kuhlman,” he said seriously, “I can
see no difference between this child's two feet. I think this
mother can throw away the therapeutic shoe.”
I needed no more proof. I staggered backstage, found a
telephone, and called Sara in Houston. The line was busy. I
asked the operator to break in.
“I can't do that unless it is a matter of life and death,” she
said.
“That's exactly what it is, operator. And you can listen in if
you want to.”
Suddenly Sara was on the phone. I tried to talk, but all I
could do was sob. I've never cried harder in all my life than I did
while I was holding the phone and standing backstage at the
Shrine Auditorium. Sara kept saying, “John, John, have you
been healed?”
I finally got the message through. I was healed. Then she
began to cry. I hoped the operator was listening. The call was
about life, not death.
I made my way back to the edge of the stage and watched.
Five Catholic priests, one of them a Monsignor, were sitting in
the front row on the stage. The Monsignor was on the edge of
his chair, taking it all in. As Miss Kuhlman passed him, she saw
how intent he was. “Wouldn't you like this?” she asked.
He knew exactly what she was talking about, because he
stood to his feet, his robes flowing, and said, “Yes.”
She put her hands on him and said, “Fill him with the Holy
Ghost.” Down he went. She turned to the other priests and said,
“Come on.” Each of them had the same falling experience.
39
Hippies were saved. Twisted limbs were straightened. My

own cancer was healed. Catholic priests were filled with the
Holy Ghost. I left in a daze and drove back to the motel. It was
more than I could comprehend.
In the motel I did all kinds of exercises—sit-ups, pushups,
things I hadn't been able to do in more than a year. And I did
them with ease. Even without a medical examination, I knew I
was healed. All that night I kept waking up, not to take pain
pills (for I had stopped all medication that morning before going
to the service) but so I could say it out loud in the darkness:
“Thank you, Jesus. Praise the Lord!”
Then came the reunion with Sara and the children. They
were waiting at the Houston airport when I arrived. I rushed to
them, hugging Sara so tightly I literally picked her off the floor.
She gasped at my strength. Then I grabbed the boys, first
Andrew, then John, picking them up and holding them over my
head. I hugged Elizabeth. We were all talking at once.
“Your face, John,” Sara kept saying. “It's full of color and
life.”
“I knew you would be healed,” Elizabeth was saying. “I
prayed for you every day at nine, twelve, and six.”
“Us, too, daddy,” little John piped up. “Us little guys been
praying, too. We knew God would heal you.”
It was too much, and this veteran police captain stood in the
middle of the Houston airport and cried.
Shortly afterward, I returned to the M. D. Anderson Institute
for a physical examination. I had an appointment with two
doctors there on the same day.
The first doctor to see me was the one who had
recommended the surgery. I gave her a copy of Miss Kuhlman's
book, I Believe In Miracles. She glanced at the book, listened as I
told her my story, and then looked at me like I was crazy.
40
“Let me tell you something,” she said. “The only miracle

that has happened to you is a medical miracle. That's all. The
only thing that's keeping you alive is your medication. Quit
taking it, and see how long you'll live.” I smiled. “Well, I haven't
had any medication since the twentieth of February, more than
a month ago.”
She was shocked and angry. “You've done a very foolish
thing, Mr. LeVrier,” she snapped. “It won't be long before that
cancer breaks out some place else, and you'll be gone.”
Such a strange attitude, I thought, for a scientist!
I left and went to the office of Dr. Lowell Miller, chief of the
Department of Radiation Therapy at Hermann Hospital. I hoped
his reaction would be more positive, but after the last encounter,
I was determined not to tell him a thing about the miracle. He
could just find out for himself.
His nurse asked me to go in the dressing room and prepare
for a physical examination. That's when I noticed a strange
thing. Like many long-time policemen, I had developed a bad
case of varicose veins in my legs. In fact, I wouldn't wear
Bermuda shorts in public because I was self-conscious about the
knots on my legs. Of course, you don't worry about varicose
veins when you're dying of cancer, but in the bright light of the
examination room, I looked at my legs for the first time since
returning from Los Angeles. Not only had the Lord healed me
of cancer, He had healed the varicose veins also. My legs were
as smooth as a young teenager's. By the time Dr. Miller came
into the room, I was bubbling over with praise.
Unaccustomed to seeing his cancer patients in such a joyful
spirit, Dr. Miller stepped back. “My! What in the world has
happened to you?”
That was all I needed to launch into the whole story of how
Jesus Christ had healed my cancer.
41
“Now look,” Dr. Miller said. “I'm a Christian, too, but God
has given us enough sense to look after ourselves.”
“You'll get no argument from me on that,” I said gleefully.
“That's the reason I'm here to be examined. I'll submit to any
exam you want. But I'm telling you, you won't find anything
wrong.”
“Okay,” the doctor said, “let's go.” And what followed was
the most thorough physical examination I had ever had.
When he finished he said, “You know, I wish my prostate
felt as good as yours.” Then he went down my spine, beating on
me, vertebra by vertebra. “Remarkable,” he kept repeating.
“Remarkable.”
He sent me to X ray, and then said, “I'll call you in a day or
so after I've compared these pictures with your old ones. But
from all indications, you've been healed.”
Three days later the phone on my desk in the second-floor
office in the Houston Police Department rang. It was Dr. Miller.
“Captain,” he said, “I have good news. I can find absolutely no
trace of cancer. Now, I want to ask you one other question. Do
you ever give talks?”
“You mean about my police work?” I said.
“No,” he said, “not about police work. I want you to come
out to my church and tell the people what God has done for
you.”
That opened the door. Ever since, I've been traveling all over
the nation, telling hopeless people about the God who has no
shortage in His storehouse of miracles.
42
CHAPTER 3
3 WALKING IN THE SHADOWS
ISABEL LARIOS
Christmas is such a joyous time of year. I receive thousands of
cards from priceless friends all over the world. I read each one. My
most precious cards, however, come from the children. Children are so
open, so honest. When a child tells me, “I love you,” I never doubt it.
That is why, when I received a simple little card from a sweet,
Mexican-American girl in California, I knew she meant what she said.
She wrote to thank me for making another Christmas possible. Lisa
thanked me because she could see me. But I knew what she meant.
And, God knows, it wasn't Kathryn Kuhlman, it was Jesus. Lisa
Larios was dying of bone cancer before Jesus healed her at the Shrine
Auditorium. Lisa's mother and stepfather, Isabel and Javier Larios,
lived on the second floor of a modest apartment complex in Panorama
City, California. Isabel was born in Los Angeles, but grew up in
Guadalajara, Mexico. Javier, who spends much of his time at the
artist's easel in his apartment, is a respected waiter in the Casa Vega
in Sherman Oaks, one of the area's finest restaurants. Besides Lisa,
they have two other children, Albert and Gina.
“It's just growing pains, Lisa,” I said, as our twelve-year-old
daughter complained of pains in her right hip. I was sitting on
the side of the bed in the semidarkness, rubbing her back and
hip with liniment. Lisa was growing fast. Already she had the
body of a fifteen-year-old and seemed to be the picture of
health.
Yet here in the gathering gloom of evening, rubbing her
smooth skin, I sensed this particular pain was something more
than the normal muscle aches experienced by growing girls.
Lisa sensed it, too. Fear entered the room along with the
43
darkness.
“Mama, turn on the light when you leave,” Lisa whimpered.
“I don't want to stay here alone in the dark.”
Javier had gone to work at the restaurant. The other two
children were already asleep. I patted Lisa's back and pulled her
pajama-top down. “There's nothing to be afraid of,” I said.
“I don't like the shadows,” she replied, her head buried in
her pillow. “They scare me.”
I switched on the light in the hall and left her door open.
Then, for a moment, I stood outside her door looking in. Where
had this fear come from so suddenly. Lisa never used to be
afraid. Now I could sense fear hanging all around the room, like
a net fastened to the ceiling and draped over the bed. Did Lisa
suspect something that I couldn't feel?
The next day was one of those rare, beautiful days in the Los
Angeles basin. It was the last of March, and a heavy rain just
before dawn had washed the air, leaving it clear and clean. The
sun was shining brightly, the sky was brilliant blue, and we
could see the snow-capped mountains clearly along the eastern
horizon. Javier had risen to eat breakfast with the children
before they left for school. Then the two of us drove over to Van
Nuys to go shopping. I was looking for a sweater for Lisa, and
Javier wanted some charcoals to finish a drawing he had on his
easel. When we returned, just before noon, the apartment door
was ajar. Lisa was inside, lying on the sofa in the front room,
crying.
Alarmed, Javier knelt beside her and brushed the hair away
from her eyes. “What's all this, Lisa?” he asked gently, the
musical sound of his rich Mexican accent soft in her ear.
“It's my hip, daddy,” she sobbed. “It started hurting worse,
so a neighbor came and picked me up from school.”
Lisa handed me a crumpled note from one of the sisters at
44
Walking in the Shadows
Saint Elizabeth School. “Please look into this. Lisa is having

great difficulty walking. We think she should see a doctor.”
Javier nodded. “Call Dr. Kovner,” he said. “We shouldn't
wait any longer.”
Dr. Kovner was a friend of the family. He had treated us
before, always remarking that Lisa was his favorite patient. His
nurse made an appointment for the next afternoon.
The doctor took X-rays and did a preliminary examination.
Then he called me into his office. “Mrs. Larios, this could be one
of several things. We'll just have to start with the most obvious
and work from there. I'm going to admit Lisa to the hospital
where we can run additional tests.”
There were more examinations at Van Nuys Community
Hospital. Lisa tried to be brave, but in constant pain, spending
the night away from home in a strange place, surrounded by
strange people, it wasn't easy for her. Each morning I would get
the children off to school and then drive to the hospital, crying
all the way, wondering if the people who passed me were aware
of the great pain in my heart. At the hospital I was all smiles,
but it was just a front. Inside, I was falling apart.
“There is a possibility the pain could be coming from an
enlarged appendix pressing on a nerve,” the doctor said. “We're
going to take the appendix out and see if that solves our
problem.”
But the pain remained after Lisa returned from surgery. No
one seemed to know what to do next. She came home from the
hospital on May 12. She was supposed to remain on crutches.
There were more visits to the doctor's office. “This has me
stumped,” Dr. Kovner said, examining the X-rays again. “I think
we should call in a specialist.”
Dr. Gettleman, a surgeon, was very methodical. He took
more X-rays and conducted his own examination. “Keep her on
45
crutches for another week,” he said. “Bring her back in next

Thursday.”
In spite of the crutches her pain grew worse. Unable to go to
school, Lisa hobbled around the house on crutches, crying and
trying to act brave. Mostly she stayed in bed. At the end of the
week she was back in the hospital, this time Saint Joseph's in
Burbank.
“We're going to have to operate again,” Dr. Gettleman said.
“We've seen something on the X-rays. It might be a bag of pus
that is causing the pressure. However, it could be a tumor.
There are two kinds of tumors, good and bad. If it's a good
tumor we won't have any trouble. However, if it's malignant it
could be very serious.”
Although we belonged to a Roman Catholic church and our
children attended a Catholic school, neither Javier nor I was
very religious. We seldom attended Mass, and almost never
went to confession. Still, I had always felt very close to Jesus,
and the little cards that Lisa's school friends kept sending her,
telling her they were praying for her, helped me too as I turned
to God in prayer.
The night before the operation, I was home alone with
Albert and Gina. They went to bed early, I went into our
bedroom and lay across the bed in the shadows. It seemed my
whole world was crumbling. I had carried Lisa in my body for
nine months. I had been willing to lay down my life in
childbirth that she might live. I had nursed her, held her in the
dark nights, laughed with her, run through the fields with her,
protected her, cried and prayed over her. And now the doctors
told me she might die. I had cried until my tears were all gone.
It all seemed so hopeless, so futile.
As I lay on my back across the bed, looking up into the
shadows on the ceiling, I began to pray. “Dear God, Lisa really
isn't mine, is she? She's yours. You've just let us have her to
46
raise, feed, teach, and love. One day she will leave us, marry,
and raise her own children. If you want to take her sooner, I
give her back to you and thank you that we've had her this long
to bless us.”
It was a simple, unemotional prayer. But I meant it. I dozed
off, still looking up at the shadows.
In a dream I was sitting in a small, dark room. Javier was
beside me, holding my hand. A door opened before us, and
coming down a long hall were two men dressed in surgical
gowns. One of the men, a doctor, was weeping and could not
talk. The other stood before us and said, “Your daughter is very
ill. She has cancer.”
I awoke, startled. It was past midnight, and I was still lying
on my back on the bed. The house was quiet. Only the light in
the hall filtered into the bedroom. I got up and checked the
other children. They were sleeping peacefully. Then I walked
into the darkened living room and sat on the edge of the sofa.
Was the dream from the devil? Was he trying to scare me? Or
was it from God, warning and preparing me? How could I
know?
When I heard Javier's steps on the stairs outside the door, I
slipped down the hall and got in bed before he reached the
bedroom. I didn't want him to know the depth of my concern.
Lisa would need us both to be strong when she faced surgery in
the morning.
Javier and I sat, holding hands, in the small waiting room
outside the surgery wing of the hospital. It was natural that both
of us should pray, and we did, silently. Doctors kept coming in,
giving reports to others who were waiting. “Your dad's great.
We didn't even have to operate....” “There's nothing to worry
about, your wife's in fine shape....” “You can take your son
home this afternoon....”
At two o'clock in the afternoon I looked up and saw two
47
doctors coming down the long hall. One of them was Dr.
Kovner. His face was gray. The other was Dr. Gettleman. Javier
jumped up and met them at the door, but I stayed seated. I
knew what was coming, and my legs were like rubber. It was
the same scene I had lived through in my dream.
“We found a tumor,” Dr. Gettleman said. “It is inoperable. If
we had cut, we would have had to cut her entire leg off.”
“Is it cancer?” Javier choked out.
“I'm afraid so,” he answered. “She's a very, very sick girl.
Her hipbone is like butter. If I'd had a spoon, I could have just
dipped it out. The flesh around the bone is like Swiss cheese,
full of holes. The lab has already run a test, and it is the worst
type of cancer. All we could do was sew her back up.”
“Isn't there anything you can do?” Javier pleaded, his face
drawn and haggard.
“Nothing right now. After she recovers from the operation
we'll start her on cobalt. We can talk about that later.”
“But she will get well, won't she?” Javier asked.
Dr. Gettleman hung his head. “The best I can say is that
we'll try to prolong her life. I can promise no more.”
I looked at Dr. Kovner. Although he said nothing, his face
spoke volumes. His eyes were brimming with tears. Lisa was
dying, and there was nothing any of us could do about it. I had
given her back to God, and He had accepted my offer.
The doctors agreed we should not tell Lisa about her
condition. Two weeks later we brought her home in a
wheelchair, determined to give her the happiest summer of her
life.
Dr. Kovner disagreed with our plans to take Lisa on an
extended vacation. “We need to start cobalt treatment at once,”
he said.
48
“If we sign the release and let you give her the radiation
treatment,” I asked, “what can you promise?”
“We can promise nothing,” he said. “But you'll never know
whether it will help unless you try it.”
“What will happen if we don't let you treat her?”
“I don't like to answer questions like that,” Dr. Kovner said.
“But even with treatment, the most we can offer you is six
months. And she will be very, very sick before she dies.”
I promised to talk the matter over with Javier. Both of us felt
it would be cruel to take the remaining months of Lisa's life and
subject her to the radiation treatment.
On June 9 Lisa was admitted to the Children's Hospital in
Los Angeles. It was her third hospital in three months. Dr.
Higgins, the woman physician in charge of her case, told us
there were three ways the cancer could spread: to her liver, her
chest, or her brain. Any of them would prove fatal. It seems that
cancer in growing children spreads rapidly, and the only
possible way to save her life would be through cobalt
treatments and chemotherapy.
We finally consented to the preliminary treatment, and they
began a series of injections. Lisa reacted violently. I sat with her
throughout the night while she vomited and cried, “Mama,
what's the matter with me? Why am I so sick?”
It was more than I could take. Javier and I talked again and
decided that her last days should be spent at home, with us,
rather than in the hospital. We would take her home.
The priest from Lisa's school had heard of her condition and
was making nightly visits to the hospital, bringing her
Communion. We talked to him about our decision to withhold
the cobalt. He agreed with us. “If she is dying, then she should
spend the last days of her life as happily as possible.”
“Lisa has absolutely no chance of recovery without the
49
radiation therapy,” Dr. Higgins objected when we told her.

The other doctors agreed. “If she stays in the hospital,
maybe we can learn something that will help some other little
girl in five or ten years.”
“I'm not interested in my child becoming a medical
experiment,” I told them, honestly. “I just want her healed. Can
you promise me that?”
“I'm sorry, Mrs. Larios,” the doctors said. “The medical
profession can promise you nothing.”
The next day we took Lisa home to die.
We spent the rest of the summer trying to make her happy.
We went deeply into debt, taking her on vacation trips along the
coast, buying her things she wanted—tape recorders and other
material things. Yet it all seemed so pathetically empty. It wasn't
right that we should sit around smothering her in gifts, waiting
for her to die.
One afternoon in the middle of July there was a knock at the
door of our apartment. I opened it to see our neighbor, a young
bachelor named Bill Truett, standing in the hall.
“How is Lisa?” he asked.
“Not good,” I answered. “She's gotten worse since we took
her out of the hospital.”
Bill smiled faintly and looked me straight in the eye. “She's
going to get well,” he said confidently.
I shrugged. “I hope so.”
“No, you didn't understand me,” he said seriously. “She is
going to get well. Have you ever heard of Kathryn Kuhlman?”
“Well, I've seen her a couple of times on TV but I never paid
much attention.”
“This coming Sunday she's going to be in Los Angeles at the
Shrine Auditorium,” he said. “I want to take Lisa to the
50
meeting.”
I hesitated. I really didn't know Bill that well, and I had
heard the meetings at the Shrine were very long. Bill was
insistent, though, and I finally agreed that Lisa and I would go
with him, just to get him out of my hair.
After I had told him yes, I closed the door and leaned
against the kitchen table. Javier was at his easel near the
window overlooking the courtyard. Several of his drawings
hung on the wall of our apartment. I knew he was interested in
developing his talent, but I also knew that painting was an
escape for him. When he was busy with his sketches he didn't
have time to think about Lisa. I watched him, his face like
chiseled stone, concentrating on his charcoals. I felt my
fingernails biting into the flesh of my hand as I clenched my fist
and tried to hold back the flood of tears. Javier was lost in his
art. Bill was making crazy suggestions. But I was Lisa's mother,
and I had to face reality. I could not let myself escape into art, or
be drawn off on Bill's wild-goose chases about miracles. I had to
face things the way they were. Lisa was going to die.
Bill was back the next morning, reminding me of my
promise to go with him and take Lisa. “Bill, I don't want to
dampen your enthusiasm,” I argued, “but the doctors have told
me Lisa cannot be cured. There's nothing anyone can do.”
“Then let's see what God can do,” he said simply.
I wanted to back out. I felt Bill was pressuring me. Besides, I
hated to get up so early on Sunday morning and drive all the
way across the city just to stand in line for hours.
Bill refused to be discouraged. “I know she is going to be
healed. My mother is very, very close to this ministry. She has
known many people who were healed.”
I had no faith whatsoever. I was just thankful that Lisa
didn't know how serious her condition actually was.
51
Unknown to me at that time, though, Lisa did suspect

something. At least she knew her leg wouldn't hold her weight.
A few days before, she was visiting with a friend in an
apartment across the hall and tried to test her leg without the
crutches. Her hip bent in like a wet sponge and she fell to the
floor. Although she didn't know what it was, she knew
something was seriously wrong with her hip.
Saturday afternoon Bill was back, knocking on the door
again, “Remember, tomorrow's the day. Lisa is going to receive
a miracle.”
“Okay Bill,” I said, closing the door. But inside I knew there
was no way. They weren't making miracles anymore, at least
not for the likes of us. If miracles did happen, they were for the
rich, the pious, the saints in the church. We were just poor
Mexican Catholics who didn't even go to Mass very often. How
could we expect a miracle?
Early the next morning, July 16, Bill rang the doorbell. “Just
let me finish my coffee,” I shouted. Inwardly, I wished he would
leave without us.
Bill and his girl friend Cindy were waiting with a
wheelchair. They helped Lisa down the stairs, around the
swimming pool in the patio, down the long narrow sidewalk to
the street, and into the car. Soon we were out on the Harbor
Freeway, heading south toward Los Angles and the Shrine
Auditorium.
Lisa sat in her wheelchair while I waited on an old army
blanket, leaning up against the side of the Shrine Auditorium,
wondering when the doors would open. It all seemed so stupid,
spending all Sunday morning sitting on a sun-drenched
sidewalk waiting for nothing.
Finally we were allowed inside. Bill rolled Lisa into the
wheelchair section and I sat down beside her. He and Cindy
found seats in another part of the auditorium. I was awed by the
52
size of the crowd and the warmth, friendliness, and love I felt in
that place.
The meeting started with the choir beautifully singing “He
Touched Me.” Kathryn Kuhlman, dressed in a flowing white
dress, appeared on stage. Lisa pulled at my arm. “Mama, if you
squint your eyes when you look at her, you can see a halo all
around her.” I shrugged her off, without trying to see the halo
myself.
Then Miss Kuhlman preached a little sermon which I didn't
listen to. I kept shaking my head. All this was nice, but why
were we wasting our time here?
Then, without warning, things began to happen. Miss
Kuhlman pointed up to the balcony. “There's a man who is
being healed of cancer. Right now. Stand up, sir, and accept
your healing.”
I turned around in my seat and tried to see into the balcony.
But it was too far away. All I could see were faces, stretching up
and back into the darkness.
Yet there seemed to be light up there also—not the kind of
light you can see, but the kind you can feel. It was all through
the building. Light and energy, as if there were tiny flames
dancing from one head to another. I was electrified. Miss
Kuhlman kept designating other places in the auditorium where
healings were taking place.
Then she was pointing down at the wheelchair section, right
where we were sitting. “There's cancer right here,” she said
softly. “Stand up and accept your healing.”
I looked at Lisa, but she didn't move. Of course. How would
she know she had cancer? We had kept it from her. I was torn
inside. If I told her that Miss Kuhlman was talking to her, and if
she stood up, her hip and leg might buckle. What should I do?
Miss Kuhlman shook her head and turned away from our
53
section, calling out healings in other parts of the auditorium. My

heart sank. Had Lisa's time passed us by? Was it too late?
Then Miss Kuhlman was looking back at us, pointing down
into our section. “I cannot get away from this,” she said.
Someone right down here is being healed of cancer. You
must stand up and accept your healing.”
“Mama,” Lisa moaned, “my stomach feels hot.”
We hadn't eaten since early morning, and I fumbled in my
purse to find a piece of candy.
“No, it isn't that kind of hot,” Lisa said, refusing the candy.
“It's something different.”
Miss Kuhlman continued to point at us. I looked around.
No one else was standing up in our section. I knew Lisa
must be the one who was being healed, but I was afraid. What if
it wasn't Lisa? What if she stood and fell? Or, even more
frightening, what if it was Lisa—and she didn't stand?
When I thought I would die from the uncertainty, the
wondering, Lisa leaned over and whispered, “Mama, I think I
should go up on the stage. I think I am being healed.”
“Whatever you think,” I said, feeling great relief that she
had decided for me. But I dreaded her trying to stand without
her crutches.
One of the personal workers in the aisle sensed something
was happening to Lisa. He leaned toward us. “I think I feel
better,” Lisa whispered to him. “I want to go on stage.”
He helped her out of her wheelchair. I held my breath as she
stood up. Once I thought she was going to collapse, but
suddenly I was aware of something else. That same fire I had
sensed dancing from one head to another—now it was resting
on Lisa. I could almost see new strength flowing into her body.
The usher let her lean on him, and they started down the
54
aisle. Slowly, then with more confidence, they walked to the

base of the stage where a woman talked with them briefly. Bill
Truett met them there, and after a brief conference, they took
Lisa up on the platform.
Miss Kuhlman listened as the woman shared a few details.
Then she reached toward Lisa. Lisa backed away a step, then
slumped to the floor. I gasped, thinking her leg had given way.
But Lisa climbed back to her feet.
“I dedicate this child to the Lord Jesus Christ,” Miss
Kuhlman said, as Lisa stood before her, her face covered with
tears. “Now let's see you walk.” Lisa began running back and
forth across the stage, and all the people began applauding,
praising God. Then, as though it were the angels singing, the
choir began singing, softly, “Alleluia! Alleluia!”
“I want you to have this healing verified,” Miss Kuhlman
said. “I want you to go back to your doctor and have him
examine you thoroughly. Then come back to the next meeting
and testify to what God has done for you.”
I glanced at Bill. He was exuberant, as if it were his own
sister who had been healed. I would learn later that in the
family of God, we are indeed brothers and sisters. But right then
all I could think about was Lisa. She was running back and forth
across the stage, still limping some, but stomping her foot. I bit
my lip. I knew her hipbone was like butter and would give way
at the slightest pressure—but it didn't. Could it really be? Was
she healed?
I was afraid to let myself believe. I had been hurt once, so
deeply, when the doctor had told us there was no hope. To
believe now, only to find out later that it was just a false hope,
would be more than I could bear. It was safer not to believe at
all.
Javier was just leaving for work when we got home. We told
him what had happened. “Then we shall begin to hope,” he
55
said. “That is something we have not had before. We have had

much love for our little girl. Now we have hope. Maybe sooner,
maybe later, God will give us faith also—faith to accept this
wonderful thing He is doing.” It was a wise word from my
wonderful husband.
Bill and Cindy followed us into the apartment. “Take away
the crutches,” Bill said, as I tried to hand them back to Lisa.
“Don't you understand? She's been healed.”
For the rest of the evening Lisa limped around the
apartment. I watched her every step, fearing she would collapse.
But she never did. In fact, it seemed she was growing stronger
right before my eyes.
The next morning, the first question Javier asked was,
“Where is Lisa? How is she?”
I had been up earlier, so I took Javier to the window.
“Look,” I said, pointing down into the courtyard. There was
Lisa, riding her bicycle around the swimming pool, laughing
and playing with the other children from the apartment.
When Javier turned away from the window, his face was
lined with tears. Whether I believed or not, it made no
difference. He did.
The following week I took Lisa back to the Children's
Hospital. Following a series of blood tests and extensive X-rays
of the hip and chest, the technician said, “We'll phone you as
soon as we know something.”
Javier's eyes were dancing when he met me at the door of
the apartment. “Well, what did you find out?”
I explained the situation and told him we'd just have to wait.
He insisted I call Dr. Higgins.
“I was just going to call you,” the doctor said when I finally
reached her. “But I've been in consultation with seven other
doctors about Lisa's case. I just don't know what to tell you.”
56
I swallowed into the phone. “You mean something's

wrong?” Could it be true that this was just a cruel trick, my
hopes being raised only to be dashed to pieces?
“I don't know how this can be,” the doctor continued, as
though she had not heard me. “We all see the same thing on the
X-rays. The tumor has greatly reduced instead of spreading.
There is evidence of healing.”
Of course she knew nothing of the Kathryn Kuhlman
meeting, but she had said, “evidence of healing.” How much
more would it take to convince me that God had touched Lisa's
life?
“Doctor, do you have a minute?” I said. “I want to tell you
something. I know this will sound odd to you, but we took Lisa
to a Kathryn Kuhlman meeting. Ever since then she's walked
without crutches, she's been running, riding her bicycle,
swimming, and acting normal. We think God has healed her.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
“I want to get this straight,” the doctor finally said. “You
haven't given her any medication, have you?”
“None,” I said.
“You refused to let her take chemotherapy and the cobalt
treatment, didn't you?”
“Yes,” I answered.
Again there was a long silence. “Well, it could be that her
body is building up some kind of resistance and throwing this
off, which doesn't seem natural. Or it could be your Kathryn
Kuhlman. Whatever it is, the tumor is disappearing. And to my
knowledge, it is the first case in medical history where this has
happened.”
I was crying. I remembered reading, long ago, the story of
Thomas in the Bible. He finally believed that Jesus was raised
from the dead when he saw the nail prints in His hands. How
57
much like him I was. Yet, even so, God had allowed me to see
His miracle in my daughter.
“I'll tell you something else,” Dr. Higgins said, her voice soft
on the other end of the line. “There will be great rejoicing in this
hospital over what has happened to Lisa, for this is one case we
had given up on.”
Lisa reentered school in the fall—without crutches. A month
later I took her back to the doctor. The tumor was continuing to
reduce in size. It was going away. Lisa was almost back to
normal.
“How do you explain this?” I asked.
“We have no explanation,” the doctor said. “There has never
been a case like this healed before. If we had given her the
cobalt treatment, and the tumor had receded, we would have
called it a medical miracle. But without any treatment
whatsoever... well, what can we say?”
Our priest had something to say, however. “God has many
ways of doing things. Surely this is of Him.”
Now that Lisa is totally healed, many of our friends ask,
“Why did all this happen?”
I think God allowed this sickness to come into our lives to
draw us closer to each other and closer to Him. In my Bible I
found a story that explains it all. One day Jesus was walking
down a road and saw a man blind from birth. His followers
asked Him, “Master, why is this man blind? Is it because he
sinned, or because his parents sinned?”
The Master answered, “No, neither one. But rather he is
blind so God can be glorified through his healing.” Then He
touched him, and he could see.
I feel Lisa was sick so God could be glorified through her
healing.
Giving God the glory isn't something one learns from books.
58
It has to be learned by walking with Him through the shadowed

valley. If one lives on the mountaintops all the time, he gets
hard and leathery, insensitive to the finer things of life. Only in
the shadow of the valley do the tender crops grow.
I have stood for long moments watching Javier at his easel.
He loves to work with charcoals, blending shadows. “Sunshine
brings out detail,” he says, “but shadows bring out the
character.”
It was only as we walked in the shadows that we learned to
praise God for the little things. It was there we learned Lisa
wasn't really ours, but God's. In the darkest time we gave her
back to the Heavenly Father. There, in the valley, we discovered
the secret of relinquishment. Yet when we gave her up, He was
merciful to give her back—healed.
Lisa no longer fears the shadows. Like us, she has found that
even in the valley He is with us, His rod and staff comforting us,
causing our cup to overflow with His goodness and mercy.
59
CHAPTER 4
4 THE DAY GOD'S MERCY TOOK OVER
RICHARD OWELLEN, PH. D., M. D.
Dr. Richard Owellen is an old friend. I met him when he was
singing in our choir in Pittsburgh and studying at Carnegie Tech for
his Ph. D. in organic chemistry. After two years of post-doctoral study
at Stanford University, he enrolled at Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore, where he completed his M. D. degree in three years.
Following a year of internship and another as a resident in internal
medicine, he was appointed to the staff at Johns Hopkins.
Since 1968 he has been an assistant professor of medicine at the
University, dividing his time between cancer research, patient care,
and teaching.
While I was working on my Ph. D. in chemistry at Carnegie
Tech, I began to attend the Kathryn Kuhlman meetings being
held every Friday on Pittsburgh's Northside at the old Carnegie
Auditorium. There, for the first time in my life, I sensed the
power of God at work as people came together to worship.
Before long I volunteered to sing in the choir, and it was there I
met Rose, who had literally grown up in Kathryn Kuhlman
ministry.
Rose and I dated, fell in love, and in April, 1959, Miss
Kuhlman performed our marriage ceremony.
One year later little Joann was born. Rose had a normal
pregnancy and delivery, but when we brought the baby home
from the hospital, we noticed a large bruise across her buttocks.
I questioned the doctor about it, but he assured us it was no
indication that anything was wrong.
61
However, both my parents and Rosie's sister noticed

something strange about the baby's behavior. She was extremely
fussy—too fussy, my mother said. She cried and whined
constantly and wouldn't eat, often pulling away from the bottle,
vomiting and screaming if we happened to move her during her
feeding. Besides this, we noticed that one leg was always bent
and pulled up toward her body, with the knee and foot rotated
outward, sometimes at a 90-degree angle. It was impossible to
make both her legs stretch out straight at the same time.
When we took her back to our family doctor, he checked her
legs and hips. “Yes, there is something definitely wrong with
this right leg,” he said. “I'm not sure what it is at this time, but
let's wait for a while. Sometimes things like this will straighten
out on their own.”
We waited for several months, but nothing straightened out.
Instead, it got worse. Joann continued to be very fussy, often
crying when we touched her. When she was drinking her bottle,
she frequently stopped to cry. Both of these were signs that she
was in extreme pain. But what? And where?
At the end of three months, when Joann should have been
picking her head up off the mattress, she was unable to do so.
With growing concern, we took her back to the doctor again.
As he examined her this time, he motioned for me to come
and stand beside him. Little Joann was on her back on the
examining table. The doctor took her right foot in one hand put
his other hand under her knee. He began gently to turn her foot
inward. She screamed out in pain. “The leg will not turn in at
all,” he said. “Now look at this.” Gently he began to rotate the
leg in the other direction, outward. I gasped and then held my
breath as the leg turned in his hand, not only upside down but
in almost a complete 360-degree turn or rotation. Only when it
had made a complete circle in his hand did she begin to
whimper in pain.
62
The Day God's Mercy Took Over
The doctor carefully placed the leg back in its original

position. Next, he pointed to the creases on the skin along the
inside of her thigh. “This is one of the things a doctor looks for,”
he said. “Notice there are two creases on this side, but only one
on the other leg. A normal child will have identical creases on
both sides. A change in the creasing pattern indicates some kind
of internal alteration, meaning something is structurally wrong
with the hip, back, or leg. In this case I feel sure it is the hip.”
Rose reached down and picked up the baby, holding her
close. “What are you trying to say, doctor?” she said, her eyes
full of tears.
The doctor put his hand on Rose's shoulder. “I can't say for
sure,” he said, “so I want her to be examined by an orthopedic
surgeon. He will be able to give us a definite diagnosis. It looks
like a dislocated hip.”
Rose sat down on the chair beside the table, still holding the
baby close to her breast. The doctor continued talking, and in a
very quiet and kind way, outlined what we might expect. Joann
would probably need braces, maybe even a body cast. The
treatment would take a long time, and even then the chances of
having the problem corrected were not 100 percent. There was a
definite possibility she would be a cripple all her life, walking
with a limp. She might have one leg shorter than the other, or
another kind of abnormality.
“You must not wait,” the doctor said. “Take her to an
orthopedic surgeon.”
We made an appointment with the surgeon for the
following Monday, and took Joann home.
That night, back in our apartment, Rose and I sat up talking.
Both of us were shattered, and not only from the prospect of
having a crippled child. It all seemed so unfair.
“I don't understand,” I said to Rose as we sat awkwardly in
63
our tiny living room. “Here we are, trying to serve the Lord, and
He's let this happen to us.”
Rose was silent, her pretty face tense, her lips trembling a
little. I wanted to get up, go across the room, take her in my
arms, and comfort her. But I was too disquieted inside myself. I
had nothing to give.
“We've been telling other people about our belief in
healing,” I blurted out, “and now we have a deformed child.”
“If God allowed us to have a deformed child,” Rose finally
said, “then He must expect us to keep her and take care of her.”
“I'm not arguing that,” I said bitterly. “I love this baby and
will do everything possible to see that she is healed. If she's not
healed, we'll raise her and love her all our lives. It just doesn't
seem fair, though. The world is full of people who don't love
God, who don't even know God. A lot of these people hate God,
yet they have normal children. Why should we have a deformed
child?”
It was an unfair question. I knew Rose didn't have the
answer to it any more than I did. I also knew that people who
ask questions of God show their lack of faith. I was realizing I
didn't have faith at all, at least not the kind that I thought was
necessary to see our child healed.
The next morning, as I was dressing for class, Rose sat on
the side of the bed. She had been up most of the night with the
baby, and her face looked drawn from loss of sleep. “Dick,” she
spoke with hesitancy. “We've seen the Holy Spirit do so many
wonderful things at Miss Kuhlman's services. Don't you think
we ought to take Joann and have faith that God will heal her?”
Rose had dropped out of Miss Kuhlman's choir just before
the baby was born, and although we had been back to some of
the meetings, both in Pittsburgh and in Youngstown, Ohio,
shame and embarrassment had prevented us from telling
64
anyone about our baby's condition. Only my parents and Rose's

sister knew.
Mulling over Rose's question in my mind, I stood in front of
the mirror for a long time, fiddling with the knot on my necktie.
Faith? I had just realized that I didn't have any faith at all, at
least not the kind needed for Joann's healing. But I remembered
something I had heard Miss Kuhlman say over and over: “Do
everything you possibly can. Then, when you've reached the
end of your resources, let God take over.”
We had been to the doctor. The only possible recourse was
braces and possible surgery, with no promise of healing. Rose
was right. Now was the time to trust God completely.
Friday morning we left the house to take the baby to the
Miracle Service at Carnegie Auditorium. Sitting in the car, we
bowed our heads in prayer. “Lord Jesus, you have written in
your Word that we have the privilege of coming before you and
asking you, in your mercy, to touch the body of our daughter.
But we do not demand it of you, Lord. We don't even make a
'claim' on it, for although it is already given us, we know it is
still in your mercy. We simply ask, Lord Jesus, for you to heal
our little girl.”
It was such a simple prayer, not the kind I had often
envisioned myself praying. In my imagination I would stomp
up to the Throne of Grace and throw God's promises back in His
face, demanding He keep them. But now, face to face with a
problem that was bigger than we were, bigger than medical
science, Rose and I realized that the only thing we could fall
back on was the mercy of God.
The service was similar to the hundreds we had attended
before, only this time we had not come as spectators. We came
expecting.
It seemed to be one of those days when little Joann was
especially uncomfortable. She whimpered and fussed with pain
65
several times. Not wanting her to disturb the services, we

remained at the back of the auditorium, with Rose holding her.
Whenever Joann cried out, Rose took her back into the lobby,
returning when she calmed down. We had given our seats to
someone else and were standing against the back wall of the
auditorium as the Miracle Service proceeded.
Joann was wrapped in a blanket, and every so often Rose
would lift it and peek under. She believed that when God
started to work, she would see something happen.
Near the close of the service, something did happen. Ever
since Joann was born, the toes on her right foot had been curled
tightly under her foot. Now as we stood against the wall, those
tiny little pink toes gradually began to relax, until they looked
like the toes on any healthy four-month-old child.
Rose nudged me, her face radiant. “God has started to
work,” she said. “His presence is on this child. I'm going to the
platform.” She was determined, and I could see there was no
use trying to stop her.
We started down the aisle. I kept expecting one of the ushers
to step out and confront us, for they had strict orders to keep
anyone from the front unless they had first been interviewed
and approved by a personal worker. But there were no ushers
around. We kept going right on down the aisle. As we walked,
Miss Kuhlman came off the platform and headed in our
direction. We met in the center of the auditorium.
“Rose,” she said, a look of surprise on her face. “Is there
something wrong with the baby?”
Rose tried to speak, choked, and then tried again. “Y-y-yes,
Miss Kuhlman. She was born with a dislocated hip.”
Miss Kuhlman shook her head in amazement. “Why didn't
you tell—” Then she interrupted herself, and turning to the
packed room, said, “I want everyone here to stand and begin
66
praying. God is going to heal this precious little child.”

Rose pulled the blanket away from Joann and held her
toward Miss Kuhlman. All over the room, people were
standing, praying with their eyes shut. I was praying, too, but I
kept my eyes open. I wanted to see what was happening.
I watched closely. Miss Kuhlman reached out her sensitive
fingers and touched Joann's toes ever so gently. She didn't pull.
She didn't even close her fingers. She just lightly touched the
baby's toes and began to pray. “Wonderful Jesus, touch this
precious little baby....”
I saw it! With my own eyes I saw it! That leg, turned so
grotesquely to the right, began to straighten. It swung slowly
until the toes were pointed straight up, matching the toes on the
other foot. It all looked perfectly natural. Yet I knew what I was
seeing was impossible. Some exterior force had moved that leg.
But Miss Kuhlman was not moving it. Rose, her eyes closed and
her face lifted toward heaven, was not moving it. And of course,
little Joann was not moving it. Who, then, but God!
I kept my eyes fixed on the leg as it rested in a natural
position, and I knew the healing was complete. “Thank you,
Lord,” I kept repeating over and over under my breath. “Thank
you.”
Miss Kuhlman finished praying, and everyone sat down.
Rose wrapped the baby in her blanket, and we started for the
back of the auditorium.
“Did you see it?” I whispered as we reached the back.
“See what?” Rose asked. “I was praying. Weren't you?”
“I was praying, too, but I had my eyes open. Couldn't you
feel it?”
“Feel what?” Rose looked at me strangely.
“Joann's leg, her foot. I saw her leg move. It straightened
right out. I saw her being healed!” I was so excited I could
67
hardly keep from shouting.

Rose's eyes widened, and joy flashed across her face.
“Jesus!” she whispered. “Oh, Jesus, thank you.”
We pushed open the swinging door and almost ran out into
the lobby. There we pulled back the blanket and looked again at
Joann's legs. They were perfect. No longer was one leg pulled
up against her stomach as it had been. No longer was the right
foot turned out. Both legs were just as straight as could be, both
feet turned exactly right.
“Let's go home,” I said. “I want to spend the rest of the day
praising God.”
Not only did we spend the rest of the day praising Him, but
most of the night as well. After supper, which the baby took
without any problems, we laid her on her stomach in her crib.
We stood, holding hands beside the crib, and watched. For the
first time in her life, Joann picked up her head from the mattress
and looked around. We stayed up until three that morning,
watching her. She would sleep, then wake, coo, gurgle, and
sleep some more. It was as if she were making up for all the lost
time when her life had not been a joy-filled existence.
The next morning we could still see the perfect healing in
her legs. I could manipulate both of them with ease. The only
time she cried out was when I started to twist her leg in an
outward circle as I had been able to do just the day before. Our
Joann was perfectly normal. The only difference between her
legs was the two creases in the flesh of one leg, compared with
the one crease in the flesh on the other—a reminder that
something had been structurally wrong.
On Monday we kept our appointment with the orthopedic
surgeon. He looked at the child and read the note from our
family doctor. “What did your doctor send you over here for?”
he asked, as he pulled at Joann's legs.
68
“He thought her right hip was dislocated,” I said.

He examined her even more closely, and shook his head. “I
don't understand this. There's nothing wrong with this child.
Her left leg turns in just a little—but that's not abnormal. You
don't need my services. This baby looks perfect to me.”
We were delighted to hear the medical confirmation of her
healing. And Joann was eating normally—no more stopping to
cry out.
On Friday, just a week after Joann had been healed, we went
back to our family doctor. He asked us what had happened and
why we were back so soon. We told him the story, omitting
nothing.
He never batted an eye, but kept right on examining Joann
and making notes. We told him what the other doctor had said.
He kept trying to twist her leg, back and forth, round and round
—giving her the same examination he had given her just the
week before.
Nodding to Rose, he indicated that his examination was
finished and that she could dress Joann. Then, sitting down, he
tipped his chair back. “Well, children change,” he said. Then he
added, “But they don't change that fast. That had to be God.”
We were ecstatic with joy. The healing was complete, and
even the doctor gave God the glory.
Now, years later, I am on the staff of one of the greatest
medical centers in the world. In this capacity I see no conflict
between medicine and spiritual healing. The doctor doesn't
heal. He can give a man medicine, but the medicine doesn't
change his organs, it just improves the way they work. All
healing is of God. Surgeons can cut out the bad tissue or cells,
which sometimes allows the body to heal faster. But no surgeon
reaches in and heals. He just sews the body back up after he's
done his part. It's God who heals.
69
God has provided us with a great number of wonderful

drugs, surgical skills, orthopedic skills, nursing skills—and the
Christian has the additional benefit of being able to look beyond
what the doctor can do, to what God can do.
Some of my medical colleagues sincerely deny this. Others,
equally sincere, go further and deny the existence of God. But
when it comes to facing the fact that some of their “incurable”
patients are healed after they turn to God, they are sincerely
baffled.
To some, it may seem strange that men of science, dedicated
to being intellectually honest, would ignore this entire avenue of
healing. But the things of the spirit are not the same as the
things of the natural mind. In fact, the natural mind is at enmity
with the spiritual mind. Any person, even a skilled scientist,
who does not want to face the fact that he is in rebellion against
God and needs Jesus Christ, will go to any end to block out
God's message of salvation. The same is true in recognizing
God's power to heal. However, those who sincerely desire to
come into a knowledge of all truth will eventually come to Jesus
Christ, “in whom,” Paul says “are hid all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3).
It wasn't until recent years, after I joined the staff at Johns
Hopkins University as an assistant professor of medicine, that I
began to fully appreciate the magnitude of God's grace in
healing little Joann. It wasn't my faith, nor Rose's, that caused it
to happen. Neither of us had the kind of faith necessary to
“claim” healing. It was all God's mercy—His undeserved favor.
When we went into that meeting we had a reason to expect a
miracle. We had seen many others healed, and we of course
knew that God loves little children. But even so, we didn't have
the faith we felt was necessary to see such a miracle come to
pass. Yet we felt we had to give God a chance to touch our child
by releasing her to Him. And when we released her, He reached
70
out, took her, and healed her.

Through this miracle, I have learned the difference between
faith in God, which most of us have, and the faith of God (the
same faith God has), which is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Faith in
God allows us to believe that God will do a wonderful thing.
But unless we have the faith of God, we need to do everything
humanly possible first, believing God may want to work
through medical science, and leave the rest in His merciful
hands.
Many people try to force God to do something, coming into
His presence, almost demanding that He act. Occasionally God
will honor such demands, not because He has to but because He
feels sorry for us. I feel much safer, however, simply depending
upon His mercy and grace to supply all my needs.
I had often wondered if many of the healings I had seen
weren't psychosomatic. From a basic study of human nature, I
knew that some probably were. But a four-month-old baby
doesn't know enough to have a psychosomatic healing. What
we saw that day in the aisle at Carnegie Auditorium was not a
mental process; it was purely physical. And it was instant.
There's no medical term to describe it except the word
“miracle.”
I am constantly asked, “Why imperfection? Deformity? Why
does God allow sickness to come to people, especially
Christians? Why did imperfection come to Joann?” These are
sticky questions, especially for a doctor. I really don't have an
answer. However, as far as Joann is concerned, I am absolutely
convinced now, although I wasn't then, that God allowed this
particular deformity to come on her that her healing might be a
testimony to Him. We felt if God could trust us with a crippled
child, then He had an even greater thing He would like to trust
us with—the testimony of His healing power.
71
CHAPTER 5
5 WHEN HEAVEN COMES DOWN
GILBERT STRACKBEIN
Gilbert and Arlene Strackbein live in a comfortable house nestled
among the pines in Little Rock, Arkansas. Gilbert is a successful
salesman with an office supply firm. They have three beautiful girls
and are active in the movement of the Holy Spirit which is sweeping
the nation. However, it has not always been that way. This is Gil's
story.
Once when I was applying for a sales position the company
psychologist asked, “Why do you want this job as a salesman?”
“Well,” I replied, “selling is what I know, what I've always
done.”
“That's hard to believe, Mr. Strackbein,” the psychologist
frowned. “Normally a salesman has to like people; but
according to this psychological test you took, you don't even
like yourself.”
He was right, of course. I didn't really care whether I liked
people or not. As a salesman I was only interested in two things:
getting the order and getting out.
I had always withdrawn from people. Reared in a strict
German-Lutheran home in south Texas, I didn't even speak
English until I went to school. Proud of my heritage, I found
great satisfaction in believing that my German mind could out-
think anyone else when it came to mechanics, electronics or
logic. Over the years I came to believe I could do anything if
only I set my mind to it. Even though I made my living as a
salesman, I spent my spare time in my workshop, doing things
73
like building computers.

Arlene was nineteen when we got married. After we moved
to New Orleans she began to have fainting spells and lost a
good deal of her energy. But I simply refused to believe that she
was sick. Sickness, to me, was a sign of weakness. When our
first little girl, Denise, was about three years old, I decided that
Arlene needed another child. This would get her mind off her
so-called problems, I figured, and give her something
constructive to think about.
Arlene's pregnancy wasn't that simple, however. From the
beginning there were complications that required even more
medical attention. Her kidneys posed a threatening problem,
both to her and the baby. She had horrible leg spasms, and to
avoid the risk of miscarriage, the doctor finally put her to bed—
for seven months. Irritated over this show of weakness on her
part, I withdrew even further, having as little to do with her as
possible. Although she was in the first stages of a terrible
disease, little did I realize that my own spiritual sickness was
even worse.
Arlene had been attending a Methodist church in New
Orleans. The ladies of the church, realizing she was having to
battle her problem alone, began dropping by to fix our dinner,
since the doctor had forbidden Arlene to get out of bed, except
for bathroom visits. If anyone came to visit when I was home, I
would answer the front door and then disappear out the back.
As much as I detested Arlene's taking to bed, I was even more
disgusted that people from the outside were interfering in our
lives by trying to help.
The difficult pregnancy was only a beginning. Over the next
several years her condition grew worse—weakness, muscle
spasms, kidney infections, dizziness, blurred vision. She'd get
better, she'd get worse, sometimes having bouts of poor muscle
coordination, every one of which seemed to leave her with even
74
When Heaven Comes Down
less energy. The doctors couldn't put their finger on what was
wrong, and I still stubbornly refused to acknowledge that there
was anything wrong at all.
One evening I came home to dinner and found the table
already prepared. Some of the ladies from the church had
dropped by with a full meal, had set the table and left. Knowing
how I felt, Arlene got up to sit at the table with me. She got as
far as the kitchen door before she collapsed. She wasn't
unconscious, but it was as though all the muscles in her body
just ceased to function at the same time.
I was frightened. I wanted to run, but knew I couldn't leave
her there helpless, on the floor. I picked her up, hollered for a
neighbor to stay with our two young children, and sped to the
hospital.
At the emergency room, the nurse who had been working
over Arlene began to scream. “Doctor, I've lost her blood
pressure.”
The doctors rushed to her side. It took emergency treatment
to get her heart beating again. It was then I realized my show of
strength was all a facade. Faced with a really impossible
situation, I had no answers. I hated Arlene for her weakness but
I hated myself even more for being unable to cope.
One night I came home late and found Arlene propped up
in bed, dozing. Across her chest lay an open book—I Believe in
Miracles by Kathryn Kuhlman.
Snorting inwardly, I picked it up, opened the front cover
and saw a note penned on the flyleaf from Tom and Judy Kent.
I knew the Kents: Judy had worked in the same office with
Arlene while Tom was studying medicine at Tulane. He was
now a practicing physician in California.
Arlene awoke and saw me standing over her. “Tom sent it to
me,” she smiled, gesturing toward the book. “He said that he
75
and Judy were praying for a miracle of healing for me.”

I shook my head and handed the book back. “How can a
medical doctor believe in garbage like that?”
“Please, Gil,” Arlene said, her eyes filling with tears. “Just
because you don't believe in a God of miracles, don't rob me of
my faith too. I've got to have something to believe in.”
“Believe in yourself,” I said. “That's all you have to do to get
up out of that bed.”
But even though Arlene could get up, she couldn't stay up.
She tried. She made a gallant effort to keep going, but it seemed
she always wound up in the hospital.
We moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, where I took a job with
an office supply firm. In my spare time I did everything possible
to keep from thinking about Arlene's deteriorating physical
condition. It bothered me that even though the doctors couldn't
diagnose her problem, every few months they would have her
back in the hospital for more tests and treatment.
After our third child, Lisa, was born, Arlene began attending
a Thursday night service at Christ Church Episcopal. Wanda
Russell, her Sunday school teacher at the Methodist church,
came by after supper each Thursday and drove her to the
meetings. I thought it was foolish, but I knew Arlene needed
some time away from the house. So I didn't object—that is, until
one night when she got in later than usual.
“Arlene, why is it that you want to go to an Episcopal
meeting? We've got a Methodist church near by.”
Arlene walked awkwardly to the sofa and sat down. “That
Methodist church doesn't believe in healing,” she said.
“You mean to tell me you've been going to healing
services?”
Arlene just nodded.
76
“No intelligent person believes in that stuff,” I said

deliberately. “It's all superstition. And I don't want my wife
being seen at one of those quack places.”
Arlene struggled to get up, but her legs refused to work
properly. “Please, Gil, I need this. Don't take it away from me.”
“Listen,” I said firmly, “I know all about these things. Back
when I was a boy in south Texas, there was a Pentecostal church
down the road from us. We used to go down there after dark
and look in the windows. They had healing services, too, and
they shouted in strange languages, rolled on the floor,
screamed, ran around the room and collapsed across the altar
rail moaning like wounded animals. I'm not going to have my
wife involved in that kind of nonsense.”
“Oh, Gil,” Arlene said, her lips quivering. “It's not like that
at all. Reverend Womble says he believes God is going to heal
me.”
“I refuse to accept this business about God,” I said. My
temper was beginning to flare. “This healing business is sheer
nonsense and I forbid you to ever go again.”
Arlene leaned back on the sofa and closed her eyes. Tiny
tears streaked their way down her cheeks. “You met my father
after Jesus came into his heart. But what I remember about him
when I was a tiny child wasn't so pretty; he was an alcoholic. He
would go crazy with drink. There wasn't enough food in the
house because liquor was more important to him than my
mother or me. Mother tried to live with him, but finally she just
gave up. We moved across town on my sixth birthday, and in a
fit of alcoholic rage, dad tried to tear down the door and take me
away with him. Mother and I huddled together inside the
house, crying and praying, until he went away.”
“As I grew older I thought the most wonderful thing in the
world would be to have a husband who loved God and me
both. To me, heaven would be having a Christian family. I
77
thought I had found it all when I found you, Gil. Then you went
off to the service, and when you came back, you hated God. I
don't know what happened.”
I was stung. “You've got everything you need,” I spat out.
“We live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. I make a good
salary and have never denied you anything, even medical
attention. I don't mind if you go to church on Sunday, I don't
even object to you leading the children's choir.”
“I really don't need you, you know,” Arlene said, looking
me straight in the face. “When I was little I used to pray for the
Lord's angels to protect me and I know they did. You can keep
me from attending the healing services, but you cannot take
away my relationship with God. He is all that I need.”
Shaking with anger, I stalked out of the house to my
workshop. When I finally went to bed it was past midnight.
Even though Arlene had her face buried in the pillow, I could
still hear her muffled sobs. I wanted to reach out, to put my arm
around her. But to be tender, to be gentle, to cry—all these were
signs of weakness and I had been raised to be strong. I got up
the next morning, fixed my own breakfast, and left the house
without even saying goodbye to the girls. I hated myself for it,
but knew no other way.
Even though I was making good money and had received
several promotions, inside I was coming apart faster than
Arlene seemed to be coming apart physically. I was arranging
“business” trips out of the city for several days at a time. Arlene
suspected my immorality, but I rationalized my permissiveness
by saying that she was not able to meet my needs. Alcohol
tranquilized my conscience and it became my constant
companion.
Arlene's condition deteriorated after Lisa was born. She had
been in and out of the hospital more than twenty times with
things like urological flareups, but this was different. Her blood
78
pressure soared to over 200, and her left arm was partially
paralyzed—her hand refused to close into a fist. The attending
physician called in a neurologist for consultation. There was
some talk she might have a brain tumor.
Three days later, standing in the hall outside her hospital
room, the doctor leveled with me. “We suspect a brain tumor,
Mr. Strackbein. We'd like to do an arteriogram, but Arlene
shows an allergic response to every dye we have in radiology.
The test itself might kill her. I don't like it, but we'll just wait to
see what else develops.”
I swallowed hard and found I could not look him in the face.
“We'll do the best we can and will let you know if we have
to operate.”
It wasn't a brain tumor. Instead the diagnosis came back that
it was a disease of the central nervous system—either
myasthenia gravis, multiple sclerosis, or both—and she had had
it for years.
They allowed her to come home, but told her to stay in bed
as much as possible. One evening while I was watching
television in our den she staggered in from the bedroom. Her
face was ashen.
“You'd better watch me,” she said, “I'm shaking all over.”
When I put my hand against her back, I could feel the
muscles rippling in spasms under the skin. “Just lie down and
relax,” I said. “You'll feel better in a little while.”
She gave me a look and returned to the bedroom. Fifteen
minutes later I heard her get up, go to the bathroom... and
scream. When I got to her she was sprawled on the floor,
unconscious and completely limp. As I started to pick her up I
could feel the muscles in her body coiling and recoiling under
the skin.
Then the convulsion hit, her back tightened and pulled her
79
head backward. At the same time her body went stiff and her
eyes rolled back in her head. Her tongue turned back in her
throat and she began to gag.
I managed to get her up off the floor and suddenly she went
limp again, a dead weight in my arms. I carried her to the
bedroom and called our next-door neighbor, Edna Williamson,
to see about the children while I rushed Arlene to St. Vincent's
Hospital. By the time I got the phone back on the hook Arlene's
unconscious body was convulsing again. The spasm lasted
about a minute and then subsided. Moments later it began
again.
I had Arlene out in the car by the time Edna arrived. She
was admitted to the Constant Care unit of the hospital. Two
days later the final report came back. It was definitely multiple
sclerosis, with a possibility of myasthenia gravis.
A long time ago I had remarked to Arlene, “One day I'll find
something I can't overcome by myself, and when I do, I'll be a
better person for it.” Now it was upon me. I had always been
able to do whatever I set out to do. If I needed more money I
could go out and work an additional six hours a day, but simply
being strong wouldn't cure Arlene of multiple sclerosis. I had
reached my limit.
I brought her home and hired a licensed practical nurse who
spent eight hours a day with her. For two years we staggered
on, at a cost of $137.50 per week plus a drug bill which was
almost as much, plus additional trips to the hospital. Finally I
got a call from our insurance company. They felt their obligation
was finished; and from now on we would be on our own.
At the same time, I had almost totally withdrawn. Arlene
had asked for a divorce and with my typical German logic, I
told her I would not allow it. Many nights I wished I could
reach out and give Arlene the comfort she so desperately
needed. How I wished I could gently put my arms around my
80
children and draw them to me. But I could not. I was strong,
stubborn, and the wall I had built around myself was so strong
that I could not escape from it either.
As I left my office one afternoon, Dick Cross, who worked
across the hall from me, stopped me at the elevator. Dick
worked for Investors Diversified Services and said he had been
wanting to contact me about investing in mutual funds. I didn't
have the heart to tell him that mutual funds were the last of my
interests, so I wound up making an appointment for him to
come by the house on Monday at 7:00 P. M. I knew Arlene went
to physical therapy that evening and figured I'd let him come,
hear his sales pitch, and then send him on his way.
When Dick arrived, I quickly explained our situation. He
was preparing to leave when Arlene arrived home. After a few
brief comments Dick said bluntly, “I guess you know there is no
cure for multiple sclerosis.”
“I know that,” Arlene nodded. “But I believe God can heal
me.”
“I believe it, too,” Dick said.
For the next four hours Arlene and Dick sat and talked
about God's power to heal. “This man's out of his mind,” I
thought, “People just don't talk about things like this, not
intelligent people anyway.” But Dick was no fool. He was a
successful investment broker who happened to believe in the
supernatural power of a personal God. He was a guest in my
home and even though I wanted to throw him out, I had no
choice but to sit and listen.
Arlene asked Dick about his own personal experience and
his story was almost more than I could comprehend: Dick had
been very much like me, so wrapped up in his business that he
was unaware his home was falling to pieces. Then his little boy,
David, was involved in a serious bicycle accident that left him in
critical condition, with a blood clot on his brain. A
81
neurosurgeon was called in to examine him and stand by for

possible emergency surgery. Following X-rays, David went into
convulsions and then lapsed into a coma.
“I know you won't understand this,” Dick's wife, Virginia
had said, “but I've called some of my friends and we're praying.
We have turned David over to the Lord.”
Dick said he didn't know what she was talking about. Then
he remembered that many years before, Virginia had confessed
that she had been on the verge of suicide, but she attended the
healing services at the Episcopal church and had been
spiritually delivered.
Minutes after Virginia's prayer statement, the doctor had
reappeared in the lobby to say that although David had
regained consciousness, surgery might still be necessary.
However, David's improvement was marked and steady.
Within forty-eight hours the crisis was over. He had been
healed.
From that time on, Dick Cross was a believer. His faith in
God had grown rapidly as he had seen many other persons
healed through the same power of prayer.
Had I not personally invited Dick to our house I would have
believed this entire conversation had been set up just for my
benefit.
Sitting there, listening to Dick and Arlene talk, I began to
realize that one of my problems across the years was that I had
always been afflicted with logic—I wanted to figure things out
scientifically. Dick, on the other hand, operated on a different
plateau—the plateau of faith. He just accepted things on faith, as
recorded in the Scriptures. Something had happened to Dick
Cross. He had been like me, but now he was free. He loved
people. In fact, he loved people he had never even met before—
like us.
82
While the animated conversation between Dick and Arlene

continued, my mind was working in other areas. I was trying to
figure out, logically of course, what my options were. I had
reached my limit. Either I had to admit there was nothing that
could be done and resign myself to Arlene's dying, or to put my
trust in the doctors, or admit there was a God who was
concerned. I couldn't accept the first, the second had proved to
be insufficient, which left me with the third option. What was I
to do with it?
Dick Cross was different from most people I knew. He
hadn't even mentioned what church he attended. He wasn't
trying to get us to join an organization. He just talked about
Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. By the time he left, I had
determined to begin an honest search for the power of God.
I began the next night, after dinner, by reading the Bible.
The only Bible I had ever read before was the King James
Version. But someone had given Arlene a Living Bible. Long
after she had gone on to bed, I was still poring through its
pages, trying to check out the things I had heard Dick Cross
mention.
In the beginning I was thinking only of Arlene's healing. But
the more I read the Bible I realized that it also contained the
answer to my own personal needs—the needs I had never
discussed with anyone.
Dick and Virginia started coming by the house on regular
occasions. Although he was a brand-new Christian, he tried his
best to answer all my questions. Finally, he suggested that we
go with them to a teaching session to be held at the Central
Assembly of God Church.
I backed off. The scenes in that church were still vivid in my
memory from childhood; but Arlene wanted to go and I finally
agreed. However, I told her that if she passed out on the floor
like I had seen others do in that church, I was just going to leave
83
her there. Pride was still on the throne in my life.

The Assembly of God church was much different than I had
expected. The teacher that night made sense. On a blackboard
he drew a small circle. He said that represented the life of a
Christian. All around us, he said, was the power of Satan. As we
grow in Christ our circle enlarges, pushing back the powers of
darkness, extending our perimeter and allowing us to conquer
the ground Satan has held for such a long time. This ground, he
said, contained many wonderful things such as personal
communication with God, health for the physical body and
cleansing for the soul.
I had always thought that it was our task to sit inside our
little circle and “hold the fort.” Now I saw that it is Satan who is
on the defensive and it is our privilege to go out and possess the
land. Logically, this made sense. Even the gates of hell could not
prevail against the growing, expanding power of that circle.
At the close of the service, the minister gave an altar call.
Before I knew it, Arlene and Virginia were already on their way
to the front. Virginia was supporting Arlene to keep her from
falling. I began to feel uncomfortable. Instead of the minister
praying for Arlene to be healed, however, he put his hands on
her head and prayed that she be filled with the Holy Spirit. I
made my way toward the front, but Arlene seemed to be in
another world. Virginia was holding her up (I wondered if
Arlene had told her what I had said about leaving her on the
floor) and out of Arlene's mouth flowed a strange and
melodious language. My logic took over again and I refused to
accept what I was hearing. I waited, and then helped Arlene
back to her seat. Pride kept me from asking her about the
experience. God still had some breaking to do before I would be
able to hear Him for myself.
Dick and Virginia began bringing us “charismatic” books,
that is, they had to do with healing, the baptism in the Holy
84
Spirit, the gifts of the spirit and salvation. One of them was
Kathryn Kuhlman's book, I Believe in Miracles, which Arlene did
not have the heart to admit she had read years before. Because
of her poor vision, I now had to read aloud to her. God had a
beautiful way of cracking my hard shell.
One night, after Arlene had gone to bed, I was sitting in the
den reading the Living Bible. It was the first part of July, about a
month after Dick's first visit in our home. The air conditioner
was not working that night and the house was hot—as it can be
only in Arkansas. But I wasn't aware of the heat, only of the
desperation in my heart. Finally I stopped reading and put the
book in my lap. “Lord,” I said out loud, “I need some help.” It
was that simple, but it was the first time I had ever prayed for
help. Yet from that point on, things began to change.
Two attacks almost put Arlene out of commission for good.
The first was a heart block which almost killed her; then a
coronary insufficiency put her back in the hospital for the
second time in less than a month. And yet, things had already
begun to change.
I was visiting Arlene in the hospital on a Sunday afternoon
in the middle of August. Dick and Virginia arrived, bringing
with them a friend, Leeanne Payne, who had taught literature at
Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois, and was now working on
another graduate degree. I didn't know it at the time, but they
had come to lay hands on Arlene and pray for her. Uncertain
how I would react to a prayer session in the hospital room, Dick
wisely invited me downstairs for a cup of coffee while the
women remained with Arlene, “chatting.”
We found a table in the coffee shop and almost immediately
Dick told me he had just been “baptized in the Holy Spirit.” He
said it had happened in a dream and then again the next day
while he was awake. Ever since, he said, his life had been
running over with joy.
85
I didn't really understand what he was saying. All I could

think about was Arlene up there in her hospital room on the
fifth floor and the fact that visiting hours would soon be over.
We took the elevator back up. Arlene's door was closed. I
paused momentarily before entering. There was a strange
quietness. The usual sounds of the hospital, the soft tones of the
girls' voices at the nurses' station, the squeak of rubber shoes on
the tile floor, the clanking of medicine carts, the loudspeakers
paging doctors and nurses, the sounds of radios and televisions
in the other rooms—all were sucked up into a great vacuum of
silence. I knew that God was behind that closed door.
I pushed it open. Arlene, dressed in a white hospital gown,
was lying on the bed. The heart monitor, with its ominous
wires, were attached to her body. Virginia was standing on the
left side of the bed, Leeanne on the right. They had laid their
hands on Arlene's body and all three of them were praying
softly in a language I did not understand.
Instantly, every hair on my body stood straight out. I
glanced at my arms and the hairs were like the quills of a
porcupine. Fortunately I wore a short hair cut because I felt the
hair on my head was standing straight out, too. It was as if I had
stepped on a high voltage line, only there was no shock, no pain
—just a tremendous current of power surging through my body.
The two women finished praying and I walked them down
to the car to meet Dick. I was still much aware of that tingling
surge of power inside of me, even after I got home.
My first thought was that I had picked up some kind of
strange disease from the hospital. I searched every medical
dictionary I could find, hoping to discover what was causing
this tingling, hair-standing-up experience. I found nothing. By
Wednesday I didn't care, for I realized that during these last
days I had been happier than I had ever been in all my life. That
night, sitting again in my den reading the Bible, I laid the book
86
aside and spoke out loud, “Lord, is this you trying to tell me
something? If it is, you are going to have to make it so I can
understand it.”
Dick had told me about people who “put God to a test.” This
was a new experience for me, but I needed to know.
“Lord,” I said, “You know I had these sores on the back of
my neck for two years. If this is you trying to tell me something,
would you please heal them?”
I went on to bed and when I awoke the next morning, the
first thing I did was to put my hand on the back of my neck. The
sores were gone—healed. For the first time in my life, I knew,
really knew, that God was real—and that He cared about me. As
I stood in front of the mirror shaving, it also occurred to me that
if God could heal sores on the back of my neck, He could also
heal my wife. As the full realization dawned on me I almost cut
my chin off.
That afternoon, though, as I pulled into the parking lot at the
hospital, all the hair on my body returned to its normal position.
The tingling feeling was gone too. I was terrified, fearing I had
done something to displease God, but the moment I parked the
car I had a new sensation, even more pronounced than the first
one. It was like a bucket of warm air being dumped on me.
There was no lightning, no thunder, and I didn't hear anything
with my ears. Yet deep within, a place where only the spirit
hears, a voice spoke saying, “Arlene is going to be all right.”
It was then I knew. There was not a moment of doubt. I
knew as certainly as if an angel had appeared and sat on the
hood of my car, that she was going to be healed.
Although Arlene had been the strong one up to this point,
when I arrived in her room I found her in the worst state of
depression I had ever seen. The doctor had given his final
report. Her abnormal EKG pattern and a coronary insufficiency,
were not caused by the multiple sclerosis. They reopened the
87
strong possibility that she also had myasthenia gravis. She was
weaker, her vision was worse, and it was impossible for her to
stand alone. Yet in the midst of all this, I had a faith that just
wouldn't quit. I knew she was going to be healed.
She returned home from the hospital totally bedridden, the
sickest she had ever been; her bathroom privileges were limited.
Even her friends who were once so optimistic, now seemed
depressed. She grew steadily worse.
A month later the phone rang at my office. It was Arlene.
“Gil, Kathryn Kuhlman is going to be in St. Louis next Tuesday,
I want to go.”
Logic took over real quick and I began to list the reasons
why it was impossible for her to go to St. Louis. It was 400 miles
away. There was no big city between Little Rock and St. Louis in
case she needed a hospital. She needed to be close to her
specialists here in Little Rock. Suppose we had car trouble and
had to stop alongside the road?...
When I finished, all I heard on the other end was Arlene's
soft sobbing. “Please, Gil, it's my life.”
I felt myself slipping back into my shell. Rather than lose my
temper I simply said, “We'll talk about it when I get home.”
That night, with Arlene in bed and me sitting in a chair
beside her, she told me that earlier in the week, Edna
Williamson had dropped by. Seeing Arlene's copy of I Believe in
Miracles, Edna said, “You know, I have another of Kathryn
Kuhlman's books, God Can Do It Again. I'd like to swap with
you.”
Ashamed to tell her that she could no longer read, Arlene
allowed the exchange to be made. The next morning Edna was
back. She and Arlene began talking about miracles, and why
they didn't occur around Little Rock. Arlene said she thought it
helped to have a climate of faith surrounding you. Even Jesus
88
could not perform miracles in his home town because people

said, “No, no.” Arlene then added that she believed if she could
ever get into a service where the people were of one spirit—
waiting, expecting, and believing, that God would touch her
and heal her.
Then this morning, Virginia Cross walked in and dropped
the bombshell. “Kathryn Kuhlman is going to hold a miracle
service in St. Louis next Tuesday.”
Arlene had never been to such a meeting so it never
occurred to her how difficult it would be to get in. She was
determined to go. “I just believe that God is telling me to go to
St. Louis,” she concluded.
“Maybe God has told you to go,” I said smartly, “but He
hasn't told me to take you.”
No sooner had I uttered the words than every hair on my
body stood straight up again. I tried to talk but my tongue
refused to move. Finally, mouth open, eyes wide, I cleared my
throat and in a voice that sounded like it was coming from the
far side of the house, said, “Okay, we'll go.”
Arlene's face was a mixture of joy and amazement. “Oh,
Gil...” But I was on my feet, literally staggering out of the room.
I knew better than to argue any more. I was in the presence
of the Lord! We left the next Monday night after I got home
from work, with Arlene stretched out on the back seat of the car.
We spent the night at Poplar Bluff, Missouri, and arrived in St.
Louis about noon on Tuesday. I knew absolutely nothing about
the city so we just traveled the highway right into the center of
town. Turning off on the Market Street exit we were suddenly in
front of the auditorium. The meeting wasn't supposed to start
until 7:00 P. M. but already a large crowd was waiting in front
of the closed doors.
I began to fear we had bitten off more than we could chew.
89
But God had gone before us. The Holiday Inn on Market Street
gave us their last room. Minutes later, Arlene was resting
comfortably and the motel manager had promised to drive us to
the auditorium at 4:30 P. M. It was a steaming hot day in St.
Louis with the temperature about ninety degrees. I had brought
a couple of camp stools but they did little good. Arlene had
been in bed since her first heart block in July, and this was
September 19. Lately, she hadn't even gotten out of bed to eat
her meals, but here she was, 400 miles from home, sitting on a
camp stool on the sidewalk in the broiling sun. I was afraid she
wouldn't make it into the building.
The people, waiting with us, sensed Arlene's condition.
Unlike those who shove and curse in front of a football stadium,
they took turns fanning Arlene and bringing her iced drinks.
The side door where the wheelchairs were lined up opened at
6:00 P. M. I went up to the fellow who was managing the door
and begged him to let Arlene in, too. He shook his head. “Sorry,
friend, I have strict orders. Only those in wheelchairs go in
now.” He closed the door, firmly. The old despair and
frustration began to well up inside me. Arlene's condition surely
warranted a wheelchair, but her fear of becoming too dependent
upon one prevented me from getting it. I wanted to run. I
couldn't stand the sight of all those suffering people. They were
like the sick who must have crowded around the pool of
Bethesda. Yet, sick as they were, they were filled with joy and
singing and helping one another. I returned to Arlene
determined to stick it out with her.
Ten minutes later the front doors opened and we were
swept by the moving crowd into the huge auditorium. I had
never seen anything like it. Moments later we were seated in the
exact center of the immense auditorium. A huge choir was
already on the stage, practicing, and the very seats seemed alive
with power and expectation. Suddenly the entire congregation
was on its feet, singing. Miss Kuhlman, in a soft white dress
90
with full sleeves was standing center stage. “The Holy Spirit is
here,” she whispered, so softly I had to strain to hear. As we
waited, it happened again—that silence I had experienced in the
corridor outside Arlene's hospital room, settled over the huge
auditorium. In that mass of people there must have been
coughing, scraping of feet, rattling of paper—but I heard none
of it. I was enveloped in a soft blanket of silence.
Miss Kuhlman was standing in the middle of the stage, her
left hand raised, her finger pointing toward Heaven. Her right
hand rested gently on an old, battered Bible on the lectern. And
there was silence, like there will surely be in Heaven following
the opening of the seventh seal on the Great Book.
Miss Kuhlman was not at all as I had expected her to be. She
was warm and friendly, informal. She welcomed people and
made them feel at home. Then she turned to the wings and
made a sweeping motion as she introduced her concert pianist,
Dino.
“Do you know who he is?” Arlene whispered as the
handsome, dark-haired young man took his seat at the piano.
“Longing to hear some good piano music, I once phoned the
Baptist Book Store and they sent me some of Dino's records. All
this time I have been listening to his music and didn't even
know he was associated with Kathryn Kuhlman.”
Miss Kuhlman began to preach, but it was unlike any
preaching I had ever heard before. She was talking about the
Holy Spirit as if He were a real person. As I listened I began to
understand that she had not only met Him, she walked with
Him day by day. No wonder He was so real to her—she knew
Him better than she knew any other man in the world.
Suddenly she stopped, her head cocked as if she were
listening. Was she listening to Him? I strained to see if I could
hear Him also. Then she raised her arm and pointed high into
the left balcony.
91
“There is someone up there, right in this section, who has

just been healed of cancer of the liver.”
I twisted in my seat and tried to look up in the balcony. Had
the Holy Spirit actually told her that? Does He speak to people
so they can know things like that?
The information of sickness and healing came so fast it made
my head swim. People began streaming down the aisles,
heading for the platform to testify of their healings. When the
first man came to the lectern, Miss Kuhlman acted like it was
the first miracle she had ever seen in her life. Surely, I thought,
this woman has seen hundreds of thousands of healings, yet she
is as excited as if it were the first time. Is this the secret of her
ministry—that she has never lost the wonder?
Miss Kuhlman talked with the man for a moment and then
reached out to pray for him. “Holy Father...” she began, and the
man crumpled to the floor. The same thing happened to the next
person who came forward. And the next, and the next. I tried to
figure it out logically, but it defied calculation. It was as if God
were saying to me, “There are some things you cannot
comprehend, and the power of my Holy Spirit is one of them.”
As the service progressed, something was happening inside
me. I was growing soft. Like a hard, crusty sponge held under
water, I felt myself growing tender and gentle. My eyes were
filling with tears and I began to pray for other people—complete
strangers—in the service. As I prayed I felt love flowing out. It
was a new and magnificent experience.
My prayers shifted to Arlene, who was sitting beside me. I
prayed, asking God to heal her. In all these years of marriage, it
was the first time that I had been willing to pray for my wife. I
had believed she would be healed; I knew God had been
leading us. But never had my heart softened enough to reach
out in love and ask the Lord to touch—and heal—her.
Almost instantaneously Arlene leaned toward me. “Do you
92
feel a draft?”
“I felt a breeze,” she whispered, “a soft, caressing breeze all
over my body.”
I looked around, but there was no place the breeze could
come from. I dismissed it and focused my attention back on the
stage when I saw a young woman about five seats down from
us leaning over several persons trying to talk to Arlene.
“Is the Lord dealing with you?” she asked, loud enough that
the entire row could hear.
A little embarrassed, Arlene whispered back, “I don't
know.”
The woman—a complete stranger to us—asked, “What is
wrong with you?”
“Tell her I have multiple sclerosis and a heart problem,”
Arlene whispered to the lady next to her.
The lady was not satisfied. She kept passing messages down
the row. “Ask her how she felt when she came in.”
“I barely made it,” Arlene whispered back.
“Ask her how she feels now,” the little woman almost
shouted.
I was becoming annoyed with this rude interruption and
turned to ask Arlene to be quiet. She was staring at her hands.
“The tremors,” she whispered with a shaky voice. “They're
gone. The swelling is gone. I can see. My eyes are normal.”
The little lady was half-standing now, leaning over the
others with a great excitement on her face. “You must go
forward,” she shouted, “and accept your healing.”
The next moment Arlene was on her feet, clambering over
me, stepping on people's feet, making her way out of the row
into the aisle. I could hardly breathe. I, too, knew she had been
healed.
93
I followed her with my eyes as she headed down the aisle

toward the front. An usher stopped her momentarily, then
motioned her forward. She climbed the steps to the stage like a
normal woman. Gone were the spastic movements, gone were
the spasms, gone was the staggering. Like the man at the pool of
Bethesda, she had waited for an angel to stir the waters so she
could get in, only to find she didn't need the pool—all she
needed was Jesus. She had been made whole by the touch of His
hand.
The stage was crowded with people and the service was
coming to a close. It was impossible for Arlene to get to the
lectern to testify. It made no difference. As the mighty choir
began to sing, Arlene stood on the far side of the stage, leaning
against the piano, her face uplifted and her voice blending with
the choir as she sang the words to an old hymn.
Though Satan should buffet, tho' trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
The service was over, Miss Kuhlman was walking off the
stage, but as she passed Arlene, she turned slightly and reached
out in a gesture of prayer. Instantly Arlene collapsed on the
floor. Only this time I knew it was not multiple sclerosis, but the
power of God.
The auditorium was engulfed in song as the thousands of
people began raising their hands and singing over and over,
“Alleluia! Alleluia!” I had never seen people raise their hands
like this, but before I knew it, my hands were up also, doing the
same thing they were doing, praising the Lord.
Arlene finally made her way back to her seat. No one
seemed to want to leave. The few times I had been to church
there was always a mad dash for the door the minute the
94
preacher said “Amen.” But these folks didn't want to leave.

They wanted to stay, hug each other and sing. Perfect strangers
came up, put their arms around me and embraced me.
Everybody was saying “Praise the Lord” and “Hallelujah”!
It was seven and a half blocks back to the motel, and the
manager had promised to come for us if we called. Arlene just
grinned. “Let's walk,” she said. And we did.
Back in the room I reminded her that it was time for the anti-
convulsant medicine. Without it she could go into terminal
convulsions before the night was over.
“I believe God has really healed me,” she said, holding the
little bottles in her hand, “and I don't need this medicine.”
“That's between you and the Lord, honey,” I said. She didn't
take the medicine—and she hasn't taken any since.
A week later Arlene literally bounced into her neurologist's
office. The week before she had to be almost carried in. He took
one look and exclaimed, “Something has happened to you!
What was it?”
“I've been healed, doctor,” she said. “I went to a miracle
service in St. Louis. I knew you would have forbidden it, so I
went to a higher authority and asked Him.”
The doctor nearly bit the end off his pipe, but he had to
agree that something wonderful had happened. He checked
Arlene's reflexes, her eyes, even had her jump around to check
her coordination. He finally returned to his charts shaking his
head.
“In my twenty-five years of medical practice I have seen
only three cases which defied medical explanation. I know there
are remissions in multiple sclerosis, but this is more. It has to be
of God.”
They laughed together, joyously. “I don't know what you
did or what you are doing,” he added, “but whatever it is, just
95
go on doing the same thing. And be sure to say a prayer of

thanksgiving every night.”
It would seem that Arlene's healing should have been the
climax of our lives. But instead, it has been only the beginning;
three months later I moved into the full dimension of the Holy
Spirit. I attended a small home prayer meeting and the teaching
that night came from the gospel story of Peter, who at Jesus'
command, walked on the water. The teacher said, “We all have
two choices. We either stay in our safe boat or we jump over the
side and come to Jesus. If you've not done that, now is the time
to jump.”
And jump I did. Literally! I leaped from my seat, landing
with both feet in the center of the room. “I want it,” I said. “I
want it now.” I was serious.
Somebody pulled a chair into the center of the circle. I sat
while the people gathered around and laid hands on me. A soft-
spoken, white-haired Baptist pastor began to pray, and in
moments my life turned right side up. Unlike those first
experiences when the Holy Spirit came upon me, causing my
hair to stand on end, this time He came into me—and the
change has been permanent.
The other evening, as our family sat around the dinner table,
we went through our customary time of worship. Each of us
read a Bible verse, we held hands, and then each in turn, prayed
individually. As we finished I looked up to see Arlene with
tears on her face.
“A long time ago, Gil,” she said softly as the girls listened, “I
told you that to me heaven would be having a Christian family,
with the father as the priest in the home. Even if I had not been
healed, just to be part of this wonderful family would have
made it all worthwhile. Heaven has literally come down.”
Arlene's right. Heaven has come down. Each gathering of
our family turns into a worship service. Arlene and I are taking
96
turns teaching a Bible class in our Methodist church, and more

and more people are coming. I guess they're just like we were,
eager to hear about the power of the Holy Spirit who heals not
only sick bodies, but sick husbands as well.
97
CHAPTER 6
6 SPEAK TO THE MOUNTAIN
LINDA FORRESTER
Linda and John (Woody) Forrester live in Milpitas, California, a
residential community on the southeast side of San Francisco Bay at
the base of Monument Peak. Woody is a computer programmer for the
nearby city of San Jose. They have two daughters, Teresa and Nanci.
The mountain has always been there. It stands like a solitary
monument rising half a mile up out of the San Francisco Bay
basin. In the winter it is sometimes snow-capped; in the summer
it is partly covered with brown grass. Less than ten miles from
our house on the flatlands, it is often obscured by smog or
clouds. But it is always there, looming over us.
The natives in the South Bay area seem to take the mountain
for granted. Rain erodes it. The sun blisters its bare sides. A few
hardy souls climb to its peak. But by and large it is just there,
and will always be. Nothing can remove it. It is like disease.
Since Adam's sin, disease has been with us. Man has learned to
live with it. Some try to hide it in the clouds, pretending it isn't
there, teaching there is no disease. Others ignore it, hoping it
won't come to their house. Many have tried to conquer it
through medicine and research. Nearly all accept it, though, as
they accept the mountain that dominates the landscape of life
and defies those who would try to cast it into the midst of the
sea.
I was one of those who was afraid of disease and tried to
ignore it. People in our family didn't ordinarily get sick. If they
did, we always found a shot or a pill that made it go away. Until
Nanci became ill. This time, things were different.
99
Nanci, our fifteen-month-old baby, had been an active child

ever since she started walking. In fact, she never walked—she
ran. Recently, however, she had begun to act strangely. She had
been doing a lot of falling, and each fall resulted in an ugly
bruise. The bruises remained until she was covered with them,
and looked as if she had been badly beaten.
Then one Monday morning in January, 1970, Nanci woke
with a burning fever. I started her on baby aspirin, but by the
second day her fever had climbed to 105 degrees and remained
there. I called Woody at his office in San Jose, and he told me to
take her to the emergency clinic at Kaiser Hospital in Santa
Clara. This was the hospital where Nanci had been born, and
we knew several of the doctors and nurses.
A young doctor examined her in the emergency room. He
found infection in her ears and throat, prescribed medication,
and sent us home. Two days later, her condition unchanged, I
took her back to the hospital. Always before, we had been able
to overcome illness with medication. This time it seemed to
loom over us, insurmountable.
During the week I noticed something else. Nanci had
developed a tiny, bright-red blood blister in her groin. The first
day it was only the size of a pinhead. Now it had grown to the
size of my little fingernail. The doctor looked at it, said it was
probably a boil that would eventually come to a head, gave us
more medication, and sent us home again.
By Saturday morning, I was near the panic stage. In spite of
all the medicine, Nanci was sicker than ever. “We've got to take
her back to the hospital,” Woody said.
Teresa sat in the back seat and I held Nanci in my arms as
we drove toward Santa Clara. Always before, she had been
wiggly, squirmy. This morning she lay in my arms unmoving,
too weak even to whimper. Her body was burning with fever.
Dr. Feldman examined her briefly with a concerned look.
100
Speak to the Mountain
“This medication should have knocked out the fever. I don't like
the looks of that sore on her groin, either. Take her upstairs, get
a blood count, then come back down and wait here.”
Following the lab tests, Dr. Feldman reappeared. I could tell
by his face that he was worried. “Nanci has severe anemia,” he
said. “I want you to put her in the hospital.”
I was relieved. I had been afraid they would just give her
some more pills and syrup and send us away. Anemia didn't
sound too bad, and I was glad they were going to keep her in
the hospital. The responsibility of caring for a very sick child by
myself was too frightening.
The attending physician on the pediatric floor was Nanci's
own doctor who had been with us since she was born, Dr.
Cathleen O'Brien. “Nanci is going to get a complete physical this
afternoon,” she said. “I don't want you here. You can come back
tonight about six o'clock and see her then.”
We left Teresa with a neighbor and returned to the hospital
about dusk. I was shocked when I walked into Nanci's room.
She was lying on her back in her crib with tubes running into
both arms. Her eyes were closed.
Dr. O'Brien appeared at the door. “Linda, I'd like to see you
and Woody in my office. We have some results from the tests.”
I felt my heart pounding in my throat as we followed her
down the tiled hall. Dr. O'Brien motioned us to seats in her tiny
office. My fear almost screamed out as I looked up and saw the
tears in her eyes.
“This afternoon while you were gone, Nanci had a bloody
nose and then two pure blood bowel movements. We have not
pinpointed the problem, but it is one of two things: either a
widely diffused cancer tumor that is unbeatable—or she has
leukemia.”
I heard Woody suck his breath in through his teeth. I
101
grabbed his hand and felt him begin to shake. “Oh no,” he
stammered. “Oh please, no.” I wanted to cry, but Woody had
already broken down. I knew that one of us had to maintain
some kind of strength. I looked up at Dr. O'Brien.
“All the signs point to leukemia,” she said. “We're going to
do a bone marrow test in just a few minutes, but you can go in
and see her first if you wish.”
I turned to Woody. “Please call Pastor Langhoff. Ask him if
he can come.” Odd, how people go along as we had gone along,
living our lives as if God didn't exist. Then, face to face with
death, we reach out for spiritual help.
I had been raised a Roman Catholic. When I met Woody,
after my divorce, we agreed to make a compromise between his
evangelical faith and my Catholic faith and join a Lutheran
church in Milpitas. We seldom attended services. We knew
almost nothing about God. We never read the Bible or prayed.
But with death staring us in the face, we called for the only
person we knew who was supposed to know God—Pastor
Langhoff of the Reformation Lutheran Church.
Pastor Langhoff, an elderly man, had been sick himself. In
fact, he got out of bed to join us at the hospital that evening. He
ministered to us as a father would minister to his children,
staying with us when the nurse came to take Nanci down the
hall for the bone marrow test.
I knew what they were going to do. I had seen the long
needle they would insert in her hip socket to suck out some
bone marrow. I stood in the room and shuddered as I heard her
terrifying screams.
Woody and the pastor had stepped out in the hall to talk. I
was alone in the room when I became aware of a spiritual
presence for the first time in my life, a sense that the Son of God
was there. I had never met Jesus Christ. I only knew about Him,
and not much at that. But for one moment Jesus Christ was in
102
the room with me.

Half an hour later Dr. O'Brien reappeared. “I'm sorry,” she
said. “It is definitely leukemia.”
I broke down crying, but when I noticed Woody's agony, I
grabbed hold of myself again and hung on. I had no one else to
cling to. Dr. O'Brien said we could stay as long as we wanted,
but I had a horrible feeling that Nanci was going to die that
night, and I didn't want to be there when it happened. I wanted
to run. But where do you run when the mountain is all around
you?
We left the hospital and drove home. The moon was just
coming up over Monument Peak, which towers over our house
to the east. Nanci's sickness was like that solid mountain. You
could shout at it, kick it, dig at it, blast it with dynamite. But
there it stood, immovable.
Our neighbor called as soon as we got in. “How's Nanci?”
she bubbled cheerfully. “I hope she's all right.”
“No!” I screamed into the telephone. “She has leukemia.”
There was a long pause on the other end, then a soft voice.
“Do you want us to come over?”
“No,” I said, getting back in control. “We need to be by
ourselves. If you can keep Teresa tonight, we'll see you in the
morning.”
We spent the night at home, together but alone. We wanted
to reach out to each other, but with all the perfunctories stripped
away, we discovered that we didn't even know each other. We
were two lonely mortals faced with an impossible situation,
slowly going down the drain.
I walked through the semidark house, going from room to
room, weeping. For long moments I stood in the doorway of
Teresa's room, looking at her white poster-bed set against the
lavender walls. Was God punishing me because I had been
103
divorced? Teresa was a child of my first marriage. Was God

going to take Nanci to punish me? “Why, God? Why?” I wept.
“Why have you done this to my little baby? She's so helpless. So
defenseless. Why are you so cruel to torture us this way?”
I turned and stepped into Nanci's room. The moon reflected
off the top of the mountain into the bright yellow room, now so
still, so desolate. The bed was still unmade from that morning. I
reached down and picked up a little rubber duck from the floor.
I squeezed it, and it whistled. In my mind I could remember the
hundreds of times Nanci had squeezed it in the bathtub,
giggling as the whistle gurgled and bubbled under the water. I
gently placed the rubber duck on the dresser and reached out to
the furry pink pig. I touched the little wind-up key in his side,
and the music box slowly pinged out a few plaintive notes:
“When the bough breaks, the cradle will falL.. down... wilL..
come... baby...”
I screamed out at the walls and staggered into the kitchen.
Woody was sitting at the table, staring into the darkness. It was
almost three in the morning, and sleep was impossible.
“We've got to have a plan of action,” Woody said, his words
mechanical and hollow. “We've got to be positive. We can't let
our mental attitude affect Nanci. Even if we're coming apart on
the inside, we've got to put up a smiling front for her.”
How empty, I thought. How phony. Yet we had nothing
else. We agreed that this would be our course of action.
The next morning, Sunday, we returned to the hospital.
“She's awful sick,” Dr. O'Brien admitted. “But she is small,
and that is in her favor. We should be able to get the disease into
remission in a short while. Even so, you must not get your
hopes up.”
“How long?” I asked. The question sounded like a
melodramatic line from a Grade-B movie.
104
“If we can get her into immediate remission, she could last
as long as two years,” Dr. O'Brien said hopefully. “However,
children like this usually last about a year in remission and then
go downhill very rapidly.”
We went in to see Nanci. They were giving her a blood
transfusion. A hematologist was on his way down from
Stanford to help with the final diagnosis. They told us what to
expect. More bone marrow tests, many more blood transfusions.
“How do they die when they die?” I stammered. Even as I
asked the question, I realized that I had already turned Nanci
into an object in my mind, an impersonal third person who was
getting ready to disappear forever.
Dr. O'Brien was very kind, “Usually, when a small child dies
from leukemia, it is from a stroke. There could be some
suffering, but she will probably go quickly.”
Woody and I had been attending encounter sessions in our
community. Our marriage had been rocky, and we had reached
out to this particular level of humanism to try to find help. One
of the couples in the encounter session heard about Nanci and
called. Their little girl had just died from leukemia, and they
wanted to come over and share their experiences.
It was horrible, yet we kept saying we needed to know so
We could be prepared when death came. They told us all the
details: how their child had become bloated from the drugs,
how she had lost her hair, how she had suffered extreme agony
and finally died. They told us what to expect in our relations
with each other and other members of the family. Nothing was
ever said that could project hope.
The doctors had slowly controlled Nanci's raging leukemia.
By the second week it was in a state of temporary remission,
where the drugs would hold it in check until it unleashed its
fury in a final, fatal attack. But the blood blister, which they now
described as a blood ulcer, had grown until it covered one entire
105
side of Nanci's groin. The doctors said it was a “secondary

effect” of the leukemia and contained a germ that could kill her.
Ironically, the only medication that could heal it was fatal to
most of those who had leukemia.
One night after Teresa had gone to bed, Woody and I sat at
the kitchen table. We had cried ourselves out, and finally I said,
“Woody, let's try God.”
“You mean you want to take her to a faith healer?” he asked
disapprovingly.
“Definitely not,” I bristled. “Those people are a bunch of
charlatans.”
Woody was perplexed. “I thought you said you wanted to
try God.”
“I mean prayer,” I said.
“But I don't know how to pray.”
“Neither do I,” I said. “But we've got to do something.”
He nodded. I reached out and took his hand and stumbled
through a few words. “God, please let them find something to
treat her with.”
It was such a faltering beginning—like tossing pebbles at the
mountain, hoping it would get up and run away. But it was a
beginning, and the next morning when we got to the hospital,
Dr. O'Brien was smiling for the first time.
“Good news,” she said. “Stanford has come up with a drug
to treat the ulcer. It's a minor miracle.”
The surgeon at Kaiser opened the blister, and there followed
weeks of painful treatment. However, Nanci was improving.
The first encounter with prayer convinced me that there was
more power available than I had realized. I began praying every
day before I went to see Nanci.
Then something else happened. A neighbor was a fellow
106
room mother in the PTA. One afternoon, after we finished

talking about PTA matters, she said, “You know, Linda, God
loves you, and He loves Nanci.”
That hit me. No one had ever said that about me or Nanci. It
was a wonderful new concept. God loved me, as an individual.
And God loved Nanci.
“The Bible is full of stories of Jesus healing people,” she
went on to say. “The church I belong to doesn't necessarily
believe that Jesus still heals, but I do. I believe that if God loves
you, He is able to heal you, too.” Her words were like a candle
in a dark room. I groped my way toward it.
Several years before, when I was going through my divorce,
I had ordered a Bible from Sears Roebuck. At the time I thought
it would be lucky to have a Bible around the house. Now I
began to understand that the Bible was far more than a good-
luck charm. I went to the drawer in my bedroom, found it, and
promised myself that I would read a chapter a day, starting with
the book of Luke.
Almost immediately a verse leaped up out of the past and
into my conscious mind. I didn't know where it was found, or
even if it was in the Bible. But over and over, day after day, it
kept ringing in my mind: “Him that cometh to me, I will in no
wise cast out.”
I increased my prayer time. I visited Nanci at the hospital
each morning and then, after lunch, read my chapter and
prayed before Teresa got home from school. It became a
meaningful spot in my day.
One afternoon my neighbor asked me if I had ever heard of
Kathryn Kuhlman. “She believes in miracles,” she said.
I looked at her. “Don't tell me you believe in faith healing?” I
said sarcastically.
She smiled gently. “Before you pass judgment, why don't
107
you tune in her broadcast over KFAX?”

I trusted her, and the next day got home from the hospital in
time to hear the eleven o'clock broadcast. I liked what I heard.
Miss Kuhlman was talking about an experience she called the
“new birth.” Although I had no idea what she was talking
about, somehow it all rang true. I especially liked her positive,
happy nature. Many of my friends were negative. One pastor
we had talked to in the hospital even suggested that “death is
the finest healing of all.” I needed to hear a positive voice, one
that would point me to light rather than darkness.
One day, after listening to the half-hour broadcast, I opened
my Bible to read my chapter in Luke. It just happened to be the
account of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. As I read, the startling
realization of truth came flooding in on me. Jesus Christ died for
me. It was my sins that put Him on the cross. He died because
He loved me. I began to weep and sob. “O God, I'm sorry you
had to die for me.”
Yet even as I said it, I felt the most joyful lightness fill my
inner being. It was the heady sensation of good wine, but it was
in my spirit, not in my stomach. Suddenly I knew what it was. I
had been born again. I was sitting on the green sofa in the living
room, shouting and laughing and crying all at the same time.
“Thank you, God, for saving me. I love you! I've known for
years you died for my sins. Now I know you died for me.”
In that moment I came alive. I was a new creature.
Everything about me changed. At the same time, Nanci's
healing became more than a tiny candle flickering in a dark
room—it became a huge ball of light, like the sun itself, flooding
my being. It was possible. God could heal her.
In the days ahead I read on through the book of Luke and
into John. At noon one day, after listening to Miss Kuhlman and
praying, I picked up the Bible and read from the sixth chapter of
John. There it was—that verse: “Him that cometh to me I will
108
in no wise cast out.”

Along with it came another revelation, so startling I was
sure no one had ever understood it before. In no place in the
New Testament was there an account of anyone who came to
Jesus for healing and was turned down. He healed them all!
It seemed so impossible. Everyone—the medical experts, my
friends who had lost their child—said Nanci was going to die.
There was no hope. Yet inside me there was a faith springing
forth from the parched desert of my life. It was as tiny as a grain
of mustard seed, but it was there. I knew it was just as
impossible for me to believe in Nanci's healing as it was for me
to speak to the mountain and command it to jump into San
Francisco Bay. Yet, didn't the Bible say that all things were
possible with God? I clung to that.
I made a decision to trust Him, even if I didn't understand it
and it didn't make sense. God would have to give her new
blood, new marrow for her bones. But I decided to trust in His
word, regardless of what anyone might say.
“Father,” I prayed, “You have promised that him who
comes to you, you will in no wise cast out. I'm coming to you
with this need, I believe you will be true to your word.” It was
just that simple. Now all I had to do was wait.
After five weeks the doctors allowed us to take Nanci home.
“She's not well,” they warned us. “And she's not going to get
well. If you're super-lucky, she could live another year and a
half. But after that the leukemia will overpower the drugs.”
Nanci's first days out of the hospital were grim. Two days
after we brought her home she developed bleeding ulcers on her
lips. These quickly spread to the inside of her mouth, gums, and
down her throat. The doctors diagnosed it as scarlet fever,
complicated by the drugs we were giving her, which could
cause similar symptoms. The hand-size ulcer in Nanci's groin
was draining, but it had to be cleaned three times a day with
109
hydrogen peroxide. Following the cleaning we had to tie her on

her back in the playpen, spread-eagled, and hold a light bulb
over the open ulcer to dry it out.
A visiting nurse came twice a week to help, and things
gradually became a little better. After six weeks Nanci was able
to move around a little by herself, but she was still a sick little
girl.
It was hard on Woody. He couldn't help but notice the big
change in me, and he didn't understand it. “Honey, you've got
to watch it,” he warned. “You can't afford to get all psyched up
like this. When Nanci dies it's really going to tear you up.”
“You don't understand,” I told him. “For the first time I can
accept her death—if it happens. I know that God is with me,
and with her. Even more, though, I believe God is going to heal
her.”
“I wish I could believe that,” Woody said, his eyes filling
with tears. “I wish I could.”
One afternoon my neighbor phoned to tell me that Miss
Kuhlman was coming to Los Angeles for a miracle service. She
gave me a phone number to call for information.
The woman in charge of making reservations told us the
special round-trip plane to Los Angeles would cost seventy
dollars. We didn't have the money then, but she said she would
put our name on the list for June, the following month, in case
we could make it.
Janet, a teen-age neighbor, had been Nanci's babysitter since
she was a tiny infant. A group of teenagers, called Young Life,
met at Janet's home on Tuesday nights. When they learned we
were going to take Nanci to the Kathryn Kuhlman service, they
wanted to back us in prayer.
The next Tuesday night I took Nanci down to Janet's, where
more than 100 kids had gathered for the Bible study. They
110
agreed that on the Sunday we were to go to Los Angeles, they

would meet at Janet' s house to fast and pray. They, too,
believed God was going to heal her.
The week before we were to leave, I drove up to Fremont to
a Bible bookstore. A friend had mentioned several books she
wanted me to read, including two books by Kathryn Kuhlman: I
Believe in Miracles and God Can Do It Again. While in the store, I
browsed through a tray of plastic bookmarks for one to mark
my Bible. I kept coming back to a particular one and finally
purchased it, not noticing the Scripture verse printed on the
back.
On the way home, driving south on the Nimitz Freeway, I
was suddenly overcome with hopelessness. What kind of fool
was I? Everyone said Nanci was “incurable,” yet here I was,
buying books, skimping on money to buy airline tickets,
planning to take her all the way to Los Angeles to attend a
miracle service conducted by a woman I had never seen. I began
to cry.
Turning off the freeway onto Dixon Landing Road, I looked
up. There was the mountain, looming above me. It was more
than I could stand. I pulled off the road, crying.
When my weeping finally subsided, I reached down on the
seat beside me, groping for a Kleenex. In the process my ring
became entangled with the cord on the little bookmark. I
glanced at the Scripture verse that was written on the plastic. I
could hardly believe my eyes: “If ye have faith as a grain of
mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence
to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be
impossible unto you” (Matthew 17:20).
I looked up at the mountain and felt myself smiling through
the tears. “Get out of my way, mountain. Nanci is going to be
healed.”
I could hardly comprehend the vastness of the crowd at the
111
Shrine Auditorium. We were directed to seats on the main floor.

It was warm when we arrived, and I took off Nanci's shoes,
asking Woody to hold them. Nanci had been fretful on the
plane. She hadn't gotten her nap and was squirming and wiggly
as we took our seats. Woody too, was uneasy.
“This is all right for you,” he said, “but I just don't think I
can sit through four hours of church.”
The meeting started, and the tremendous choir began to
sing. Then Miss Kuhlman introduced Dino. I love music and I
was fascinated by this handsome young Greek who stroked the
keyboard of the concert grand piano like an angel stroking a
harp.
But Nanci wasn't interested. She squirmed and wiggled.
During the hushed moments when Dino was caressing the keys
with his feather touch, Nanci began to cry. Immediately, I was
aware of an usher standing in the aisle, leaning over the people
between us. “Ma'am, you'll have to take the baby out. She's
disturbing other people.”
“Take her out?” I thought indignantly. “We've been saving
our money for two months to make this trip, and now they're
telling me to get out.”
I looked at Woody. He nodded. “Why not walk her
around?” he whispered. “Then come back.”
I felt my temper rising, but I bit my lips and stumbled out
over the people between us and the aisle. Torn between
embarrassment and anger, I walked to the lobby.
Nearly two years old, Nanci was heavy for me to carry, but I
walked back and forth with her in my arms until finally she
calmed down. Then I returned to my seat. In minutes she
started to fuss again. The usher reappeared. This time he wasn't
too friendly. “Ma'am,” he said in a stern voice, “many of these
people have come from great distances at great sacrifice to
112
attend this meeting. You'll have to take the child out.”

Well, I had come from a great distance also. I started to
argue, but the usher gave me a curt gesture with his thumb as if
to say, “Out lady!” I didn't want to cause a scene so I picked
Nanci up, stumbled over knees and feet, and headed back
toward the lobby again. I was furious.
“This is some Christian meeting,” I mumbled to a man
standing at the door. “You can't even attend a healing service
with a sick child without getting thrown out. Some meeting!”
I walked the lobby carrying Nanci. Woody still had her
shoes, and I didn't want to put her down on the dirty floor. I sat
on the steps. I went to the ladies' room. I paced back and forth.
The more I paced, the madder I got, and the more Nanci
squirmed and cried. It just didn't seem right. We had saved up
our money. I was the one who wanted to see Kathryn Kuhlman.
Yet there was Woody, who hadn't even granted to come, sitting
comfortably in the meeting while I was out here.
I finally sat back down on the steps. “Well, God,” I fumed,
“if you're going to do it, you'll have to do it some other day,
because you can't even see us out here in the lobby.” I gave up.
I could tell from the activity in the auditorium that the
healing part of the service had probably started. Just then a
middle-aged lady walked through the lobby. She was radiant
with joy. “What do you need?” she asked.
I nodded at Nanci, who was twisting and wiggling in my
arms. “She has leukemia,” I said. “And we can't get in the
meeting because she fusses and disturbs people.”
The woman just beamed. “Dear Jesus, we claim this child's
healing.” Then she began to thank God. “Thank you, Lord, for
healing this child. I praise you for making her well. I give you
all the glory.”
Oh boy, I thought, this place is loaded with nuts today. But I
113
could not escape the woman's love and joy. She actually had the
faith to believe that Nanci was healed. Slowly my bitterness and
resentment began to drain away, and as she stood there, her
hands in the air praising God, my own mustard seed of faith
began to return.
“You know, there's a lot of activity going on inside,” she
said. “Why don't you come over here and stand in this
doorway? That way you can see, and if the baby begins to fuss,
you can go back into the lobby.”
I could hardly believe what I saw. There was a long line of
people coming up both sides of the platform. All were testifying
that they had been healed.
Nanci, who had been struggling and straining in my arms,
grew quiet. She was saying over and over, “Hallelujah!”
Hallelujah? Where had she picked up that word? We
certainly didn't use it around the house. I had not heard anyone
at the meeting use it. Nanci's vocabulary had been limited to
words such as “mommy,” “daddy,” “hot,” and “no.”
“I'm going back to my seat,” I told the woman next to me.
My back was aching from holding Nanci, and I was tired of
being pushed around by every mountain that came my way.
Again I crawled over knees and feet and finally collapsed beside
Woody.
Minutes later, Nanci was asleep in my lap. I listened as Miss
Kuhlman kept calling out the healings that were occurring
throughout the auditorium.
“A hip. Someone is being healed of a serious hip condition.”
“Someone in the balcony is being healed of a back problem.”
“A heart condition....”
“Leukemia....”
Leukemia! The various distractions had almost made me
114
forget about the prime reason for our being in the service.
“Leukemia. Someone is being healed this instant of
leukemia,” Miss Kuhlman repeated.
Then I knew. It was Nanci. I began to cry.
I didn't want to cry. I had promised myself I would remain
very unemotional, even if Nanci was healed. But I couldn't help
crying. I looked over at Woody. He was looking straight ahead,
but the tears were just pouring from under his glasses.
Suddenly, without warning, Nanci kicked me in the
stomach. Hard. Her head was in the crook of my left elbow and
her body was pressed against mine. I reached out and grabbed
her feet so they wouldn't kick me again, but then I felt it a
second time. This time I noticed her feet were motionless. The
kick had come from within her body. It was a tremendous
thump from deep within her that I had felt against my stomach.
I looked at her face, usually so pale. It was red, flushed, and
covered with beads of perspiration. Something was going on
deep inside her body. At the same time, I felt a gentle warmth
and tingling going through me. I could not contain myself any
longer: “Oh, thank you, Jesus. Thank you.”
On the way back to the airport, all we could do was cry.
Woody warned me not to get excited. “If she is healed, time will
prove it,” he said wisely. I knew he was right, but there was no
way to turn off my tears of joy.
The following Tuesday we went back to Dr. O'Brien for a
regular checkup. I told her everything. She listened patiently,
and then I noticed tears beginning to well up in her eyes.
“What's the matter?” I asked.
“Well,” she said hesitantly, “the place you are describing—
where the kick came from—is the location of her spleen. It is one
of the vital organs involved in her disease.”
“Do you think she's been healed?” I asked.
115
“Oh,” she said, reaching out and touching my arm, “I want

to believe it with all my heart.”
“Why don't you then?” I asked.
“Because I have never seen it happen,” she said. “It's so hard
to believe something when you've never seen it happen before.
You can understand that, can't you?”
Of course I could. But now I had eyes to see with that I had
not had before. Standing to leave, I said, “Nevertheless, it has
happened. Just because you've never seen a mountain move
doesn't mean it won't.”
Dr. O'Brien patted Nanci on the shoulder. “There is no test
to prove it now. Only time will show whether the healing is real
or not.”
Time has proved it. Day after day, Nanci's color improved.
Her appetite and vitality returned. We cut way back on her
drugs. Every test over the last four years has come up negative.
There is no trace of the disease left in her body.
As wonderful as Nanci's healing has been, the healing in our
home and in our lives has been even more miraculous. Talk
about mountains that needed to be moved! The situation in our
home was like a whole range of mountains—jagged, rocky ones.
Yet since Nanci's healing, Woody has accepted Jesus Christ as
his personal Savior and both of us have received the baptism in
the Holy Spirit. Our home, once headed for divorce, has come
into divine order.
A mountain range of miracles! And it all started with faith
as tiny as a grain of mustard seed.
116
CHAPTER 7
7 IS THIS A PROTESTANT BUS?
MARGUERITE BERGERON
I could not stop the flow of tears as I looked at the magnificent
petit point handed me by this woman from Canada. Each stitch in the
needlework was an act of love, for it came from fingers that had once
been bent and twisted by arthritis. Mrs. Bergeron, a resident of
Ottawa, Canada, was a sixty-eight-year-old Roman Catholic who had
never been inside a Protestant church. For twenty-two years she had
been a victim of crippling arthritis, so severe she could scarcely stand
for ten minutes at a time. Her husband, disabled from a heart
condition, is the proud possessor of a rare medal given him by the
Canadian Prime Minister upon his retirement after fifty-one years of
service with the postal department. They have five children and
twenty-three grandchildren.
The phone was ringing in our small apartment in a suburb
of Ottawa. “Dear Mary, Mother of God,” I prayed. “Don't let it
stop ringing before I get there.”
I pushed myself up out of the rocking chair and put my
hand against the wall to steady myself, painfully inching my
way toward the telephone table. Every step brought shooting
pains into my knees and hips. For twenty-two years I had been
crippled with arthritis, and this winter had been the worst ever.
I had not been able to get outside the house. The intense
Canadian cold stiffened my joints so I could hardly walk. Even
the simple matter of crossing my living room to answer the
phone was almost more than I could manage.
I gripped my rosary and finally reached the phone. My son
Guy, who lived in Brockville, Ontario, said, “Mama, do you
117
know Roma Moss?”

I knew Mr. Moss well. He was badly crippled, just like me.
Surgeons had fused several of his spinal disks. His back
wouldn't bend, so he couldn't sit down. “What's wrong?” I
asked Guy, fearing the worst and even saying it out loud, “Is
Mr. Moss dead?”
It's strange, now that I think back on it. I never considered
that any news would be good. I was always expecting bad
news. After years of hearing my doctor tell me, “You'll never get
better, only worse,” I believed that all sick people automatically
got worse and worse until they died.
“No, mama,” Guy said excitedly. “Mr. Moss isn't dead. He's
been healed! He can walk! He can bend! He's not even crippled
anymore!”
“How's that?” I asked gruffly. Instead of rejoicing, I felt
threatened. Why should he be healed when the rest of us had to
live on in our misery?
“He went to Pittsburgh, mama,” Guy bubbled over the
phone, “to a Kathryn Kuhlman service. While he was there, he
was healed. Why don't you go to Pittsburgh, too? Maybe you
can be healed.”
I had heard of Kathryn Kuhlman and had even seen her
program on television, but I always figured healing was for
someone else, not me. “Oh, I'm too sick to even walk out of the
house,” I said. “How could I ever get all the way down to
Pittsburgh?”
Guy told me about a chartered bus that made the trip from
Brockville to Pittsburgh every week. “Let me call and make
reservations for you,” Guy begged.
I didn't feel good. Just standing beside the phone talking to
Guy made me weak. My body had been twisted and swollen by
the arthritis for such a long time.
118
Is This a Protestant Bus?
I could remember several years before, when we played a

little game at a birthday party for one of my grandchildren.
They had blindfolded a little boy and let him go around the
room feeling the people's hands and guessing whose they were.
He identified me first of all because my knuckles were horribly
swollen and my fingers bent in like claws.
What was all this talk about healing? Did Guy think he
knew more than the doctors who said my case was hopeless? I
shook my head in despair. “No, Guy, don't make any
reservations now,” I sighed. “I'll talk to your father and let you
know something tomorrow night.”
I hung up and crept laboriously back to my rocker. For a
long time I sat in the dimly lighted room, crying because I was
old, and the pain was so bad. I tried to think back to when my
body was young and agile, and beautiful. I could remember
when Paul and I first fell in love. We were so proper, he with his
French Catholic background and I with my Scotch Catholic
ancestry. One night he had shyly reached out and touched the
back of my hand, slowly intertwining his fingers with mine. He
loved to touch my hands, softly, tenderly, reaching my heart.
Now I couldn't bear to have Paul touch my hands. The pain
was too great. I was old and gnarled, like a weathered oak high
on a craggy mountain crest. I could not remember the time
when I had not lived in pain. The pain made it almost
impossible for anyone to reach my heart.
That night I spoke to Paul about Guy's call. Since his
retirement from the post office Paul had developed fluid around
his heart. That affected his legs, so he was partially crippled
also. But Paul encouraged me to go to Pittsburgh, even saying
he wanted to go with me. “We can't lose anything,” he said.
“But it's six hundred miles,” I argued. “I don't know if I can
stand all that riding and bouncing.”
Paul nodded. He was so understanding. Yet something in
119
him kept pushing me. I finally agreed to go, and the next day I
called Guy.
“Your father will go with me,” I said. “But before you make
any reservations, I want to see Mr. Moss. I want to see with my
own eyes if he is really healed.”
Guy was elated and said he would arrange for me to talk to
Mr. Moss, who lived close-by.
The next day as I listened to Mr. Moss, I could hardly
believe my ears. It was the most fantastic story I had ever heard.
A Mrs. Maudie Phillips had arranged for him to ride the bus
from Brockville to Pittsburgh. There he had attended a Kathryn
Kuhlman service held in the First Presbyterian Church, and he
had been healed. To prove it, he stood up in the middle of the
room, bent over, and touched the floor. He ran, stomped his
feet, and twisted his back in all directions to show that his bones
and joints were as good as new.
To me, the most incredible part of it was that he had been
healed in a Protestant church. I had been Roman Catholic all my
life. In Canada, during my childhood, relations between
Catholics and Protestants were so tense that they sometimes
threatened to go to war against one another. Ever since I was a
little girl, I had been taught that entering a Protestant church
could mean losing my salvation, and I had held my breath
whenever I even passed a Protestant church.
In all my sixty-eight years, I had never been inside one of
those places. Now Mr. Moss was telling me he had been healed
in a Presbyterian church. The thought was almost more than I
could stand.
“Dear Mary, can this be so? Does God love Protestants,
too?” I shuddered to think of it. Yet there was no denying what
had happened to Mr. Moss. Once he had been obviously
crippled; now he was perfectly healthy. I swallowed hard,
gritted my teeth, and nodded to my husband. We would go.
120
Guy made reservations. The bus would leave on Thursday

morning.
“Should we tell the priest?” Paul asked.
“Oh no,” I objected vigorously. “It is bad enough for God to
know we are going into a Protestant church without the priest
finding out, too.”
It weighed heavily on my mind. What would happen when
our Catholic friends learned we had done this thing? Still, I was
convinced we should go.
On Thursday morning Paul arose early. But when I tried to
get up, I screamed out in pain. Usually my arthritis hurt in one
place or the other. That morning, however, I was in intense pain
all over my body. Every joint was on fire. All I could do was lie
in bed and cry.
Paul came out of the bathroom and stood beside the bed,
helpless. When I had pain in my foot or knee, I could sometimes
rub it to ease it. But that morning any movement, any touch,
caused streaks of liquid fire to run through me. Never had the
pain been so agonizing. The tears wet the pillow under my
head, and I couldn't even wipe them away because my hands
hurt so much. My fingers were hooked tightly around the wads
of Kleenex I had put in my hands the night before, trying to
keep them from drawing up into tight fists. No amount of
prying could open them. I wanted to die.
“I can't go,” I sobbed to Paul. “God doesn't want me to go in
that church. This is His judgment on me for even thinking about
it.”
“That is not so, mama,” Paul said, almost sternly. “God
wants you healed. He would not do a thing like this to you. You
must get up.”
“I can't go. I can't walk. I can't even get out of bed. I can't do
anything. It hurts me even to live.”
121
“You must get up, mama,” Paul pleaded. “God doesn't want
you to lie here and die. Try. Please try.”
Moving each joint was like breaking ice in a stream. Every
movement cracked something loose. The pain was unbearable,
but I worked my joints back and forth until I finally managed to
swing my legs off the side of the bed. With Paul's help, I got to
my feet. We labored to pry my fingers open.
“Now get your dress on, mama,” Paul said. “We shouldn't
be late for the bus.”
Dressing was awful hard—and pulling on my girdle was
impossible. I began to cry again.
“Keep trying, mama,” Paul said. “Keep trying. This may be
your last chance to be healed.”
“Do you think I would go without my girdle?” I wept. “It
would be indecent.”
But Paul kept on pleading with me, and I finally got ready to
go—without my girdle. We made our way out to the car and
drove to the place where we were to meet the bus.
At the parking lot Guy's wife introduced us to Mrs. Maudie
Phillips, Miss Kuhlman's representative in Ottawa. She was
warm, friendly, and outgoing, and extended her hand toward
me. I jerked back. “I'm sorry,” I said, “but I cannot shake hands
with anybody. If anyone touches me, I faint with the pain.”
She smiled, and I felt she understood. That helped. Yet the
fear of mingling with Protestants was settling on me again.
I turned to Paul. “I should have gone to church first. I
should have confessed this great sin to the priest. Then I
wouldn't feel so bad.”
Guy overheard me. “Mama,” he said, “even if I have to carry
you in my arms, you're going to get on that bus.”
I gave in, and Mrs. Phillips and the bus driver very gently
122
helped me aboard. Every step, every touch caused me to cry out,

but at last I was in my seat beside Paul. Ahead of us lay a six-
hundred-mile trip.
As the bus got under way, Mrs. Phillips was up and down
the aisle, talking, answering questions, and ministering to the
people, like a shepherd tending sheep. Each time she passed my
seat, I stopped her. I had so many questions.
Many of the people on the bus had made the trip before. In
just a little while they began to sing. I had never heard such
singing. The bus was like a church rolling across the
countryside, but it was a different kind of church from any I had
ever attended. I was worried and grabbed Mrs. Phillips as she
passed.
“Is this a Protestant bus?” I whispered.
“No,” she laughed. “This is a Jesus bus. Usually we have
some Catholic priests along. They even lead us in singing.”
“Catholic priests on a Protestant bus?” I asked. “How can it
be?”
Mrs. Phillips grinned. “The bus doesn't care whether you're
Protestant or Catholic. Jesus doesn't care, either.”
“But we're going to a Protestant church in Pittsburgh,” I
objected. “How will they pray? How should I pray? May I pray
like I do in my church?”
Mrs. Phillips was so gentle, so patient, so understanding.
After six or seven such questionings, she knelt down beside me.
“Mrs. Bergeron,” she said, “do you believe there is only one
God for us all?”
I could feel my eyes filling with tears. I did not want to
dishonor my faith, my church, my priests. They had all meant
so much to me. But how could I explain it to this kind woman
who had so much love shining out of her? “Oh, yes,” I said.
“I believe in one God for us all. I pray to Mary, but I love
123
God. I know that only God can heal me.”

“Then just trust in Him,” she said. “God loves you, but He
can't do much for you when you keep asking so many
questions. Why not lean back in your seat and let the Holy Spirit
minister to you?”
I began to relax a little, although I wasn't sure who the Holy
Spirit was. After crossing the border into the United States, I
even drifted off to sleep.
I don't know how long I dozed. I was still half asleep when I
happened to look down at my feet. Somehow, during my nap, I
had put one ankle on top of the other as it rested on the footrest.
It couldn't be! It had been years since I had been able to cross
my legs. I blinked my eyes and looked again. My ankles were
crossed. And even more remarkable—there was no pain. “What
is happening?” I blurted out.
Paul looked over at me. He had the strangest expression on
his face. I was too excited to notice that something was
happening to him also. “What did you say?” he stammered.
Then I noticed my hands. My fingers, which had been so
bent and gnarled, were straightening out. The pain was gone
from them, too. “What's happening?” I said again.
“What's wrong, mama?” Paul asked again.
“Listen,” I whispered. “But don't tell anybody. They will
think I am imagining something.”
“Imagining what?” Paul said.
“Look at my feet,” I whispered. “See, my ankles are crossed
—and there is no pain. And look at my fingers. My hands don't
hurt anymore, and my fingers are getting straight—just like a
little girl's. I am being healed even before I get to Pittsburgh! I
am being healed on this Protestant bus!”
Paul pulled off his glasses. His eyes were filled with tears.
At first I thought he was crying about me, but then I sensed
124
there was something else, too. “What's the matter with you?” I
asked.
“Something is happening to me,” he said, the words
tumbling over each other. “While you were sleeping, I dozed
off. When I woke up, I felt a warm feeling, like a heat wave,
going through my chest and down into my legs. It was so strong
that for a minute I couldn't see. I was blind. Then you woke up.
My sight has come back. And I think I'm being healed.”
Just then the bus pulled off the freeway into a refreshment
area. Mrs. Phillips came back to our seats. “We are going to stop
and have a cup of coffee,” she said. “Let me help you to your
feet.”
“I don't need any help,” I said, laughing with joy and not
caring who heard me. “I can walk! I can get up and down those
steps all by myself.”
I rose to my feet and walked down the aisle, with my
husband right behind me. Down the steps into the parking lot.
All the people crowded around me. “Mrs. Bergeron,” they said,
“what has happened to you?”
“I don't know what has happened,” I said, feeling the
happiness just bubbling out of me. “But I haven't felt so well for
twenty-two years.”
We spent Thursday night in a hotel in Pittsburgh. Just the
month before I had gone to my doctor, begging him to give me
something for the pain. “Look at my knees,” I had told him.
“Look at my fingers. They hurt so bad I cannot sleep at night.”
He had been gentle yet firm. “Mrs. Bergeron, there is
nothing we can do. My own mother died from this same
condition. We doctors can do nothing but give you pills to help
relieve the pain.” So he had given me pills. Pills to take in the
morning, pills to take at mealtime, pills to take at night. And
each time I swallowed a pill, I was swallowing eleven cents.
125
That night in Pittsburgh I left my pills in my suitcase. I

didn't take a single one, and the minute I put my head on my
pillow, I was asleep. Never had I slept so soundly. For more
than twenty years I had been able to sleep only on my stomach
or back, but that night I slept on my side, curled up like a little
girl.
I was wide awake at four o'clock. The hotel room was still
dark as I slipped out of bed, feeling younger and healthier than I
had in years. I could hardly wait to get to the miracle service—
even if it was in a Protestant church.
The night before, Mrs. Phillips had told me she felt I had
been healed on the bus when I said, “I love God and know that
only He can heal me.” She quoted a verse of Scripture: “And
they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word
of their testimony” (Revelation 12:11). But it didn't matter when
it happened. All I knew was that, like Mr. Moss, I was not the
same person I had been. And neither was Paul. His heart pains
were gone, and he felt brand-new. We were well.
We had been told that often people had to wait for hours
outside the church before the doors opened. I had been afraid
my legs would not hold me if I had to stand for that long, and so
I had brought along a stool to sit on. As it turned out, I didn't
need it. For three and a half hours I stood outside the First
Presbyterian Church in downtown Pittsburgh, wishing I could
find someone to give that stool to. It had been years since I
could stand for longer than ten minutes; now I was standing for
hours, enjoying every moment, holding the stool on my arm.
The doors finally opened and the people surged in. Miss
Kuhlman came to the platform and the service got underway
with glorious music. In just a few minutes she stopped the
singing and said, “I understand there is a lady here from Ottawa
who was healed on the bus.”
She was talking about me. Paul and I accepted her invitation
126
to come to the platform. I forgot I was in a Protestant church. I

even forgot I was standing in front of 2,500 people.
I sensed Miss Kuhlman's special love for all people, like
myself, and before I knew it, I was responding to her suggestion
and stomping my feet, clapping my hands, and bending over to
touch the floor—in front of everybody.
Since I was the first person to come to the platform, I didn't
know what sometimes happen when Miss Kuhlman prays for
people. She reached out and put her hand on my shoulder, and
suddenly I felt like I was falling down. “Oh, no,” I thought.
“What is a big woman like me doing, falling down in front of all
these people?”
But I could not stop myself. It was as if the heavens opened
up and God himself reached out and touched me. I was glad
there was a strong man to catch me before I crashed onto the
floor, or I think I would have gone all the way through that
Protestant platform and into the basement. He put me down
easy.
I climbed back to my feet, amazed that there was no pain in
my body. “Thank you,” I said to Miss Kuhlman, choking it out
between the tears. “Thank you very much.”
“Don't thank me,” she laughed. “I had nothing to do with it.
I don't even know you. You were healed even before you
arrived here. I have no power. Only God has the power. Thank
Him.”
I returned to my seat and began to thank Him. The people
were singing, as they had on the bus. Only this time it didn't
make any difference that most of them were Protestants. I
wanted to sing, too. Since I didn't know the words to the songs,
I listened to the woman beside me and began to sing the words
after her. I knew it sounded terrible, because I was always one
phrase behind everyone else, but I couldn't help that—and it
didn't matter! I was so happy. When the people around me
127
raised their arms to praise God, I raised mine, too. For the first
time in twenty-two years I could raise my arms, and now it was
in worship. So I kept on singing—one sentence late—raised my
arms, cried, and praised God for my healing.
It was two o'clock in the morning when we arrived back in
Brockville. Guy was at the door of his home when we pulled
into his driveway. “Mama, are you all right?” he asked, as I
stepped out of the car that had brought us from the bus stop.
All his friends who were waiting at his home crowded
around. “Don't ask her, just look at her!” they shouted to Guy.
“Look at her! She's healed! God healed her!” I was dancing
around the living room in the middle of the night. “Oh, mama!”
Guy said, gathering me in his arms. He was crying, the people
were crying. But not me. I was dancing up and down.
As soon as I got home, even though it was almost three
o'clock, I called my daughter Jeanne. “I'm healed!” I shouted
over the phone. “I'm healed!”
“Mother?” she replied in a sleepy voice. “What are you
saying?”
“I don't have arthritis anymore,” I laughed. “Call everyone.
Tell everybody. I am no longer sick.”
It was five o'clock when I finally got to bed. I had been up
for twenty-four hours, but even so, I felt full of youth and
strength. And so did Paul. The very next day he went to the golf
course with Guy and walked five holes with him. Oh my! God
has been so good to us.
Sunday afternoon, one of our other sons, Pierre, and his wife
and three children came to Guy's to see if I was really healed.
Pierre's face was wreathed in a huge smile as he walked around
me, looking at me closely from every angle. “Mama, you are
healed. Now you will live to be an old lady unless a truck runs
over you. And even then, I would be more afraid for the truck
128
than for you.”

One of my granddaughters, little Michele, piped up, “Mama,
when you were in Pittsburgh I went to Catholic school, put my
hands up, and said, 'Jesus Christ, cure my grandma,' and He
did.”
My seven-year-old grandson chimed in. “Now, mama, you
won't have to walk like a penguin anymore.”
God was doing something else. Not only had He healed my
body, but He was working on my attitudes as well. Like many
people who live with pain, I had become crabby, hard to get
along with. I didn't realize it until I heard my daughter-in-law
talking to Jeanne on the phone. “There's been another miracle,
too,” she said. “Not only is mama healed from arthritis, but
she's not nagging anymore. Something wonderful has happened
down deep inside her.”
The next Sunday morning I made all my family walk with
me to the Sacred Heart Church. When I got there I told the
priest, “Father, God has healed me of arthritis.”
I wanted him to really understand about it, so the next
Sunday I took all the priests a copy of Miss Kuhlman's books.
Two weeks later I went to see my doctor. As I walked in the
office the nurse exclaimed, “Why, Mrs. Bergeron, what has
happened to you? You look so good.”
Minutes later the doctor came into the waiting room. “Hey,
doctor,” I said, “I have no more arthritis. Look at my hands.
Look at my knees. Look! I'm walking.”
He stood in the middle of the room, watching as I walked
around it. Then he took my hands in his and examined my
fingers and wrists. “I know what you are thinking,” I laughed.
“You are thinking, Well, Mrs. Bergeron has no more arthritis,
but instead she has a good case of being crazy.”
He laughed and motioned me back into his office. “No, I
129
don't think you're crazy,” he said seriously. “Your condition

was hopeless, incurable. Now you're well. I don't understand
it.”
I reached in my purse and pulled out one of Miss Kuhlman's
books. “Read this, doctor,” I said. “And you will send all your
patients to Pittsburgh. Then you will have to go out and find
another job.”
He laughed again, took the book and put his arm around my
shoulder. “That would make me the happiest man in all the
world,” he said, “just to see all my patients as well as you are.”
The following month Paul and I were once again on board
the bus as it left for Pittsburgh. This time there were seventeen
members of our family and some other friends who went along.
A young Catholic priest was on board, and all the way to
Pittsburgh we sang choruses and praised God.
“Are you working for Miss Kuhlman?” one woman asked
me.
“No,” I answered, “I'm working for God.”
Always before, when I wanted to ask God for something, I
was afraid. So, instead of going to Jesus, I went to Mary, the
Mother of God, to ask her to intercede for me. Now I
understand that God loves me so much that I no longer have to
be afraid of Him. When I pray, I say, “God, it's me, Mrs.
Bergeron.” And He always stops whatever He's doing and
listens. That's the way God is.
130
CHAPTER 8
8 HEALING IS ONLY THE BEGINNING
DOROTHY DAY OTIS
My guests on my weekly television program, I Believe in
Miracles, have included medical doctors and bartenders, famous
educators and little children, fashion models and housewives. All have
been touched by Jesus in a special way and testify of changed lives.
However, few guests thrill me as much as the professional stage and
TV performers who put all their acting ability aside and through
genuine tears of thanksgiving, share with the world what Jesus has
done for them. Such was the case with Dorothy and Don Otis when
they appeared on my program in the CBS studio in Los Angeles.
Dorothy Day Otis heads one of Hollywood's most successful talent
agencies. She represents top artists in the field of television, motion
pictures, and the theater. Don operates a flourishing advertising
agency. Both are well-known and highly respected in the Hollywood
performing arts community. “For years Don and I have appeared on
television,” said Dorothy, “but the only meaningful show we ever did
was the Kathryn Kuhlman program.” That's because they did this one
totally for Jesus' sake.
I thought it was natural to feel bad. I had never felt really
well, and for years I was aware that my health had been
deteriorating. I tired easily and had constant backaches, which I
tried to ignore. But I could not ignore my stomach, which
reacted violently to almost everything I ate. I lived on large
amounts of cottage cheese, custards, and Jell-O, and hated even
to look at regular food.
When the pain became unbearable, I went to doctors.
Several internists looked at me, all diagnosing my plight as
131
“severe stomach condition,” a malady that seems to be the

constant companion of so many caught in the Hollywood whirl.
The doctors prescribed pills, which I took faithfully, but I didn't
get well.
For years I dragged around with a backache, a stiff neck, no
energy or appetite, spending most of each weekend in bed.
Sometimes I wondered out loud if my stomach trouble and
general ill health were connected with my backaches, my
peculiar walk, and the fact that my shoes wore out unevenly.
But the doctors just looked at me and shook their heads—and
sent me marching down to the drugstore for more pills.
I had majored in drama in college, and afterward went on to
a career in fashion and television. For two years I lived in San
Francisco, conducting my own interview and cooking program
on TV and being hostess for a Sunday afternoon movie. Later I
moved to Los Angeles, where I continued my work in modeling
and appearing on TV.
I rose each morning at 5:30 A. M. in order to be on time in
the makeup department and at the hairdresser. All day long I
was in front of the lights, on camera, or working with people.
Late at night I would literally collapse into bed. With my
strenuous schedule, I didn't think it unusual that I was in almost
constant pain and felt utterly exhausted all the time. After all,
everyone else around me seemed to feel the same way.
Six months after I arrived in Los Angeles, I met Don Otis.
His background was similar to mine—radio and television
performer, disk jockey, program director, and now owner of his
own advertising agency.
I had gone to Don's office to be interviewed for a television
commercial. After I left he turned to a co-worker and said
impulsively, “That's the girl I'm going to marry.”
“Oh, really?” his friend asked. “What's her name?”
132
Healing Is Only the Beginning
Don didn't know and had to go to an outer office to find out

from a secretary. Returning, he grinned. “Her name is Dorothy
Day, and I'm still going to marry her.”
One year later I was sick—as usual—but we were married.
Don had to make all the arrangements, including getting
permission to use the beautiful Mission Inn in Riverside for our
wedding ceremony.
At the time I was a Presbyterian who went to church only
occasionally. Don was a Methodist who never went to church.
“Nominal Christians” was the phrase I used to describe us. Don,
who is more frank, looks back and says we were “Rotten
Christians.”
Despite my poor health and our total lack of spirituality, we
were both highly successful in our chosen careers. Don's
advertising agency was thriving, and I was appearing
constantly on television. Then, just as I thought I was learning to
live with my poor health, Don's health began to break.
He had smoked heavily since he was fifteen, and suddenly
after all those years his breathing became affected. He could
take only short breaths, and bit by bit was forced to curtail all
his physical activities. He couldn't even climb the steep incline
behind our beautiful hillside home.
A physical checkup disclosed a dreaded condition—
emphysema. There was no cure. Don was so discouraged, he
didn't even consider stopping smoking. He figured he had it
now, so stopping smoking wouldn't make any difference.
In 1966 Harold Chiles, a top Hollywood agent, offered me a
job representing children for dramatic roles and television
commercials. He and Don both felt my years on television
qualified me for the job. It meant advancing into an entirely new
field in my profession, and I was fascinated by it all. When Mr.
Chiles died, I bought the agency from his estate, and suddenly I
was in business, heading up one of Hollywood's most successful
133
talent agencies.
Then my own health broke. At five feet, nine inches, my
normal weight had been 130 pounds. But I began losing. I
turned away from all food, even cottage cheese, and my weight
rapidly slipped to 110 pounds. I looked like a skeleton and once
again began to make rounds of the doctors' offices. None of
them could help me. I forced myself to go to work, even though
I felt terrible. Only my love for my job kept me going.
A close friend of ours had been attending the Kathryn
Kuhlman services. She urged Don and me to go also, feeling
certain that if we did, we would be healed. The idea of God
didn't interest me much, but I did buy Miss Kuhlman's books
and read them. Don read them, too. They were extremely
interesting and even brought tears to my eyes. But when the
weekends that Miss Kuhlman was to be in town approached, I
found it easier to collapse in bed than to attend the services.
“One of these days we'll make it to the Shrine Auditorium,”
I kept telling my enthusiastic friend. But it took us three years to
keep that promise.
Don and I attended our first miracle service in January, 1971.
Even now I find it difficult to describe my feelings as I waited
outside the Shrine Auditorium for the doors to open. Several
thousand people were milling about the doors, but they weren't
strangers, simply friends we had not met before.
It was like a great family reunion. There was such love for
each other, such compassion for those who were sick. All were
talking and sharing in the joy as they looked forward to what
was about to happen. Even before the doors opened, Don and I
knew that God was there.
We returned the next month. I sat in the auditorium, crying
over the healings and praying for the sick people all around me.
For the first time in my life I felt the presence of a loving God
who cared enough to touch people in their misery and make
134
them whole.
But I wasn't being made whole. My backaches became more
intense. And even worse, my neck became so stiff I could not
turn my head without turning my entire upper body. I looked
and walked like one of those Egyptian mummies in the old
horror movies.
In March, 1971, I went to see an orthopedic chiropractor, Dr.
Larry Hirsch. He made a preliminary examination and then
suggested spinal X-rays.
When I returned to his office several days later, he held up
my X-ray. “Look at this,” he told me. Even to my inexperienced
eye, it was obvious that my spine did not go up the center of my
back. Dr. Hirsch diagnosed the large calcium deposits in every
vertebra as a growing arthritic condition. As if that wasn't
enough, my pelvic bone was askew, causing my right leg to be
one inch shorter than the left.
This explained some of my problems—why my shoes wore
out unevenly, why my neck was stiff, and why my lower back
hurt all the time. Dr. Hirsch also said my stomach trouble could
be caused by pressure on the nerves.
I recalled that while I was attending the University of Iowa,
I had fallen hard on the ice one day. The campus nurse had
taped my lower back, but the pain had continued for a long time
afterward. Dr. Hirsch said this could have been the beginning of
my problems.
“You should be in bed,” he said. “Most people with similar
conditions can't even move around.”
He measured my legs and inserted a lift in my right shoe. “If
there's not decided improvement within a week,” he said, “you
should see a specialist.”
That was Friday. I left the office discouraged, promising to
come back on Monday for another examination.
135
On Sunday Don and I drove into Los Angeles to attend the

miracle service at the Shrine Auditorium. After standing at the
door for more than two hours, we hurried to get seats. Between
Don's wheezing and my shuffling gait, we had to settle for seats
in the top balcony, five rows from the back. “One nice thing
about being up this high,” Don said breathlessly, “at least we're
closer to Heaven.”
Early in the service I began telling God everything that was
the matter with me, as if He didn't know. Off and on during
Miss Kuhlman's sermon I lapsed into prayer. Then I heard Miss
Kuhlman say, “Somebody in the balcony has been healed of a
stomach ailment. You haven't eaten in a long time.”
I felt my breath beginning to come in short, rapid gasps, as if
I were hyperventilating. “Someone is also being healed of a back
condition,” Miss Kuhlman added.
My rapid breathing increased until I had no control over it. I
was gasping for air, and at the same time I began to sob
uncontrollably. I knew I was making a scene, but I couldn't help
myself. Yet in the midst of it all, a great warmth settled over me,
like a blanket on a cold day.
My violent sobbing startled Don. He tried to help, but I
couldn't speak. I couldn't tell him what was wrong. He handed
me his handkerchief, and when I turned to take it, he almost
shouted, “You turned your head! Look at me, Dorothy! You
turned your head!”
It was true. Without my realizing it, my neck had become
limber, loose. Still breathing heavily and sobbing, I began to
turn my head back and forth, then nodded it vigorously up and
down. All the pain was gone. I staggered out into the aisle and
toward a personal worker.
“I've been healed,” I sobbed.
The woman looked at me very calmly. “How do you
136
know?”
I was almost hysterical, shaking my head and gasping for
breath. “I can twist my neck,” I choked out. “And my stomach
has been healed, too.”
“Your stomach?” she said. “How can you tell if your
stomach has been healed?”
I didn't know. I hadn't even thought of it. The words just
came blubbering out. “I just know,” I insisted. “If I can move my
head, I know God has healed my stomach, too.”
The woman grinned, convinced. She took my arm and
helped me down the stairs to the main floor. There was a long
line of people on the stage, waiting to testify about their
healings. I stood in line, still sobbing.
“Where is Don?” I suddenly wondered. I glanced out into
that sea of faces, trying to spot him. Then I saw him, coming
down the aisle on the arm of a helper. He, too, was sobbing.
Seeing me, he began to laugh at the same time. We met in each
other's arms.
“I've been healed, too, Dorothy,” he said. “This warm
feeling came over me as you left. I began to cry. Then I realized I
could breathe normally. Look!” he said. “For the first time in
eight years I don't have to take tiny little breaths.” He was
laughing and crying at the same time—but with normal breaths.
Just then Miss Kuhlman called Don and me forward.
Something had happened deep inside Don. Not just in his
lungs, but in his soul. I could tell it as he stood at the
microphone, breathing deeply, joy written all over his face. Miss
Kuhlman kept trying to ask him questions, but he could only
say, “Look! I can breathe!”
Realizing she wasn't going to get much information from
either of us in our hysterical state, she put her hands on us and
began to pray. I felt Don reach for my hand, and the next thing I
137
knew, both of us were lying on the floor. I didn't hear anything.

There was no definite sensation, just a marvelous warmth and
peace settled over us. I vaguely remember hearing Miss
Kuhlman say, “This is only the beginning. Your lives will be
completely changed from this moment on.”
Oh, how right she was!
I realize, as I look back at that moment, that God's touch did
much more than heal my body. Yet because the physical healing
was so sensational, it took time before I realized the much
deeper, inner change that had taken place at the same time.
By the time we reached home that night, all the pain was
gone from my lower back. The first thing I did was take the lift
out of my shoe. Don was so elated about his “new” lungs that
he went out and climbed the steep hill behind our house. He
hadn't been able to do that for a long time. Then we went out
and had a big steak dinner. It was the first steak I had eaten in
years.
The next morning I kept my appointment with Dr. Hirsch.
He took one look at me and said, “What's happened?”
I didn't know Dr. Hirsch very well and was hesitant to say
much. “I want you to tell me,” I said.
It was easy for him to tell that my stomach muscles were
relaxed, but it was when he examined my spine that he really
knew something had happened. “This is not the same spine that
I examined on Friday,” he said.
“Do you have a minute, doctor?” I asked, encouraged to tell
him all about it. He nodded, and I launched into a long story
about the Kathryn Kuhlman meeting the day before.
“If there are any changes, Dorothy,” he said, “the X-rays will
reveal them.”
He took a series of pictures then and told me to come back in
a couple of days. That evening, however, I remembered I had
138
forgotten to tell him I had taken the lift out of my shoe. I called
him at his home.
“Oh, no,” he argued. “Put it back. You will undo any good
that has happened. Even if God has healed your stomach, your
right leg will always be shorter than the left one.” But wearing
the lift made me feel unbalanced. I knew that both legs were
now the same length.
Two days later I returned to his office. Don went with me.
The first thing Dr. Hirsch did was measure my legs. Then he
measured them again. He had a funny look on his face when he
said, “They're the same length.”
I began to cry. “I know it,” I said. “I just wanted you to
know it, too.”
Dr. Hirsch had not had time to examine the X-rays, so all
three of us looked at them together. The doctor was
dumbfounded. My spine was perfectly straight. The “L” turn in
my tail bone was gone. All the calcium deposits had
disappeared. My neck was in perfect alignment with my spine
and skull. Most amazing of all, my pelvic bone had made a
noticeable turn and was in the correct position.
Dr. Hirsch exclaimed, “If such a thing were possible, I'd say
you had a complete back transplant.”
Dr. Hirsch gave me the two sets of X-rays, taken eight days
apart. I keep them in my office and show them to everyone.
They are more precious to me than a Picasso.
Don was less concerned about proof of his healing. The
simple fact he could breathe was enough for him. In fact, he
immediately went out and joined the Beverly Hills Health Club
and began working out for hours at a time. He also stopped
smoking, just to thank the Lord. Don was different inside.
Nine months later he did go back to his doctor. After a
complete physical, the doctor began telling Don what good
139
shape he was in. Don thought he was hedging, and asked

outright, “Look, doctor, what about my emphysema?”
The doctor cleared his throat. “Medically, Don, there is no
cure for emphysema. Even a one-percent improvement would
be classified as an arrestment.”
“Well, do I have a one-percent improvement—or what?”
“There's nothing wrong with your lungs,” the doctor said.
“That's all I can say.”
The greatest miracle, however, goes far deeper than spine or
lungs. Miss Kuhlman was right. When the Holy Spirit entered
our lives, everything changed. We have joined a dynamic, Bible-
teaching church in Burbank. Don joined the Full Gospel
Business Men's Fellowship, and both of us often share our
testimony before large groups. We know Jesus is alive, not only
because He healed our bodies but because He changed our
outlook as well. Even though we're busier than ever before in
our professions, we both feel we are missionaries, witnessing for
the Lord Jesus Christ about the tremendous experience of being
born again—and being filled with the Holy Spirit.
My business associates and clients call my office the “happy
office.” I know it's not just because of the bright yellow
wallpaper, but because the Holy Spirit fills that office with His
joy, guiding me in my work. I pray for my clients and see things
happening, in their professions and in their lives, things that
only God can bring about. It's wonderful.
Yet the most wonderful part is this: We know this is only the
beginning of what God has in store for us:
... Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered
into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared
for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us
by his Spirit (I Corinthians 2:9-10).
14 April 1972
140
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

Mrs. Dorothy Otis presented herself in this office with
multiple spinal complaints on March 3, 1971, at which time we
took full spine X-rays (radiographic views from the top of the
head to the tail bone). These X-rays showed a double scoliosis
with a 1” shortening of the right leg, with nerve impingement
to the entire intestinal tract.
Mrs. Otis was then treated. Progress was slow. Five days
later she visited the Kathryn Kuhlman Miracle Service. The
following day she was re-examined and it appeared as though
a new spine and pelvis had replaced the existing one, and the
leg was corrected to its proper length. Also the intestinal tract
had entirely relaxed and returned to a normal functioning.
We X-rayed Mrs. Otis again that same week and confirmed
that the curvature had completely eliminated itself. The spine
is now straight, and there are no stress areas.
In my past twenty years of practice, I have never
encountered this occurrence without treatments of long
duration. There has been a miraculous change in structure.
Respectfully submitted,
Dr. Larry Hirsch
Chiropractic Orthopedist
141
CHAPTER 9
9 THE GOD-SHAPED VACUUM
ELAINE SAINT-GERMAINE
Eliza Elaine Saint-Germaine, whose Hollywood stage name was
Elaine Edwards, was once proclaimed one of the brightest young stars
in the TV and motion-picture industry. However, like so many caught
in the maddening whirl of wealth and fame, she inadvertently looked
to Satan for happiness, rather than to Jesus Christ.
Saint Augustine once said that inside every person is a God-
shaped vacuum. A young drug addict described it as a “hole of
loneliness” deep in the soul of every creature. You can try to fill
that hole, that vacuum, with all kinds of perverted love, but it is
made for the love of Jesus. Nothing else really fits.
Looking back to my childhood, I believe my parents were
trying to be godly. They were always in church, and I cut my
teeth on the pew of a Southern Baptist church in Dearborn,
Michigan. But it was all a Sunday kind of religion. My parents
had no personal source of power to help them translate the
principles they learned at church into their lives—or their home.
Daddy had a drinking problem, and mother was always
negative. I grew up equating God with unhappiness.
There was very little physical affection displayed in our
home, and my heart was screaming to be filled with love.
Denied it at home, I sought it elsewhere, and at the age of fifteen
I married a sailor and went with him to California. After my
young husband was shipped overseas, I discovered I was
pregnant. Unwilling to settle down and raise children at the age
of fifteen, I caught a bus back to Michigan and had an abortion.
Returning to San Francisco, I met another man, a handsome
143
Lieutenant Commander in the Navy who was stationed aboard

a submarine. Still desperately searching for love, I let myself get
swept off my feet—and married him, even though I already had
a husband.
World War II was still going on, and before long my
number-two husband was ordered to sea. Shortly afterward, my
number-one husband returned. I met him, telling him I wanted
a divorce. He was deeply wounded, but seeing I had made up
my mind, he agreed.
It was almost a year before my second husband returned
from his overseas tour. I met him in New York, and on our first
night together, decided to confess the entire truth in hopes we
could start clean. Instead of hearing my confession and loving
me through it, however, he rejected me. Horribly distraught, he
had our marriage annulled.
Still desperate for love, I followed him to Washington, D. C.
to plead with him to return. He refused to see me. In
Washington I met a man ten years my elder. There followed
another whirlwind romance, and six months later I was married
for the third time.
At the age of seventeen I had already lived a lifetime. I had
committed bigamy, had an abortion, been divorced twice, and
was married again.
My third husband was interested in acting. I had worked as
a model and offered to help support us if he wanted to go to
school. We moved to Los Angeles where he enrolled at the
Pasadena Playhouse.
He was a natural actor and was signed as the star of a highly
successful TV series. Our marriage was in trouble immediately,
for he began touring the nation doing personal appearances.
Again, I needed love—and acceptance. With him gone much of
the time, I was beside myself with loneliness, and this time I
tried to find satisfaction in a career. I, too, enrolled at the
144
The God-Shaped Vacuum
Pasadena Playhouse.
As with my husband, acting came naturally to me. Finishing
my course at the Playhouse, I went into legitimate theater.
Stardom was mine from the very beginning. I thought I had
finally found the one thing that would bring fulfillment and fill
that empty hole in my inner being.
For a while everything fell into place. In 1954 I was cast in
the starring role of Bernadine for the West Coast premiere. On
opening night I played before two thousand people who had
packed into the beautiful playhouse. I was a smashing success.
When I came out on stage, the people couldn't take their eyes off
me. Patterson Greene, the renowned critic, reviewed the play
and said it was unbelievable.
I fit the part of Bernadine perfectly. But like me, Bernadine
was an illusion. She didn't exist. Standing on stage, listening to
the roar of the crowds as they shouted and applauded my
performance, I felt detached, unreal. Yet it was satisfying, and I
drank in all the applause, accolades, praise, and acceptance my
fans could give. I basked in it, soaking it up. To me, it was the
epitome of fulfillment to be loved and admired by fans from all
over the nation.
Soon I moved into another state of illusion. I signed with
Edward Small and began to star in films. He told me he was
grooming me to be the biggest name in Hollywood. I starred in
films for Allied Artists, and in some TV specials. I played roles
on Playhouse 90 and The Millionaire, and co-starred with Chuck
Conners in some of his first shows. It was nothing for me to
work on the film set all day and then fly off somewhere for a
stage show that night. I was riding the crest of an exhilarating
wave of success.
But the waves eventually became foam and bubbles—and
always returned to the sea. I was still empty. One October
morning I left the house early. Ed and I had acquired a beautiful
145
mansion in LaCrescenta in the foothills. Driving my Cadillac to

the studio in Hollywood, I began to muse, What is this for? Why
am I doing all this? These philosophical questions were coming
out of the deep emptiness of my life. I had everything—fame,
wealth, a beautiful home, a handsome husband famous in his
own right. Yet I was miserable. A line from Robert Burn's “Tam
O'Shanter” slipped through my mind.
But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white, then melts forever.
I had surrounded myself with all the pleasures my senses

could appreciate. I had made a business of seeking happiness.
Driving to the studio, I drew a line under it all, added it up, and
came up with zero. I remembered a verse from my childhood
Sunday school days: “All is vanity, a striving after the wind.”
From that day on I began to search for spiritual truths.
However, I did not know that there are two different sources of
spiritual energy and power. And in my ignorance, I became
channeled in the direction of darkness.
I began by joining a prayer group that met weekly in a home
near ours. But nothing ever happened there. It was as powerless
as my childhood religion had been. Like me, the people were all
searching, but none had found anything. We spent the evenings
intellectualizing about prayer. When we finally got down to
praying, it wasn't real, and there were never any answers. It was
all empty, meaningless.
I shifted to Religious Science, and from that I moved into a
study group that was examining Eastern religions. Southern
California is filled with empty people who are turning to
everything that offers hope. A vacuum, even a God-shaped one,
attracts anything that is not tied down—especially evil spirits.
146
Ed was gone for days at a time, and I went into a deep

depression. I didn't even want to get out of bed. I was losing
interest in my career and found myself bumbling even when I
did show up on the set.
“Something is wrong,” I told my psychiatrist in September,
1959. “My career no longer offers me happiness. My marriage is
not fulfilling. I feel guilty for having all the things that should
make me happy, and remaining so miserable.”
She heard me out and then told me about a new method of
drug psychoanalysis that had been developed by Dr. Sidney
Cohen at UCLA. Taken under controlled situations, a
controversial new drug was supposed to rapidly accelerate the
process of analysis: Five sessions with the drug was equivalent
to an entire psychoanalysis, which usually took years. I readily
agreed to the program, which involved taking the drug once a
week. The name of the drug was lysergic acid diethylamide—
LSD.
I had just finished co-starring with Agnes Moorehead and
Vincent Price on an Agatha Christie film called The Bat.
Although I didn't believe in evil spirits at the time, I now
realized that my part in The Bat simply set me up for the LSD
trips I was about to take.
On September 19, I entered a private rest home in Culver
City as an outpatient. My psychiatrist, excited about the entire
venture, assured me the drug would expand my mind, deepen
my awareness, and be the answer to all my problems. She said
that she would be in and out of my room, taking notes and
asking questions, while I was under the drug's influence.
Naturally, I believed her. But it was all a tragic, horrible
mistake. Instead of freedom, I found myself in a bondage far
worse than I had ever known before. Instead of five sessions on
LSD, I had sixty-five sessions—one a week for a year and a half.
The only way to come down off the LSD was to take other
147
drugs, or to drink liquor. I took mescaline, which is another

hallucinogen, and I began going to pieces.
Soon we “graduated” from single trips on LSD to group
therapy. Under the supervision of the UCLA psychiatrists,
about a dozen of us gathered early on a Saturday morning and
spent the day—and late into the night—on an LSD trip. We
psychoanalyzed each other, taking out our rage on each other
and infecting one another with our own individual problems. In
a short time I had picked up the symptoms of all the others in
the group—much to the seeming delight of the psychiatrists,
who were convinced that we were finally encountering reality.
During one of these LSD trips I relived a traumatic
automobile accident I had been in at the age of three. All the
fear and terror came sweeping back. My psychiatrist was beside
herself with joy: “Oh, you're getting to the last piece of the
puzzle of your problem. You're finally getting your life
straightened out.”
But instead of straightening out, my life was being wound
into a knot of confusion that could not be untangled. During a
year and a half of sheer terror the drugs unleashed every evil
and demonic power that had ever taken residence in my mind.
My brain never stopped running in high gear, and each day the
effects of the drug returned in horrible flashbacks. I started
gobbling all kinds of narcotics to try to pull me down from the
LSD “highs.” It wasn't long before I was in the grip of an
addiction that was to last for twelve long years.
On the film set, I was scarcely able to function—flying into
unexplained temper tantrums, refusing to take orders, and
showing up so drugged that I couldn't even read my lines.
“Elaine,” Edward Small said, “you could be one of the greatest
actresses on the scene, but you're ruining yourself. Snap out of
it.”
I was unable to control myself. Outside forces, far more
148
powerful than my own will, had moved in. I was no longer my

own.
In 1961, I was to co-star with Mickey Rooney in The Seven
Little Toys for a TV series. I could barely drag myself around the
set and finally bombed out completely. I knew that my days as
an actress were numbered.
My final experience with acting had weird supernatural
overtones. One of my former directors called me from
Albuquerque, New Mexico. “Elaine, we've got a problem,” she
said. “We're only two days away from the opening performance
of Dulcie, and Jean Cagney, who's playing the lead, is sick. Can
you take over?”
“No problem,” I said. “I can handle it. I'll fly in tonight.”
After I hung up I began to wonder why I had agreed. I had
never done comedy. I was a slow study in acting, and it usually
took me weeks to learn a part. Dulcie is the whole show, and I
hadn't even read the part. This was ridiculous.
I had an LSD session slated for that afternoon and went on
to the rest home for the treatment. When I took the drug, I had a
vision. I saw a tremendous shaft of light, and in the middle of it
stood a man, beckoning me to step out of the shadows and join
him. I was scared, but it never occurred to me that the light
could be anything but good. As I stepped out of the shadows
into the shaft of light, I felt a great surge of power and energy. It
was as if I could do anything, as if I were almost God Himself.
I left the rest home still feeling the effects of this great new
energy. I stopped by the director's Los Angeles office, picked up
a copy of Dulcie, and read it through on the plane to
Albuquerque. I knew I had mastered it.
I was met at the airport and driven to the theater for a
rehearsal. The director was pacing the floor, having some
second thoughts. “You'll never get it done, Elaine,” she said.
149
“It's impossible. You're to be on stage for the full two and a half
hours.” But I had a superhuman confidence. We started with the
rehearsal.
“You're not writing down your blocking,” the director said.
The blocking includes all the stage movement, and in a play like
this would usually take at least three weeks to learn.
“I don't need to write it down.” I smiled mysteriously.
I had never felt such tremendous energy and power in all
my life.
That night I went home and worked on my lines for about
two hours. The next day, at dress rehearsal, I had my lines
perfected.
It was the biggest show ever to be staged in Albuquerque.
The critics went wild. “She's like a light when she comes out on
stage,” one of them wrote. “She actually picks up the rest of the
cast and carries them along.”
The play ran for two weeks and drew the largest crowds in
local history. During this time I did things I had never dreamed
I could do, such as lecturing to drama classes at the University
of New Mexico. I seemed to float along in the power of this
tremendous energy—never dreaming it could be from Satan.
My husband flew out for the closing-night performance, and
after the show, all hell broke loose. He ripped into me. I had
never seen so much wrath and rage come from one human
being. Even though I suspected he was envious of my success, I
was not able to withstand the onslaught of his attack. I wilted
under it, and by the time we got back to Los Angeles, whatever
power I had was gone. The energy had disappeared. I felt like
Cinderella at the stroke of midnight as I moved back into the
depths of depression. The darkness settled in again, so thick this
time I could not break out. I knew I would never act again.
I went back to LSD. Drugs in the morning, drugs at noon,
150
drugs at night. Down, down, down.

My husband's producer enticed him back to New York to
take a leading role in a TV soap opera. He became involved not
only with the program but with his leading lady. Our marriage
of nineteen years was doomed. He got a divorce and married
his leading lady. I remained in California, broken in spirit and
emotionally destitute.
I started visiting a psychologist who was experimenting
with the occult. He believed he could activate certain energies
from the “outside” that would form protective “triangles of
light” around me. He called them vortexes of energy that would
come into my body and open my mind to higher levels of
knowledge. It was all associated with the Shakti, the female
energy of the Hindu god Siva.
I attended twice-a-week sessions in a desperate effort to find
truth for my shattered life. Instead, I kept sinking into darkness.
This led to astrology classes, spiritism, and alpha brain-wave
courses. It still hadn't occurred to me that energy and power
could come from other than good sources.
In our group therapy session my psychologist led us to call
on certain “ascended masters,” spirits who would come and
impart knowledge. I was especially urged to call on one known
as “The Tibetan,” who could empower me with great wisdom.
By this time I was so involved with the occult that it seemed I
would never unsnarl the tangled web of my life.
The old search for love kept coming to the surface. I became
involved with a divorced actor/director and lived with him for
almost two years. This man abused me and on several occasions
tried to kill me. It was a nightmare. In a reckless effort to break
his bondage, I moved out in the middle of the night. Two weeks
later he found me and almost killed me before I consented to
move back with him.
Months later, when he became deathly ill, I managed to
151
escape and moved into an old apartment on Havenhurst off

Sunset Boulevard. It was the same apartment Carole Lombard
had lived in before she was killed. John Barrymore had lived
across the hall. My occult friends were wild about the place,
saying they could sense all kinds of spirits living there. They
urged me to make contact with them, but I was afraid and
withdrew into my world of drugs and loneliness.
One of my friends was a famous Jewish astrologer and a
personal friend of the newspaper columnist from Toronto,
Canada, who had set up the Bishop Pike seances. This columnist
had interviewed Kathryn Kuhlman, and my Jewish friend let
me read the accounts of Miss Kuhlman's ministry. I was excited.
For the first time I felt a tinge of hope. Could it be that in spite of
the swirling world of demons and darkness, there burned a true
light, untainted by the powers of the underworld? I was
fascinated by the hope and began attending Miss Kuhlman's
monthly meetings at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
On several occasions I heard Miss Kuhlman speak out
against the very things I had been involved in—the occult,
astrology, spiritism. She seemed to know what she was talking
about. Unlike my psychiatrists, psychologists, and
psychoanalysts, she spoke with authority. Instead of asking
questions, she gave answers. And when she prayed she got
results. I determined I would go about setting myself free from
my bondages.
I began to pray for healing, asking God to take away my
need for drugs. And I decided to exorcise my apartment, to
cleanse it of all evil spirits. I knew nothing of the mechanics of
exorcism, so I asked some of my spiritist friends about it. “I
want to do it the Bible way,” I said.
They had all kinds of suggestions, and one of them was to
burn frankincense and myrrh (certainly that was in the Bible).
This seemed like a good idea to chase off the evil spirits, and I
152
decided to lace the mixture with something called “dragon's

blood powder” to make it more potent.
One night I filled the apartment with incense and walked
through it quoting the Ninety-first Psalm for good luck and to
bolster my courage. Then I lit some frankincense and myrrh
tablets, put the burning pellets in a flat dish shaped like a pie
pan, sprinkled on the “dragon's blood,” and set the dish on the
floor near my bed.
The minute I turned my back, I heard a thump and smelled
a different kind of smoke. Whirling around, I saw that the dish
was turned upside-down on the floor. The underside of my bed
was on fire!
I raced into the bathroom, got a glass of water, and ran back
to the bed. Kneeling beside it, I lifted the box springs with my
left hand to throw the water on the fire.
Suddenly I felt some superhuman force smash the mattress
and springs downward, pinning my hand between the burning
springs and the bed railing. At the same moment the fire
literally exploded from the bed.
I tried to pull my hand loose. It was stuck. I was pinned
against the burning bed. Flames raced through the room,
igniting the curtains and walls. “God, help me!” I screamed.
Then I gave a final jerk, yanked my hand free, and stumbled out
of the room into the hall.
By the time the fire department arrived the apartment was
totally destroyed. After the embers cooled, I went back in. The
bedroom was charcoal, like the inside of a crematorium. I had
lost everything—except my life.
In February, 1972, I returned to the Shrine Auditorium for
another miracle service. Since my brush with death, I could
hardly wait to get back and be in the presence of the Holy Spirit.
That Sunday afternoon, sitting about halfway back on the main
153
floor, I began to pray for others around me. Suddenly I was

aware of the darkness in which so many walked. How many
others—thousands, millions—must be stumbling along as I was,
trying to snatch themselves loose from the clutches of the evil
one?
As I prayed, I became aware of a Presence around me and
over me. I knew at once who He was. I had never met Him
before, but we needed no introduction. I had been searching for
Him all my life, and suddenly He was there. Jesus was there.
I felt a great warmth go through my body, and I began to
weep. Sometimes I brought people with me to the services, but
this Sunday I had come by myself. I was grateful not to have to
explain what was happening to me. Jesus was there, engulfing
me with His love. And in that moment I knew I was loved with
a love far greater than any man could ever give. I was being
held in the arms of the Father Himself. It was as though there
had been a vacancy in my heart all those years, with a sign on it
that said, “Reserved for Jesus Christ.” Now He had come, and
all my love needs were met.
I knew I would never need drugs again. It was just like that
—definite, absolute. I was healed.
After the service I made my way through the crowd. I could
hardly wait to be alone. Always before I had needed people
around me, great mobs of admiring people. Now I wanted—
needed—no one else. Just being with Him was enough.
I ate a quiet dinner in a small restaurant off the main
thoroughfares and then drove to my tiny, one-room apartment.
I went first to the bathroom and emptied the contents of the
bottles and boxes in the medicine chest into the toilet. Never
again would I be a slave to drugs. Then I pulled my roll-away
bed out and opened it up. It was so natural to kneel down
beside it, to pray and thank Him for what He had done.
That night, for the first time in nine years, I slept peacefully.
154
No drugs, no bad dreams, no insomnia. I realized the meaning

of the verse: “I will both lay me down in peace and sleep; for
thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety” (Psalms 4:8).
All my troubles didn't end with that one experience. There
have still been discouraging and lonely times. Most of my old
“friends” have drifted away, and I am having to form new
friendships with believers. There are still times of distress and
temptation, but now I know I am not alone. I am loved. And I
am learning to let Him fight my battles for me.
Sometimes at night, after I have turned the lights out, I am
aware of evil forces around me. I no longer go through rites of
exorcism, nor do I even speak to the spirits. I simply pray,
“Jesus, I need your help. They're back. Will you come and make
them go away?” He always answers my prayer.
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
CHAPTER 10
10 SKEPTIC UNDER A FUR HAT
JO GUMMELT
The wife of a former senior Southern Baptist pastor in
Washington, D. C., Mrs. Jo Gummelt was recognized as one of the top
Congressional aides on Capitol Hill. A native of Mobile, Alabama, she
graduated from Baylor University and then moved to Fort Worth,
Texas, where her husband, Walter, was a graduate student at
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Since 1958 the
Gummelts have lived in District Heights, Maryland, where Walter
has served in many high-ranking denominational positions.
Like most Southern Baptists, I believed the Bible was the
inspired record of God's revelation to mankind. I thanked God
for the way He had spoken to the prophets and the apostles. I
believed that when Jesus touched people they were healed. I
believed that following His ascension to Heaven, those 120
believers in the upper room at the time of Pentecost, and many
others in the early church, received the power of the Holy Spirit.
I believed these same men and women spoke in tongues,
performed miracles, laid hands on the sick and saw them
recover. But for some reason I failed to understand that God
could pour out His Spirit on me, today, in the same fashion.
It's not that I didn't want to receive His Spirit, feel His
power, even manifest the gifts of the Spirit. I did. In fact, I had
been leading a ladies' group in our church in a study of the Holy
Spirit. It's just that I thought Pentecost was something in the
long ago. I had to die, almost, before I could receive God's truth
of life today.
Back in 1949, after I graduated from high school in Mobile,
165
Alabama, my father brought me to Washington, D. C., for a

graduation present. Dad had been sick most of my life, but he
saved up enough money for two Greyhound bus tickets and a
visit to my older brother, who had a job in the library of the
Supreme Court.
My brother knew Truman Ward, the majority clerk in the
House of Representatives. Mr. Ward offered me a job as a
typing clerk, and at sixteen I became the youngest steno on
Capitol Hill. Three days later, the late Senator Spessard Holland
of Florida offered me $3,000 a year to be one of his secretaries.
That was more than daddy had ever made back in Mobile, and I
knew I was in Washington to stay.
Marriage held no appeal for me as I buried myself in the
excitement of Washington politics, soon graduating to a higher-
paying job with another congressman. My drive for efficiency
and perfection made me an ideal aide—and I loved it. Three
hours of sleep a night, plus a fifteen-minute nap at lunch
following a fifteen-cent hotdog, were all I needed. But already I
was developing life and work patterns that would almost
destroy me before I was forty years old.
During those first years in Washington I came in contact
with a group of young people from the Metropolitan Baptist
Church who were different. I could tell from their joy and their
constant witness that they had something I didn't have. They
had victory. These Washington young people stimulated me to
a new thirst—to be like Jesus, to give my life totally to Him in
full-time service. The “fullest time” service I could think of was
becoming a missionary doctor. Maybe it was dad's constant
sickness; maybe it was reading about Jesus laying hands on the
sick and healing them—whatever it was, I wanted to see people
healed, and medical missions was the only healing outlet I knew
about.
I enrolled at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. My
166
Skeptic Under a Fur Hat
employer, the late Representative Prince Preston of Georgia,

helped me financially, and told me that when I ran short of
money, I could come back to Washington for a semester, and
my job would always be waiting. I took advantage of his offer,
and alternating between Waco and Washington, I finally
graduated in six years.
It was while I was at Baylor that I met Walter Gummelt, a
handsome, wavy-haired blond with an athletic build. Walter
graduated ahead of me and went on to Fort Worth where he
enrolled at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. We
were married immediately after my graduation. My ambition of
becoming a medical missionary had been replaced with an even
greater ambition—that of being a pastor's wife. Following
Walter's graduation from seminary, we returned to Washington.
I went back to work and Walter accepted the call as pastor of the
Parkway Baptist Church, a new congregation in District
Heights, Maryland.
Immediately I was back in my old life-style, working
unbelievably long hours, eating poorly, and doing every task
with perfect precision. I was able to maintain my health for the
first several years. But then, gradually, the pressures of being a
pastor's wife, coupled with the incredible pressures of working
in Congress, began to take their toll. I began to lose weight.
Some mornings I would awake more exhausted than when I
had gone to bed. I had several miscarriages before I was finally
able to carry a baby to full-term pregnancy. I worked right up
until little Gordon was born, and then after a brief layoff, I was
back on the job—addicted to work.
When my boss failed in his bid for re-election, Walter
suggested this was a sign from God for me to quit working.
However, before I had time to consider his advice, I was offered
one of the top political plums. A congressman from Texas asked
me to become his administrative assistant—the top aide in a
congressman's office.
167
The job demanded a perfectionist, and I had developed the

reputation on Capitol Hill of being just that—driving, efficient,
loyal. I accepted the position and drove myself unmercifully,
managing his office, directing all the personnel, writing
speeches, and staying to do legislative research long after the
office closed. Night after night I dragged myself home after dark
and, sitting on the piano bench in the front room with papers
spread out before me, worked until the early hours of the
morning.
My weight continued to drop. I had three more miscarriages
and developed three bleeding ulcers—a congressional
trademark and the inevitable consequences of inner-office
conflicts and harassment from jealous male subordinates who
wanted my job. I was working seventy hours a week, getting
less than four hours sleep a night, and still trying to take my
place in the church beside Walter.
Then the headaches started again. The migraines would
begin with a low, dull pain in the back and on one side of my
head. Within an hour the pain was like fire roaring through my
brain. It was like having my skull in a giant vice, squeezed so
tightly I thought my head would explode. With the pain came
nausea, wave after wave of it, as my body convulsed in agony.
The doctor said I had a “classic migraine personality,” and
put me on drugs. I began taking massive doses of Darvon
Compound. It's nonaddictive, I was told, but I soon realized I
was psychologically hooked. I increased the dosage as the
migraines became more severe—and more frequent. Then, as if I
was in some nightmarish comedy, my hair started falling out. I
blamed it on the miscarriages and the fact I was getting older,
but the prospect of being bald was something less than funny. I
bought a wig.
One windy spring day I left work early. Our offices were in
the Sam Rayburn Building, and as I walked out the front door, I
168
saw the circular drive lined with the big black limousines of
Cabinet members. Each had a chauffeur standing beside the
fender. I knew there was a special committee hearing being
conducted and thought little about it—until I stepped off the
curb. The wind lifted my wig and sent it bouncing across the
open circle in full view of all those uniformed men.
I screamed for help, but no one moved. Guards and
chauffeurs all stood with open mouths and watched as my wig
bounded over the grass and came to an ignominious stop in the
middle of a tulip bed. Then they began roaring with laughter,
and I could just picture congressmen from all over the building
rushing to their windows as I scampered after my wig, slapped
it back on my head, and marched down the driveway to the
parking lot. To the men it was hilarious, but I wanted to cry.
Why did I have to wear a wig? Why couldn't I be normal? I sat
in my car in the parking lot and wept.
Several months later, groggy and weak, I crawled out of bed
one morning and stumbled into the kitchen to fix Walter's
breakfast. Standing at the stove, I began to cry, tears splashing
on the hot burners and sending up little puffs of steam. I don't
have a home anymore, I thought. Walter doesn't have a wife,
because I'm married to my job. Yet he never complains. He's like
the Rock of Gibraltar, while I'm coming apart at the seams. I
dreaded the thought of facing another day in that congressional
office.
I felt Walter's arm slip around my waist from behind, felt his
face against the side of my neck, and smelled the faint aroma of
his shaving lotion. How long had it been since I had stood and
watched him shave? I used to have time for that, back when we
were struggling along in the seminary.
I remembered those early years of our marriage. Our little
duplex apartment on Stanley Street near Seminary Hill, the
commuting to Wichita Falls where Walter preached on the
169
weekends. We didn't have any money, but we could walk the

deserted streets of downtown Fort Worth late at night and look
in the windows. Sometimes, for an evening's entertainment, I'd
go with him to the campus and sit beside him in the library
while he pored over the Bible commentaries, preparing for a
test. Or maybe we'd just walk around in the rotunda, looking at
the pictures of the past presidents of the seminary, and holding
hands. Now I had no time for things like that, no time just to sit
and look at him. No time to walk the streets, hold hands,
window-shop. No time to splash shaving lotion on his freshly
razored face and giggle as we rubbed noses. The tears kept
rolling down my face and onto the hot stove.
“It's not worth it, Jo,” Walter said gently. He was always
gentle, kind. “Give it up. We don't need the extra money. Give it
up before it kills you.”
He was right, but it was too late. I went to the doctor, and he
just shook his head. Bleeding ulcers, migraine headaches! He
put me on permanent total disability. “Get lots of rest,” he
cautioned, “or something drastic could happen.” He didn't
know it, and neither did I, but something drastic had already
happened. I had begun to die.
Walter thought it would be good to take our camping trailer
and drive up into the Allegheny Mountains for a week's
vacation. I didn't feel like camping. Gordon was six years old
and a bundle of energy. Yet I went along, determined to make
the best of it.
Leaving the trailer in a campground in the Allegheny State
Park in lower New York, we drove up to the Canadian border to
visit Niagara Falls. It was a tiring day, walking the concrete
paths, climbing the steps, riding the boat to the base of the
roaring falls. On the way back to the trailer, with Gordon asleep
in the back seat, I began to feel sick with a different kind of
sickness than I had ever had before. I felt tremendous pressure
170
on both sides of my lower back, like the water of the Niagara

River building up behind a dam. When I tried to move around
in the seat, the pain grew worse. The road we were riding on
was under repair, and every bump sent spasms of agony
through my body. Then, slowly, I became aware of something
else—a spreading paralysis moving across my back. I gasped
and gripped Walter's arm, my fingers digging into his flesh.
“What is it, Jo?” he asked, alarmed. “You're white as a
sheet.”
“I don't know,” I choked out. “But I'm scared. I'm losing all
sensation in my back.” This wasn't a simple ulcer or headache.
The pain throbbed through my back and into my stomach.
Wave after wave of nausea caused me to gag. For the first time
in my life, I knew what it was like to feel the fingers of death.
By the time we reached the trailer it was dark. I collapsed on
the bed while Walter took Gordon and went to find out about a
hospital. He returned, saying the nearest one was miles away. I
bit my lips. “Maybe if I rest I'll feel better.” Walter was
concerned but submitted to my insistence to wait until morning.
But as the night wore on, I got worse. I felt like my body was
falling to pieces inside.
Early in the morning I pulled myself out of bed to use the
bathroom. I passed something out of my system, and when I
did, the pain seemed to ease. I stumbled back to bed, and just as
the sun rose over the trees, I dozed off.
It was mid-morning when I awoke. The camper was empty,
but I could hear Walter and Gordon outside. When I started to
raise up, I discovered I was lying in a puddle of blood.
Walter insisted on rushing me to a hospital, but once again,
as I calmed him down, I was able to persuade him otherwise.
“Just take me home. If I can just get into my own bed I'll be all
right.”
171
But I wasn't all right, and Walter rushed me to a specialist in

internal medicine. The minute I described my symptoms, I saw
the look of alarm on the doctor's face. “You just don't ignore this
kind of bleeding, Mrs. Gummelt,” he said. After taking X-rays
his voice was stern. “I want you in Doctors' Hospital tonight.”
I could tell something was terribly wrong. “What is it?” I
asked.
“We'll know more in a few days. But right now it looks like
you're literally passing parts of your kidney.”
The diagnosis: a form of renal papillary necrosis, a rare and
very severe kidney disease that results in the deterioration of
the inner kidney. The urologist described it by saying my
kidneys were like two rotten sponges, waiting for any subtle
bacteria to come through my system to attack them and cause
additional deterioration. Almost half of each kidney was
already gone, breaking off and passing from my system. I was
dying.
Walter sent a letter to the congregation, asking them to pray
for me. Although praying for the sick—praying in faith and
with authority—was foreign to most of the people in our
church, there was a group of our women who realized that God
had prepared them for this time and this place—to pray for my
healing.
About a year before, some of the young housewives in the
church had come to me, begging me to teach them. They wanted
a deeper walk with the Lord, but didn't know how to find it.
They seemed to sense that despite my frayed nerves and sick
body, I could point them in the right direction.
Many years before, while I was a student at Baylor,
something had happened to me. One afternoon, walking across
8th Street in Waco, I was hit with the overpowering realization
that the Holy Spirit lived within me. Tears welled up in my
eyes, and I could hardly find the sidewalk on the other side of
172
the street. “How thrilling, yet how awesome,” I gasped. “I take

Him every place I go!”
In that moment the Holy Spirit had become a person to me,
hearing all my words, knowing all my thoughts, seeing all my
actions. For weeks I walked around the Baylor campus oblivious
to problems, immersed in the Holy Spirit, in love with the Lord.
I started tithing not only my money, but my time in Bible study
and prayer. At the end of the period I was spending something
like five hours a day in communion with the Lord. But it hadn't
stayed with me. It was an affair rather than a love relationship.
Yet, even though my infatuation with the Holy Spirit faded, my
knowledge of His power remained.
Therefore, when these young ladies came to me, seeking a
deeper walk with the Lord, it was natural that I should begin to
teach them what the Bible had to say about the Holy Spirit. I
knew I was a novice. I suspected that even though I was
speaking all the right words, I really didn't understand what I
was saying.
“Pentecost is not in the past tense,” I had said.
“If the Bible is true, then,” the ladies asked, “why can't we
take it literally? Why can't we expect miracles and healings
today?”
As Baptists, we believed the Bible to be the inspired Word of
God, and asking such questions brought on frustrations. I
wanted to be intellectually honest, but because I had never seen
a miracle, never really seen a physical demonstration of God's
power, I had trouble believing.
We dug deeper into the Word, trying to find our answers.
Somehow, we knew, this deeper walk with God was tied into
the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. But what we needed and
yearned for was a demonstration of God's power, not just talks
about it. That demonstration was to come on Saturday morning,
the week after I had been admitted to the hospital.
173
It was my thirty-seventh birthday. The women in the study

group had come to the hospital to visit me. As they stood
around the bed, I could tell something was different.
“How are you feeling?” Pat Vandeventer asked. Pat's
husband was in the Navy, and they had joined our church not
because they were dyed-in-the-wool Baptists but because the
Lord had told them to join. Very few people joined Parkway
Baptist Church because God told them to, but Pat Vandeventer
had.
I was weak, very weak, and under heavy sedation, but I
managed a faint smile and said, “A little better. I'm not
hemorrhaging as much.”
“Praise the Lord!” Pat said softly and winked across the bed
at one of the other women. This one, in turn, smiled and nodded
at another. Everyone was nodding and smiling, like they knew
something I didn't know. And indeed they did—only I didn't
find it out for several weeks.
Then, one afternoon while I was alone in my hospital room,
Pat came in and told me what had happened that Saturday
morning. “When we received the pastor's letter,” she said, “all
of us in the prayer group knew it meant you were dying. We
also knew that if all the things we had been studying in the
prayer group were real, now was the time to find out. Either
God heals or He doesn't. It was as simple as that.”
“That sounds like you were going to put God to a test,” I
said.
“No, not that,” Pat answered, pulling her chair closer to the
bed. “We just decided to meet together and trust Him for your
healing. If anything, God was putting us to a test—to see if we
believed what He said in His Word. The entire group, all eight
of us, got up together on that Saturday morning for a sunrise
prayer meeting on a little knoll in the municipal park.”
174
I waited quietly while Pat paused. Her eyes began to glisten

with moisture. “It was a very sacred and precious time for each
of us. As we waited for God, each one of us, in a personal way,
received a demonstration of God's power. We all knew you
were going to be healed, miraculously.”
“I don't understand,” I interrupted. “I know I'm better, but
that's just because I'm here in the hospital and they're pumping
me full of drugs. But the doctor says my kidneys are gone.”
“We know that,” Pat said, that silly grin reappearing on her
face. “But we also know that God has demonstrated His power,
the power we've been reading about in the Bible. We know you
are going to be healed.”
“You say He demonstrated His power? How?” Pat stood
and walked to the window. She talked softly, as if she were
reliving those moments at dawn in the park. “Each one of us felt
Him at the same time, yet in different ways. I was sitting on the
bench, my head in my hands, and it seemed as if my heart
would break. We had all come to love you with a love far
deeper than any of us had ever before experienced. Now it
seemed as if we were going to lose you. We started out by
praying for you, but then, just as it began to get light, we all
choked up. We couldn't pray any longer, and just sat, weeping
silently. Then, deep within my heart, there came a blanket of
peace, like new snow that falls and covers the dull, gray
landscape with pure white. And I knew, Jo. I knew God had
healed you. There were no fireworks, no earthquakes, just a
deep inner assurance that you were being healed... and in God's
time you will know it.” Pat turned from the window, facing me.
“I looked up, and all the other girls were smiling through their
tears. At the same moment, they, too, had received the same
message. We left the park knowing, and we've not doubted
since.”
“But I'm not healed,” I argued.
175
“Oh, yes you are,” Pat said firmly, her eyes sparkling with
determination and faith. “We know the doctors have told Pastor
Gummelt your illness is incurable; but remember, our God is a
God of the impossible.”
I knew I was deathly sick. But incurable? I forgot everything
else Pat had said as that one word kept ringing through my
mind.
Many, many specialists were called in over the next several
weeks. I had the first positively diagnosed case of this particular
form of the kidney disease in the Washington area. From one of
the urologists I learned that a study had been made on 125
persons in Sweden who had the same condition as mine and
similar symptoms. But he hedged when I asked him the results
of the study. All I could assume was that all 125 had died. The
only encouragement the doctors gave was the hope they could
stabilize my kidneys and perhaps stop the deterioration. I knew
it was beyond medical power to heal me.
Finally I was dismissed from the hospital and told to spend
twelve to fourteen hours a day in bed. The warning wasn't
necessary. I was completely drained. Always before I had been
able to reach down inside, someplace, and pull out a little more
strength or energy to complete a job. But this time, when I
reached down inside, I found only emptiness.
The second morning home I waited until Walter had gone to
work. Then I got up to open the bedroom window. It took all
my energy just to cross the room, and tugging on the window
was the same exertion as running two miles through the city. I
fell back into bed, panting from exhaustion, the window
unopened. I could feel my swollen kidneys bulging through my
back.
My reserve strength, that little extra something that keeps a
person from dying when he reaches the end of his rope, was
gone. “Just one tiny bacterium,” the doctor had said, “picked up
176
from impure water, and you could be dead in a short time.”

There were other pressures building at the same time. The
doctor had told me that I could return to church as soon as I felt
like it, but no more than once a week. Before I went in the
hospital my weight was down to almost 100 pounds. But when I
was released, my body began to retain fluids, and I was swollen,
puffy. I didn't want anyone to see me like that.
During the next year I was in and out of the hospital. There
were constant visits to the doctor's office for cultures and tests.
As my body built up immunity to one drug, he would shift to
another—and with it came all the tests to see if the new drug
itself might kill me. It seemed I was in the doctor's office all the
time, X-ray after X-ray. To combat the internal infections that
were always springing up, I was constantly being treated with
new antibiotics. Our drug bill climbed.
Preparing for death is a terrifying psychological experience.
My entire lifestyle was changing. I knew I was dying, and it was
very difficult having to adjust to the fact while I was still alive.
My family doctor suggested a psychiatrist. “Maybe he can give
you some help with these migraines,” he said. I hoped so,
praying only that I could just lie down in peace and get on with
the business of dying.
I wasn't able to function as a wife or a mother. I wasn't able
to do any housework. I could hear Gordon coming in after
school and hear him creep down the hall past my room to keep
from disturbing me. I remembered how it was when I was a
child and dad was always sick and all the children had to creep
around the house for fear of waking him up. Now here it was
again. I felt horribly guilty. That's all my son will ever
remember about his mother, I thought. Sick in bed behind a
closed door. Is this horrible thing to be passed from generation
to generation?
Then things began to happen. It began with a letter from my
177
younger sister who, having heard my disease was terminal,

suggested I read Kathryn Kuhlman's book, I Believe in Miracles.
Two days later, lying in bed listening to a local radio station, I
heard an announcement concerning a convention of the Full
Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International to be held at
the Washington Hilton. The announcement meant nothing until
I heard the name Kathryn Kuhlman. She was to speak at an
afternoon meeting. Odd that I should hear that name twice in
one week.
God wasn't through yet. The next afternoon Pat
Vandeventer came by. “Jo, let's go to the Full Gospel Business
Men's Convention. Kathryn Kuhlman is going to speak
Thursday afternoon.”
Three times in one week couldn't be just a coincidence. Still I
resisted. “Sorry, Pat, I can't buy this woman-preacher stuff,” I
said.
“I thought you were broadminded,” Pat chided, her eyes
twinkling. “You're not broad, you're just Baptist.”
She was hitting me where it hurt, and I knew she was right.
I was judging this woman on the basis that I had never seen her
name in print in any of our Southern Baptist Convention
literature. I read it all, and never, not once, had I ever heard of a
Kathryn Kuhlman. I doubted if she was even of the Lord, since
Southern Baptist didn't seem to recognize her.
I looked at Pat. “Okay, you're on. My heart is just as hungry
as yours for the deep things of the Spirit. And if we can learn
something about God from somebody other than a Southern
Baptist, I'm ready.”
Pat picked me up Wednesday evening and we drove across
town to the Washington Hilton for the opening-night meeting of
the Full Gospel Business Men's Convention. In my life I had
been to many, many Baptist meetings, all the way from local
associational meetings to the huge annual Southern Baptist
178
Conventions. But this was unlike any meeting I had ever

attended. The keynote was joy, joy and freedom. More than
3,000 people were seated in the lush ballroom, and every one of
them seemed to be exploding with joy. I had never seen so
many smiling faces.
I was suspicious immediately. People didn't smile like that
at the Baptist meetings I had attended. In fact, they didn't even
smile like that at our church.
I had brought my tape recorder so I could capture what the
speaker had to say, but it was hopeless. The man in the seat next
to me was so happy he kept talking at the same time the speaker
was talking. Every other sentence that came from the pulpit he
answered by his shout of, “Praise the Lord,” or “Thank you,
Jesus.”
I had heard a few “Amens” back at Baylor or at the chapel
services at Southwestern Seminary, but never anything like this.
I was irritated. Why doesn't he shut up? I moaned inside.
I left the meeting confused. Could all this be real?
Were these people genuinely happy, or were they just
psychologically unbalanced? As for me, I felt a migraine
headache coming on and asked Pat to drive faster.
The migraine was with me when I woke up the next
morning. The psychiatrist had prescribed a series of drugs, one
pill every thirty minutes for three hours. The drugs made me
horribly sick to my stomach, but they did ease the pain in my
head. Always before, by the time I had taken the fifth pill the
pain would be easing, but I'd be in bed from sickness caused by
the drugs. I knew that Pat would have to go to the Kathryn
Kuhlman meeting alone.
But this time it was different. Strangely, the head pain went
away, and my body, if anything, seemed stronger. I was going
to be able to get to the miracle service after all.
179
Walter was president of the D.C. Baptist Pastors' Conference

that year. They were having a luncheon meeting, and just before
noon Walter called to check on my condition. I told him Pat and
I were going to attend the Kathryn Kuhlman meeting.
Walter was chuckling. “Several of the local Baptist pastors
are planning to attend,” he said. “Most of them are curious and
will probably have their coats pulled up around their faces in
hopes no one will recognize them.” I didn't have the heart to tell
him that I had just taken down my big fur hat, the one that
pulled down over my ears, and planned to wear it so no one
would recognize me, either.
I was in a daze all afternoon. We arrived at the hotel one and
a half hours late—but we found a parking place right in front,
not realizing that every parking lot and space within a four-
block radius was filled.
We wedged ourselves into the over-packed ballroom,
hoping to find seats near the back where we could sit and
observe. We thought we would have to remain standing at the
door when suddenly two ladies near the front got up and left
their seats. We were seated almost before we knew it. I kept my
fur hat pulled down as far as it would go, barely able to peek
out beneath the brim.
Miss Kuhlman was speaking. There was such a dynamic
hush in the room I could almost hear my own heart beating. Her
voice was soft, so very soft, almost indistinguishable at times. I
had to strain to hear every word. She wasn't saying anything
new or different. Everything she said I had heard Walter say a
hundred times from the pulpit of Parkway Baptist Church. But
there was a different spirit about this place, about her. People
had come expecting, and she was speaking with authority.
Although deeply moved, I was still skeptical.
There was a little blind girl behind me, and I began to pray
for her. “Lord, please touch that little girl.” I felt the tears
180
crowding through my closed eyelids. Suddenly we were all

standing as Miss Kuhlman began to sing:
Lord, I receive,
Lord, I receive.
All things are possible;
Lord, I receive.
“Lift your arms,” she said softly. “Lift your arms and receive
the Holy Spirit.”
“Lift my arms?” Suddenly I was a very proper Southern
Baptist pastor's wife again. What if someone saw me? One of
Walter's pastor friends? One of our church members? But I
couldn't help myself. My hands were already at half-mast, and
it was as if they were tied with puppet strings. Up, up—I
couldn't control them. I felt as if my body was being stretched
and that I was going to be pulled up on tiptoes. Never had I
stretched so far, reached so high. When my hands were all the
way up, I felt my palms turn upward and at the same time my
head dropped. I never felt such humility in all my life. I totally
forgot myself, who I was, where I was, and knew only that God
was literally touching me with a physical touch. It felt like warm
water pouring over me from my head to my feet.
Then I heard a voice coming down the aisle. “O God, the
glory on this one.” It was Miss Kuhlman. I didn't even know she
had left the platform.
She touched my wrist ever so lightly. I felt a weightlessness,
and it seemed I had floated off into space and was gliding
around the ceiling in the arms of Jesus. A man behind me kept
saying “Let me help you up.”
I ignored him, wondering what he was doing up there on
the ceiling with me. I just wanted to stay where I was, but he
wouldn't go away. His voice kept ringing in my ears. “Let me
help you up. Let me help you up.”
181
What do you mean, “up?” I thought. I'm already as high as I

can get, up here on the ceiling. Finally I opened my eyes. I was
flat on my back in the aisle, my hands stretched upward, my
lips saying over and over again, “Praise the Lord! Praise the
Lord!” I didn't care who saw or heard me.
On the way home, Pat and I relived every moment of the
meeting. It never occurred to me I might have been healed. I
hadn't gone for that, anyway. All I knew was that I had been
touched by God and that something inside me, deep inside, was
different.
“Let's not tell our husbands,” Pat said. “I don't believe
they'll understand.” I agreed. But I knew that in God's time
Walter would be ready to hear—and understand.
God's time came one week later. Walter had gotten up early
to attend a pastors' breakfast meeting to help plan a citywide
revival with Dr. Paul Rader, a Baptist evangelist. Dr. George
Schuler, who had written Overshadowed, was to be there. Walter,
as president of the Pastors' Conference, was the moderator.
I slept late that Saturday morning and was awakened by the
ringing of the phone. When Walter came home I was sitting on
the side of the bed talking. I glanced up as he came into the
bedroom. He paused and then walked out again. But he kept
coming back, in and out, and finally he interrupted, “When you
get off the phone I've got something to tell you.”
Walter never interrupted, and I realized he needed to talk—
quickly. I immediately cut off the phone conversation and
almost beat him into the kitchen. We sat at the breakfast table
and I waited, expectantly. “I need to share something with
you,” he said. “Something wonderful that happened this
morning.”
He tried to talk, but I saw him welling up inside. I had never
seen him like that before. Walter was solid, stable, very
dependable; he seldom showed any emotion. But now, every
182
time he opened his mouth to talk, his eyes filled with tears. He
finally reached over, took my hand, and just sat there, looking
out the kitchen window, waiting for his emotions to subside.
Finally he was able to speak, haltingly, with long pauses
between phrases as he fought to keep his voice under control.
“The room was filled with pastors,” he said softly, “and the
chairman of the revival planning committee was speaking. Then
this tall, white-haired man, Dr. Schuler, walked into the room.
His hair was like a coarse mane, surrounding his head like a
halo. But there was something else surrounding him, too—an
aura, a glow. Every pastor in that room stopped talking the
moment he entered. There was dead silence. We knew, every
one of us knew, that the Holy Spirit had come in with that man.
I finally spoke up and said, 'Why don't we all kneel and pray?'
“Immediately, every man in the room dropped to his knees.
I don't know what happened. All I know is there was something
in the very air of that room that commanded our worship.
Never have I felt the presence of God so overpowering.”
Walter finished talking, obviously still shaken from the
experience. Then it was my turn. As gently as I could, I told him
what had happened to me just one week before. He sat
listening, solemn and silent. I talked on, telling him how the
ladies had prayed, about the meeting, and finally of my
experience at the Washington Hilton when Kathryn Kuhlman
had touched my wrist.
He just sat there and. nodded, like he knew all about it. I
could see that God had prepared him that morning by visiting
those ministers with this shattering experience, so that no
matter what I said, Walter was ready to receive it as from the
Lord.
“Were you healed?” he asked.
“I don't know,” I grinned. “I haven't thought much about it.
All I know is the depression has been lifted. That horrible cloud
183
I lived under is gone. The need to be perfect is gone. The

inability to accept myself as imperfect in soul as well as body,
all this is gone. I am free.”
“But how are you feeling physically?” Walter probed.
“Wonderful,” I said. “I've stopped taking all my drugs and
antibiotics. For the first time in years I have new strength and
energy.”
“I believe you've been healed,” Walter said, his eyes filling
up with tears again. “I think you need to go back to the doctor
and have him check you out to make sure.”
The next week I was back in the doctor's office. There were
more X-rays and examinations.
Two days later I took my seat across from his desk.
“What's happened to you, Mrs. Gummelt?” he asked.
“I was hoping you'd ask,” I smiled. And I told him, in detail,
exactly what had happened.
For a long time he sat staring at the wall where his medical
certificates hung. Finally he picked up the manilla folder on his
desk. “I'm closing the book on your case,” he said. “You're
completely healed. There is no evidence of any kidney problem
at all, only scar tissue from past damage. If you ever have any
more problems with your kidneys, it will be a totally new case.”
I wanted to dance with joy, and later I did. No more drugs,
no more swelling, no more bleeding, no more weakness! Now I
could live a normal, healthy life as a wife and mother. I knew
how Lazarus must have felt when he walked out into the
sunshine, blinking. My life had been restored. To God be the
glory!
Within three months my weight climbed from ninety-seven
pounds to 157 pounds. For the first time in my life I had to go
on a diet.
184
Something else happened. By accepting the Holy Spirit into

my life, I was able to accept myself also, the way I was. My
tension was replaced with praise. The migraine headaches
disappeared. Not only had my body been restored, but my
mind had been renewed. Hallelujah!
Six months later I was able to go back to work. It was a new
Jo Gummelt who walked into the Sam Rayburn Building on
Capitol Hill. I had promised the Lord that if He let me go back
to work, I would give Him most of what I made. I went to work
for a congressman from Kentucky, willing to be “just a
secretary,” free from the compulsion to be at the top, to be
perfect. Within a short period all the girls in our office had
accepted Jesus as Savior, and half of them had been baptized in
the Holy Spirit. Never had I been so aware of the power of the
Holy Spirit to witness for Jesus.
About the time I started back to work, Walter, Gordon, and I
took a little vacation trip together. The first night out, I went
into the bathroom of our motel room to wash my hair. Walter
and Gordon sat in the bedroom watching TV. As I ran my hands
through the shampoo in my hair, I noticed something different
in the texture of my hair. I looked up from the wash basin,
brushed the soap out of my eyes, and sure enough, all around
the edge of my face was thick, new growth. I was growing new
hair. The wig could go back into the closet.
People began coming to me for counsel. Before, I was always
too weak to help them. Now I was able to share out of personal
experience with a God who demonstrates His love and power. I
began spending long hours on my knees in prayer, with the
Bible lying open before me. I literally wore indentations in the
carpet as the Lord taught me on my knees and gave me a
meaningful new prayer language. In the spring, about a year
after I had been healed, I had a slight urinary infection. I knew
that when God heals, He heals for good. But the old fear came
roaring back, and I ran to my doctor.
185
He examined me, then stood with his hands on his hips,

looking at me rather sternly. “You have a minor bladder
infection,” he said. “I told you when you were here last time
that if you ever had any more kidney problems it wouldn't be
the same disease. You've been healed.”
I left the doctor's office, rebuked but grateful. Washington
never seemed so beautiful. The cherry trees around the
reflecting basin were in full bloom. The grass on the mall was
lush green, and even the tulips were blooming at the Sam
Rayburn Building again. The white dome of the Capitol
sparkled against the backdrop of an azure-blue sky. People were
hurrying to their jobs. Horns were blowing and traffic was
thick. It was the same as it had been for years. But I was
different. Pentecost had come to me!
186
CHAPTER 11
11 ONCE I WAS DYING...
KEITH PURDUE
For the last several years Keith Purdue has traveled with pianist
Roger Williams, as the drummer in his band. A native of Albuquerque,
New Mexico, he studied music at the New England Conservatory under
the expert tympanist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He now makes
his home in a Los Angeles suburb.
I had just finished a full season as tympanist with the Mobile
(Alabama) Symphony Orchestra, and in the fall of 1968 I moved
to an apartment on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood,
California. However, before signing the contract that would
eventually place me as the drummer with Roger Williams' band,
I decided to have a few warts removed.
I opened the yellow pages of the phone book and picked out
the first dermatologist listed, a Dr. Samuel Ayres. His office was
on Wilshire Boulevard, just around the park.
The warts seemed to be common varieties and I didn't
expect any trouble. While in the doctor's office I casually
mentioned a mole on the inside of my right arm, between the
wrist and elbow, which had recently become red and inflamed.
Dr. Ayres took one look at it and said, “That has to come out.”
Dr. Ayres did a rather thorough excision of the area, taking a
very large sample of tissue. He explained this was a customary
precaution—in case the mole was malignant. I was to come back
in a week, after they had studied the biopsy.
When I returned, he ushered me into his private office and
asked me to have a seat. “Mr. Purdue, it seems we have a
problem. I sent the tissue sample to the three leading
187
pathologists in Southern California. Their biopsy report shows

every cell to be malignant.”
“Wow!” I whistled. “Now what happens?”
“I recommend immediate surgery and want to refer you to
Dr. Lewis Guiss, a highly qualified surgeon at the University of
Southern California and at St. Vincent's Hospital. He will be
able to offer an expert opinion as to how we should proceed.”
It was hard to comprehend. I had always pictured myself as
a carefree young bachelor, traveling all over the nation, playing
in various bands and symphony orchestras. Now it looked like
all that might change—even come to an end.
Dr. Guiss called the condition “black cancer,” the most
serious form, which spreads through the lymph nodes. He
hoped the malignancy was still confined to my arm, but stated it
could have already spread throughout my body, especially up
into my chest and neck. Immediate surgery was necessary.
“Is there a chance my arm will atrophy when you cut the
muscles?” I asked. A professional drummer without the full,
sensitive use of his arm is like a bird with only one wing.
“Well,” Dr. Guiss said, “we're using a new method in which
we don't cut the muscles themselves. We just cut the skin, pull
the muscles out of the way, and excise the lymph nodes. I don't
think you'll have to worry about losing the use of your arm.”
Somehow I didn't feel he was as optimistic about it as he
should be. Before I left the office I asked him twice more, and he
finally confessed that although they could save my arm, he was
fearful that the cancer had already spread throughout my body.
He gave me a 70 percent chance of survival—if it hadn't spread
too far.
I agreed to immediate surgery, but before the hospital
would admit me, I needed a three-hundred-dollar deposit. I
didn't have it. I called my mother in Albuquerque and asked for
188
Once I Was Dying...
the money. At first she thought I was kidding when I told her
about the cancer. Then she realized I wouldn't joke about a
thing like that. “I'm coming out to California,” she said.
“No, mom,” I argued. “There's no need for you to come out.
It would be too hard on you. Just stay where you are and send
me the money.”
The money arrived, but a week before I was to go to the
hospital, mom arrived, too. I didn't have a television in my
bachelor apartment. I had to spend five to six hours a day
practicing the drums, and that didn't leave much time to watch
the tube. Not knowing how long I would be in the hospital, and
not wanting mother to be trapped alone in my apartment
without some entertainment, I went down the street to a motel
and asked for a quiet room with a TV. Mom's not much of a TV
fan, but I knew she liked to watch the basketball games. They
would help her pass the time while I was in the hospital.
Mother told me later she was disappointed I didn't let her
stay in my apartment, but it all turned out to be God's plan.
The Sunday before I was to be admitted, mom woke up
about seven o'clock and went to the restaurant across the street
for some breakfast. Finding the restaurant closed, she went back
to her room and turned on her television. Just as the set warmed
up, even before the picture appeared, she heard the Words
“cancer operation.” It startled her, scaring her a bit. She had
heard enough about cancer lately without it coming over the
TV, too. She reached up and turned off the set.
Then she had second thoughts. “I wonder just what that was
all about?” she mused, and turned the set back on. She saw
Kathryn Kuhlman interviewing a little girl who had been healed
of leukemia. Mom listened, intrigued. She was getting ready to
write down Miss Kuhlman's Pittsburgh address, intending to
write to ask her to pray for me, when the announcer said, “To
those of you in the Los Angeles viewing area, Miss Kuhlman
189
will be appearing at the Shrine Auditorium this afternoon.”

That afternoon I took mom for a drive. “Have you ever
heard of Kathryn Kuhlman?” she asked.
“No, who is she?”
“Well, I think she's some kind of faith healer,” she
answered.
Since then I've found out that Miss Kuhlman is no faith
healer. In fact, she abhors the use of the term, emphasizing
always that she herself has no power to heal anyone. But my
mother's term “faith healer” set off some negative reactions in
me. My folks had been Baptists for a number of years, and then
we joined a Presbyterian church. As far as I was concerned,
anything that sounded like “divine healing” smacked of Elmer
Gantry, frauds who preyed on ignorant minds, and radio
“healers” who hollered into microphones. Actually, I was pretty
much disenchanted with the whole area of religion. It seemed
like everybody was hanging up a bunch of negative rules, trying
to legislate Christianity. I wanted no part of it and rather prided
myself on successfully playing the role of the intellectual
agnostic. If there was a God, it would be up to Him to prove
Himself to me. I wasn't out searching for Him.
However, as mom and I talked about Miss Kuhlman,
something began to grow inside me, like a tiny blade of grass
that pokes through the black asphalt of a parking lot. I
recognized it as hope—a ray of hope. Maybe, just maybe, there
was something to all this. Maybe I could be healed.
“Miss Kuhlman is at the Shrine Auditorium this afternoon,”
mom said. “Would you like to go and see her?”
“Sure, why not,” I said. “After all, I don't have anything to
lose.”
We arrived at the auditorium about three o'clock. When we
drove into the parking lot the attendant said, “I'll take your
190
Once I Was Dying...
money and let you park, but you're not going to get in.” He
pointed to the front of the auditorium. “See that crowd? The
service started more than an hour ago, and some of them have
been waiting since dawn and still couldn't get in.”
“Well, we've come this far, we might as well make a final
try,” I said. We paid our money and parked the car.
We walked to the front of the building and began wedging
our way through the mass of people. “It won't do any good,” a
man said. “I just tried the door, and it's locked. They lock the
doors from the inside after the auditorium is full. The only way
you can get a seat now is for somebody to leave early. Then they
let people in one at a time.”
We thanked him but continued to edge our way through the
crowd until we got to the door. I pulled the handle, and the
door opened. Mom and I quickly squeezed through, and it
closed behind us. I heard the lock fall into place.
I didn't occur to me at the time that the opening door was
the second miracle of the day, the first being when mom just
happened to turn on the TV that morning.
We walked through the lobby and stood in one of the
tunnels leading into the huge auditorium. Even though the
room was packed with people, almost eight thousand of them, it
was filled with a reverent hush. An usher stepped up to us and
whispered, “If you'll wait just a minute, I'll get you a couple of
seats together.”
I nodded my head and he moved off, almost tiptoing so as
to keep from disturbing the atmosphere of worship. Looking
back, I see this was the third miracle; for even if there was a
spare seat in that jam-packed auditorium, there couldn't be two
of them together. But a few minutes later we sat down side by
side underneath the balcony on the middle left side. Perfect
seats!
191
There was a peace in the auditorium. Yet as I sat quietly,

listening to Miss Kuhlman conclude her remarks, I also felt
tension. It was the same tension I had felt in the Midwest on hot
summer afternoons just before an electrical storm—the feeling
of charged air, the impression of molecules dancing through the
atmosphere ready to come together in one surging frenzy that
will suddenly explode with power.
Miss Kuhlman was walking back and forth across the stage.
She wasn't screaming or yelling, as I had thought she would be.
She wasn't even preaching, just talking. She said, “I don't want
anyone to come up here on the stage until you have been
healed.”
Amazing, I thought to myself. I had pictured her slapping
people on the forehead, vibrating and shaking, screaming
commands for the Lord to heal some poor wretch. It wasn't that
way, but people started coming forward, testifying that they
had been healed while they were sitting in their seats.
Many of them fell to the floor as Miss Kuhlman prayed for
them. I surmised they had been bought off prior to the service—
surely nobody in his right mind would fall flat on his back like
that. Suddenly, in the midst of all this, something happened to
me. I did the one thing I bragged I would never do: I lost
control.
I'm not an emotional person. I'm very cynical, skeptical, but
I was also desperate. Cynicism, skepticism, and desperation
don't make good partners. So I began to cry.
Something else happened. I discovered I couldn't move my
arms or legs. More surprising still, it didn't bother me to sit
there paralyzed. In fact, it was altogether a very wonderful
feeling. Mom later told me that Miss Kuhlman said someone
was being healed of cancer, but I didn't hear it. As a matter of
fact, I didn't hear much of anything during this time. When the
wonderful feeling passed, a new feeling, a conviction, took its
192
Once I Was Dying...
place—a deep conviction that I no longer had cancer.

I had not said a word to mom, but she knew something had
happened to me. She turned and whispered, “Do you want to
go up on the stage?”
I did not want to go up on stage. Yet before I knew it, I was
on my feet, mom beside me.
An usher approached us. “Have you been healed?” he
asked.
Mom answered, certainty ringing in her voice. “Yes, he's
been healed of cancer.”
There was no outward indication of my healing—just a
deep, inner feeling. The type of cancer I had didn't cause pain, at
least not in the early stage it was at that time. Since there was no
pain to take away, I really couldn't prove that I had been healed.
But I had this deep, inner feeling of wholeness.
The usher looked at me and asked the question again.
“Have you been healed?”
I realized I was lurching as I walked, and my words were
slurred. “Yes, I think so,” I managed to choke out.
Then I was on stage. Miss Kuhlman was coming toward me.
“Oh, how wonderful,” she said—and reached out to pray.
The next thing I knew, I was flat on my back, looking up at the
high ceiling of the Shrine Auditorium. My hands were stretched
above my head. I saw they were gnarled, twisted, and curled
up.
My first thought was, “Oh, my God! I'm paralyzed! I've
traded my cancer for some kind of horrible paralysis.” Then
there was an electric tingling all through the upper part of my
body, and I thought I was having a heart attack. But it felt good,
and finally I quit worrying and just lay there, in perfect peace.
Eventually, someone helped me to my feet. Mom and I made
193
our way back to our seats and then out of the auditorium.
Several minutes after leaving the building, I was able to open
my hands and move my arms with ease.
As we drove back to my apartment, mom remarked about
how much younger I looked. I told her I felt sort of happy, like a
little kid again. It was almost like being born all over.
“Do you want to go ahead with the operation?” she asked.
“I might as well,” I said. But inside I knew it wasn't really
necessary. Not anymore. I entered the hospital Thursday. My
operation was scheduled for 7:30 the next morning. They
prepared me for surgery, painted me with a lot of red goop, put
some glucose in my left arm, and gave me some kind of
anesthetic. The next thing I knew, I was hearing a nurse say,
“You're in the recovery room now.”
Then I was back in my own room. Mom was there. Dad was
there, too, in from Albuquerque. I looked down at my arm and
saw it was bandaged in a splint. I kept wondering if it was
paralyzed.
Several days later the doctor came in to remove the splint
and stitches. “Well, we have a good report,” he said. “The
biopsy was totally negative. We found no malignancy
whatsoever.”
I wasn't surprised, but needed to question him. “I thought
the first biopsy showed total malignancy.”
He shrugged. “It did, but when you got in there, everything
was fine. I don't think you're going to have any trouble at all.”
The formerly malignant cells had become benign—the bad
had become good. It was an outer manifestation of something
else that had happened in the far deeper areas of my life. I had
been willing to believe if I could just be shown. I had been
shown, in no uncertain terms.
There are still many things about God which I do not
194
Once I Was Dying...
understand. But I do recognize Him as God—a God of love and

power.
Recently I read a story in the Bible about a blind man who
was touched by Jesus and received his sight. Later, when
questioned by the religionists of the day about who Jesus was,
he answered with what I feel is one of the most profound
statements in the Gospels. He said simply, “Who He is, I'm not
sure. But one thing I am sure of. I used to be blind; now I can
see.”
So don't come to me asking me to give you theological
answers. I don't have any. All I know is that one day I had the
kind of cancer that kills you in a hurry, and the next day I had
none. Once I was dying, now I am alive. Of that I am sure.
195
CHAPTER 12
12 LIVING TEMPORARILY
MARVEL LUTON
Married for thirty-five years, the Lutons live near the Mexican
border in Chula Vista, California. Their two married children live
close-by. Marvel owned and operated a small beauty salon, and her
husband Clarence worked as a Monotype operator for the San Diego
Union Tribune. Although raised a Methodist, Mrs. Luton joined her
husband in the Lutheran church soon after they were married. Since
moving from Michigan to California eight years ago, they have both
been active in their local Missouri Synod Lutheran church, and
Clarence has served as president of the congregation.
It was dusk, with the burnt-orange remnant of a June sunset
fading out over the Pacific Ocean as I parked my car in front of
our house and walked up the sidewalk. I was exhausted after a
heavy day of work in my beauty salon. Strange, I thought, that
although Clarence's car was in the driveway, there were no
lights turned on in the house.
I opened the door and walked into the semi-dark living
room. On the far side I could hear the parakeets chirping from
their cages on the organ bench near the window. Clarence was
lying on the sofa. At first I thought he was asleep, but then I
heard him moaning softly. I hurried across the room to kneel
beside him. “What's wrong?” I asked.
“I'm sick,” he said. He struggled to sit up, but his head fell
back on the cushioned arm of the sofa. “I've vomited until
there's nothing left but dry heaves. My insides feel like they're
on fire.”
I put my hand on his forehead. He was burning up with
197
fever. “When did this start?”

“On the way home from work.” He moaned and twisted on
the sofa, his face creased with pain. “Some of us in the shop
went out for lunch today. All I had was a hamburger and a glass
of milk, but the hamburger tasted funny. I didn't think much
about it until I got sick. I think I've got some kind of food
poisoning.”
“I'd better get you to the hospital,” I said, heading for the
telephone. Dr. Elliot, our family doctor, met us at the emergency
room of the Paradise Valley Hospital in National City. Tests
showed toxic poison in Clarence's bloodstream and kidneys. He
was put on the critical list, where he remained for five days.
Gradually his strength returned, but even so, it was almost four
months before he was strong enough to go back to work. “We
came mighty close to losing him,” the doctor said.
Although Clarence said he felt fine and was able to return to
his job at the newspaper, I could tell that he never did get back
to normal.
Ten months later, in April, my mother telephoned me. She
had been concerned about the arthritis in my hands. “Marvel,
some friends have been telling me about a woman who holds
miracle services in Los Angeles. I understand that God often
heals people at those meetings. One is scheduled this Sunday at
the Shrine Auditorium. Would you like to go? Maybe God will
heal your arthritis.”
Clarence and I had been arguing over some petty matter and
I was looking for an excuse to get out of the house. Not telling
Clarence where I was going, I drove with my mother to Los
Angeles, enjoyed the service, and returned home that evening.
Later that night, standing at the kitchen sink, I noticed
something different about my hands. The swelling was gone—
and so was the pain. Clarence was sitting at the table drinking a
glass of milk. “Clarence, look at my hands!” I exclaimed.
198
Living Temporarily
He came over to the sink. “Say, the swelling is all gone. Did
you find a new doctor?”
Instead of answering his question, I asked, “Do you believe
in miracles?”
“Well, sure,” he said. “But what's that got to do with this?” I
told him where I had been and what had obviously happened.
He was interested enough to go with me the next month to the
meeting in the Shrine. In July our pastor and his wife also
attended. He was enthusiastic about the meeting, even
suggesting that we should start having healing services in our
Lutheran church. Clarence and I were a little skeptical about
that. I enjoyed the services in Los Angeles, and I was grateful for
my healing, but I had some misgivings about changing our
methods in the Lutheran church. However, our pastor remained
excited. “In fact,” he said, “I want the anointing of the Holy
Spirit myself.”
Almost a year to the day from his first sickness, Clarence
took me out to eat in a small Chinese restaurant on the San
Diego Bay. We both worked hard all the time, and such a treat
was rare. We enjoyed the food and the atmosphere of leisure.
About two o'clock the next morning, however, Clarence woke
me as he stumbled to the bathroom, violently ill. By the time he
got back to bed it was obvious that this was not just a routine
upset stomach. He was desperately sick, with extreme pain,
fever, and a bloated stomach. Suspecting more food poisoning, I
called the doctor immediately.
He sent us to the emergency room of the hospital, where
they took a blood sample for testing. This time, however,
Clarence's test didn't show any poison in his system, and the
nurse called our doctor to give him their report. He came
immediately, and since the hospital was full, gave Clarence a
shot for pain, and told me to take him home, but to have him
back at his office promptly at 9:30 A.M.
199
Clarence looked at the nurses, then at me, shaking his head.

“Something's wrong inside me,” he said. “Can't I stay here?”
“I'm sorry, Mr. Luton,” one of the nurses said. “But there are
no beds available, and you can't remain here in the emergency
room. That pain shot will take effect in a few minutes and you'll
feel okay. Let your wife take you home.”
He agreed, reluctantly. There was no sleep for either of us
the rest of the night.
Mike, our son who lives close-by, agreed to take Clarence to
the doctor's office at 9:30 A.M. I left for work a couple of hours
earlier. Since my beauty salon was right next door to the
doctor's office, I expected to hear from Clarence as soon as he
finished his examination. But I heard nothing. After lunch I
called the office and talked with the nurse.
“Mr. Luton was extremely bloated when he came in this
morning,” she said, “and his skin was jaundiced. Dr. Elliot took
him right into one of the examining rooms and put him on IV.
About noon he put him in the hospital.”
Because the Paradise Valley Hospital was full, Clarence was
a patient in Bay General Hospital in Chula Vista. His problem:
pancreatitis, infection of the pancreas. The bloating slowly
subsided, and in about two weeks most of the yellow color was
gone from his eyes and skin, so he was allowed to come home.
Very weak, hardly able to get out of bed, he continued to
lose weight. In less than a month he dropped from 209 to 162
pounds. During this time the severe pain returned, along with
more bloating. I took him back to the doctor.
X-rays revealed a large mass in the area of the pancreas. So
once again Clarence went back into the hospital, this time for
exploratory surgery.
Our pastor was with me when Clarence came out of surgery.
He had talked to Clarence just moments before he went into the
200
Living Temporarily
operating room. Clarence had talked about dying and had told
him that he was ready to go. Why would Clarence talk about
dying? After the pastor left, I began wondering if he knew
something he was not telling me.
It was eight o'clock that night before the surgeon telephoned
me. “Your husband survived the surgery,” he assured me. “But
I can't tell you much more. His pancreas is one solid tumor.”
“Couldn't you remove it?” I asked, realizing I knew very
little about surgery.
“No,” he answered. “We were afraid to touch it—even for a
biopsy—for fear he would bleed to death on the operating table.
However, we are analyzing the drainage from a large abscess
and should be able to tell in a short time if the tumor is
malignant or benign.”
“Please, doctor,” I said, feeling a tightness around my
mouth. “I need to hear you say it in words I can understand.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line.
“We've left some drainage tubes in your husband's side,”
the doctor said slowly. “But the best I can tell you, Mrs. Luton,
is that he is living temporarily. That's all.”
That night I sat alone by Clarence's bed. Besides the two
tubes coming from his side and disappearing under the bed into
some kind of suction machine, there was a tube in his mouth
that went down his throat, another in his nose, and a third in
one arm. It was a long, lonely night. I sat thinking of the ups
and downs of our many years together. My grandfather had
been a Methodist minister, and my roots were deep. But
Clarence's mother felt that if you weren't a Lutheran you had no
chance of making it to Heaven. I felt resentment when
Clarence's mother pressured me into leaving my Methodist
church and joining him in the Lutheran church. But to please
Clarence, to keep peace in the family, and just in case my
201
mother-in-law was right about Heaven, I joined the Lutheran

church. That was thirty-five years ago, back in Michigan. Since
then, most of my bitterness towards his mother had faded, and
it seemed we were finally settling down to face our remaining
years in contentment here in California. But now this.
I looked at Clarence lying so motionless, both arms strapped
to the rails of the bed so he couldn't thrash and pull out the
tubes. There was constant whirring and hissing of the oxygen
and the pump under the bed, and strange odors.
Clarence moved his head slightly, opened his eyes, and saw
me beside him. He nodded and smiled in recognition before
drifting back to sleep. I sat looking at one of his hands. The tip
of his thumb was missing, cut off in an industrial accident many
years before. I remembered how I had fussed at him then,
telling him that God was trying to say something to him and he
was too stubborn to listen. Now I wished I hadn't said such a
thing.
It seemed like our life together had been a constant battle,
filled with arguments and misunderstandings. Now all our
differences faded into oblivion. All I knew was that I loved him
and didn't see how I could live without him. “Dear God, please
don't let him die.” I buried my face in my hands so the nurses,
constantly coming and going, wouldn't see me crying.
Outside the room I could hear the chatter and laughter of
nurses going off duty. How could they just walk out of this
house of sickness and death and forget about those who just
moments before depended on them for life? I wanted to cry out,
“How dare you be happy? Don't you know my husband is
hovering between life and death?”
The elevator door slipped shut on their laughter. Now only
the soft hiss of the oxygen, the whir of the suction machine, and
the thumping of my own heart remained as I sat alone, waiting.
There was a soft knock at the door. One of the nurses from
202
Living Temporarily
the earlier shift entered silently and closed the door behind her.
“I thought you had gone home,” I said, glancing at my
watch. “It's past eleven.”
“I got as far as the parking lot and God told me to come
back,” she said gently.
“God?”
“I won't try to explain now,” she smiled sweetly. “But
would you mind if I prayed with your husband before I left?”
“Why no, I don't mind,” I said, standing up. But inwardly I
wondered. It was strange. I had never heard of nurses praying
for patients before, and certainly not when they were off duty.
Yet this one had turned around and deliberately come back.
She reached out and gently put her hand on Clarence's
shoulder. “Lord Jesus,” she said softly, “my friend is so sick.
Only you can help him. Please touch his body and heal it, for
your glory. Amen.”
She looked at me, and her face was wet. Smiling faintly, she
was out the door. I heard the soft squeak-squeak of her rubber
shoes against the polished tile as she walked down the long
corridor.
I moved over to Clarence's bed and noticed a tear, glistening
on the stainless steel bar of the bed rail. I started to wipe it
away, but decided to let it stay. I want it to remain there forever,
I thought, a reminder of that sweet young girl who cared
enough to return.
I stayed with Clarence until three in the morning, and then
returned the next morning with Mike and our daughter, Janet,
who lived up in Lakewood. Dr. Elliot met us outside Clarence's
room at ten o'clock. He told us essentially the same thing the
surgeon had said over the phone the night before. “Clarence is
very, very ill. He can't possibly live because of the tumor in his
pancreas.”
203
“Is the tumor malignant?” Mike asked.

“We don't know. We can't tell at this time, since we couldn't
do a biopsy. However, that is immaterial at this stage, because a
benign tumor can kill, too, if it attacks a vital organ. And it looks
like this is one of those cases.”
“How long will he live?” Mike asked.
“We're trying to keep him alive day by day. That's all we can
promise you,” the doctor said.
Two days later I received a phone call from an old friend,
Mary Turpin. Mary used to work in a doctor's office, and I had
often fixed her hair at the beauty salon.
“Marvel,” she said, “I know this sounds strange, but I
wonder if you could meet me up at the hospital. I want to see
Clarence.”
It was late evening and I knew visiting hours were already
over, yet I sensed a note of urgency in Mary's voice, so I agreed
to meet her. Mary was in the hall outside Clarence's door when I
arrived. She was a middle-aged woman with a soft, gentle face,
carrying a large Bible in her hand.
“God told me to call you,” she said. “He told me to come up
here and read a passage of scripture to Clarence, and then pray
for him to be healed.”
God had told her to call? This was something new to me.
Although I had been active in church affairs all my life, I had
met very few people—except for some pastors and missionaries
—who claimed to have heard from God. Yet here in this
hospital I had talked to two of them.
Mary read from one of the Psalms and then gently laid her
hand on Clarence's arm and prayed for him. Clarence was still
drugged, but when Mary finished, he opened his eyes and said,
“That's nice. The pastor has been in twice today. The last time
he gave me Communion. I don't mind dying. I'm ready to go.”
204
Living Temporarily
“I'm not here to prepare you for death,” Mary said softly.
“I'm here to pray that God will restore your life.”
“That's nice, too,” Clarence said, his lips cracked and his
voice barely audible because of the tubes. “A little Catholic
nurse came in a few minutes ago and took my blood pressure.
Then she prayed for me. Sure are a lot of people praying for
me.”
And the number of people praying continued to grow. A
week later, when I came in to see Clarence, he told me that one
of the nurses had just left. “She belongs to an Assembly of God
church,” he said. “She comes in here several times a day and
prays for me. This morning she told me she had a dream about
me last night. She said she woke up at 2:30 A.M. and prayed for
me. She uses a special 'prayer language' at times like this, and
she said she prayed nearly all the rest of the night.”
“At 2:30 in the morning?” I shook my head, wondering why
she prayed then instead of in the daytime when it would be
more convenient.
“Yeah,” Clarence said. “And I woke up at 2:30, too. I
thought I was dying, the pains were so bad. But in an hour or so
they went away, and I feel a little better this morning.”
Even so, I could tell that Clarence's condition was
deteriorating. The stitches in his incision were not healing, and
the drainage from the tubes in his side was continuous. The
opening around the drain had not healed either, and often the
fluid would ooze out around the tubes. The drainage was so
strong, corrosive alkaline, that it had to be wiped off his skin
immediately or it would eat into it. The dressings were
expensive and had to be changed several times an hour. And
the odor... The doctors said it was normal in cases like this, and
that was why they kept him in a room by himself. No other
patient could tolerate the horrible smell.
On occasions his fever would skyrocket and the nurses
205
would have to work furiously, bathing him in alcohol and

packing his body with ice to get the fever down. It was the same
nurses who kept coming in to pray. Catholic, Assembly of God,
Church of God, white and black—they would slip into his room,
hold his hand, and say, “Mr. Luton, may I pray for you?”
Despite the nurses' prayers, Clarence had been in the
hospital for eighteen days, his condition getting steadily worse.
He began to suffer from what the doctors called hospitalitis,
extreme depression caused by the fear of facing death in the
hospital.
“He'd be better off at home,” Dr. Shaw said. “We've done all
we can for him here. He will be happier in familiar
surroundings.”
Mary Turpin agreed to come as a practical nurse, caring for
him during the day while I was at work. We rented one of the
suction pumps to attach to the tubes in his side, stocked up on
an enormous quantity of surgical dressings, and brought him
home in an ambulance. The doctor told me to watch Clarence's
vital signs and to let him know if there was any change in his
condition.
The incisions remained open, draining. The pump was
sucking off about half a gallon of liquid a day, and there was
still a lot of drainage around the tubes. The entire house reeked
with the odor.
Three weeks after Clarence came home, the tubes stopped
draining and his fever shot up. I called the doctor.
“Listen to me carefully,” he said. “This is going to be
difficult, but you can do it. Take both of those tubes and gently
pull them out of his side eight inches, then tape them back to his
body.”
I followed his instructions, and the tubes began draining
again. But sometime during the night, the tubes came out the
206
Living Temporarily
rest of the way, and when we awoke, the opening in his side
was draining freely without the tubes. It was a horrible,
foulsmelling, heavy liquid, containing lumps of what looked
like decomposed flesh. I took him back to the hospital, where
they gave him another shot. It was obvious the doctors held no
hope for him whatsoever. Even though they carefully stayed
away from the word, we knew he had cancer and could not live
much longer.
I was taking him back to the hospital a couple of times a
week for outpatient treatment. When I complained to the doctor
about the drainage, he scolded me. “Mrs. Luton, you are going
to have to accept the fact that your husband is going to have
upsets like this.”
One evening the phone rang at the house. It was a salesman
wanting to know if I was interested in buying a cemetery lot.
For a moment I thought the call was a prank, but then I knew it
was real. I said yes, I was interested, but preferred that the
salesman come by my shop after work rather than to our home.
Three days later I picked out two lots in Glen Abbey
Cemetery. I also picked out caskets and arranged for the type of
funeral. Then I signed a contract and made a deposit. There was
nothing else to do but take care of Clarence while I could—and
pray. I didn't know it at the time, but often God's answers to our
prayers come in seemingly natural ways.
In November, shortly before Thanksgiving, my mother
called. “Have you considered taking Clarence back to the
Shrine?” she asked. I confessed I had thought about it but hadn't
done anything. She insisted that I take him.
Early Sunday morning, just four days before Thanksgiving, I
got Clarence ready for the trip, surrounding him with pillows
for the two-hour drive to Los Angeles, since the slightest bump
or jar sent pain through his body. My mother went with us, and
we arrived at the auditorium, located just a block off the Harbor
207
Freeway, about 10:30 A.M.

We helped Clarence into a wheelchair and took him around
to the side door where the other wheelchair patients were lined
up. After a little while someone opened the door and let us in.
We found seats in the wheelchair section about six seats from
the aisle.
Clarence kept complaining of extreme pain, no doubt
aggravated by the long drive. When the service started and Miss
Kuhlman came on stage, neither of us was able to pay much
attention. Clarence was constantly twisting in his seat, trying to
get comfortable, occasionally letting out an involuntary groan.
In the midst of this activity, I heard Miss Kuhlman say,
“Cancer.”
I looked up. She was pointing down into the wheelchair
section. “Stand up and claim your healing,” she said. I looked at
Clarence. He was staring intently at Miss Kuhlman, but made
no move and continued to sit in his chair.
Miss Kuhlman seemed insistent, “Please stand up and
receive your healing.” Then we noticed a woman, obviously a
personal worker, walking back and forth, up and down the aisle
near our section. “What's she looking for?” Clarence whispered.
Before I could answer, she came back to our row, and
leaning all the way over the other five seats, looked at me and
asked, “What is the matter with you?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I brought my husband to be healed.”
“Can you walk?” she asked Clarence.
“Well, if I have some help,” he said.
“Then come out here in the aisle, sir,” she said.
Clarence looked at me questioningly. “Go ahead,” I
whispered. “They'll help you stand up.”
Slowly he rose to his feet. The people sitting between us and
208
Living Temporarily
the aisle helped him out, their hands supporting him as he

shuffled past them.
“What's the matter with you?” the woman worker asked.
“Oh, a lot of things,” Clarence answered. “I had an
operation on my pancreas.”
“Do you have cancer?” she said.
Clarence shook his head, but the personal worker was
looking at me. I nodded my head up and down vigorously.
“Come with me,” the personal worker said, and walked
beside Clarence, half supporting him, as they made their way
toward the back of the auditorium.
Minutes later I saw Clarence and another woman coming
down the aisle toward the platform. Already I could see
something had happened to him. He was no longer dragging
his feet; his head was up and his step confident.
“What's this?” Miss Kuhlman asked, as the woman brought
him to the platform.
“Miss Kuhlman, this is the man who was healed of cancer in
the wheelchair section.”
“Were you in pain when you arrived here?” she asked, her
face vibrant.
“Yes ma'am, I sure was,” Clarence answered, beaming with
joy.
“But you aren't now, are you?”
“No ma'am, I'm sure not.”
“When did it go away?”
“It left just when you pointed down there and said,
'Somebody has just been healed of cancer.' Only I didn't know I
had cancer. But my wife knew, and I guess God knew, too.”
“I guess He did,” Miss Kuhlman laughed. She was just like a
209
small child who had discovered a favorite toy under the

Christmas tree. Then she reached out to Clarence and prayed for
him. Moments later, he staggered backward and fell t the floor. I
had seen people falling in Kathryn Kuhlman's services before
and had wondered what caused them to fall. This time I knew it
was the power of God.
When Clarence returned to his seat, I asked him, “Have you
been healed?”
“I believe I have,” he said, still moving his legs and pushing
on his stomach with his hands.
I was certain he had been healed. I could tell it by the new
color in his face, and the new strength and vitality in his
movements. He was a completely different man.
After the service he pushed his wheelchair to one side and
walked to the car. “I feel like a new man,” he said. “In fact, you
women drivers scared me on the way up here. I think I will
drive home.” Because it had been almost six months since he
had driven a car, we all protested. But he was determined, and
got behind the wheel.
If we scared him driving north to Los Angeles, he almost
frightened us to death driving back to San Diego.
“Why are you driving so fast?” I asked.
“I want to get back home in time for the evening service at
church,” he said. “I want to walk in there and tell all those
people who have been praying for me that Jesus has healed
me.” And that's exactly what he did.
Four days later, Clarence sat down to the first solid meal he
had eaten since June. It was Thanksgiving Day, the most
meaningful one of our lives.
The following week Clarence went back to the doctor. After
a thorough examination, Dr. Elliot simply shook his head. “It's a
medical miracle!” he said. “There is no other explanation.”
210
Living Temporarily
We waited a month, and then Clarence returned to the

surgeon for another physical examination. The surgeon said,
“Mr. Luton, I can't find anything wrong with you.”
Well, they could call it a medical miracle if they wanted to.
But it's far more than that to us. It's God's miracle. The medical
people said he was dying. Only God could take him off the
temporary status and give him life.
211
CHAPTER 13
13 FACE TO FACE WITH A MIRACLE
LORRAINE GAUGUIN, REPORTER
After an article of mine about Kathryn Kuhlman was
published, she wrote a letter inviting me to a miracle service at
the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. “Together we will
continue to be amazed at what God hath wrought,” she said.
So when I attended the Shrine service, the word was out that
I was a writer. “Interview us,” begged some of the kids in the
balcony who had just returned from Expo '72. They wanted to
tell the world about their commitment to Christ. “The news
media don't seem to care,” one of the kids lamented. “If we
were smoking dope and causing riots, they'd make a movie
about us.”
“It's a sad commentary on life today,” I agreed.
“But things are changing,” a middle-aged man sitting in the
next row joined in. “Recently I accepted Jesus Christ as my
Savior, and now people listen to me who never used to listen.
People are beginning to listen.”
It's true. People are listening, tuning in. Christian books are
selling as they have never sold before. Sales are up 25 to 40
percent. Kathryn Kuhlman's services fill a fathomless void in
today's pressurized, chaotic world. People are searching for
somewhere to go with their deep, unrequited longings. They
know something is wrong but can't put their finger on it. Many
are shattered spiritually and physically, with fragmented
marriages and degraded self-images. They have lost their
personal integrity. Time is running out, and they crowd into the
Shrine Auditorium to hear about Jesus, mercy, the forgiveness
213
of sins, and hope.

The place was jammed. The young and the old (no
generation gap here), black and white (not one reference to
politics or racism)—seven thousand happy people overflowing
with joy. The air was charged with emotion and reverence. I
could feel it. Everyone who could stand rose to his feet as the
mighty choir boomed and Kathryn Kuhlman entered. They
sang, “How Great Thou Art,” seven thousand pairs of arms
stretching heavenward. I could see the gladness on their faces,
as pain was momentarily thrust aside.
Each miracle service offers something different to everyone
present. Some receive miraculous healings, others invite Jesus
into their hearts. Rare is the person who walks away empty
without having been touched in some particular way. The
special blessing for me, at this service, was meeting a living
miracle—Judy Lewis, whom Miss Kuhlman introduced on
stage.
Judy had attended the service the preceding month in a
wheelchair. She had been brought from Houston by her
employer, Raymond McDermott, and a Houston police captain,
John LeVrier.
“Judy wasn't healed during the service,” Miss Kuhlman told
the audience. “But following the service, these two men pushed
her backstage. While they were praying, with their backs to
Judy, she rose from the wheelchair and not only walked, but
ran.” Miss Kuhlman laughed. “You folks had all gone home. We
had our own miracle service backstage right there in my
dressing room.”
My curiosity was aroused. I had heard of the lame walking,
but only during Jesus' days on earth. Was it still happening?
Was Jesus still healing people, even those confined to
wheelchairs? If only I could meet Judy Lewis in person, I
thought. If only I could come face to face with a miracle. Then I
214
Face to Face with a Miracle
would know for sure.

The following morning one of Miss Kuhlman's aides
telephoned me. I could hardly believe my ears. Sensing I was
somewhat of a skeptic, Miss Kuhlman wanted me to meet and
interview Judy Lewis. Of course I wanted to meet Judy!
It was a sweltering, humid August day as I drove from the
San Fernando Valley over the hills to the Century Plaza Hotel. I
telephoned from the lobby and Judy answered. Yes, she and Mr.
McDermott were expecting me. I saw her from a distance—a
tall, thin, angular woman in her mid-forties, limping briskly
down the hall. She was wearing a bright yellow pants suit, and
her long red hair was held back by barrettes. As she approached
she whacked her hip. “This hardware holds me back some, but
I'm coming,” she said jokingly in an accent that was pure
Houston, Texas.
We made ourselves comfortable in the living room of the
hotel suite as she introduced me to Raymond McDermott, a
successful middle-aged attorney from Houston.
“I still walk with a slight limp because of the steel rods and
pins in my hip and thigh,” she said. “But you should have seen
me a month ago. I couldn't walk at all.”
The healing had occurred just thirty days before, and Judy
was still all but overcome by the fact that she could walk again.
All the agonizing pain and embarrassment her injuries caused
were gone for good. She whipped color snapshots of herself
from her handbag: in a wheelchair a month ago in front of the
Century Plaza Hotel on her way to the Shrine Auditorium, in
her wheelchair in Miss Kuhlman's dressing room before the
miracle service began. Then she joyfully pointed to the color
snaps that were taken immediately after her healing. She was
doing exercises on the hotel veranda!
“Girl, I guess everybody at the hotel thought I was crazy.
But I was so excited I didn't care. I kept going up to total
215
strangers and telling them that a miracle had happened to me—

to me!”
During our conversation Mr. McDermott sat quietly in his
chair, smiling. I asked him if he had really believed Judy would
ever walk again. “Oh yes,” he declared quickly. “Absolutely. I
knew it would happen. Because of this girl's faith, I made my
own surrender to Christ.”
Judy was still chattering, pointing to the snapshots,
whacking her hip and exclaiming, “There's no more pain. A few
weeks ago I couldn't touch this thigh. The pain was
unendurable. But look! No pain!”
Eventually she simmered down and related the whole story
—her years of pain and misery, the nightmare her life had
become.
It all began early one May morning in 1952. It was 7:15 as
she bowed her head in prayer over the steering wheel of her
brand-new car. A lifelong Baptist, she began each day in prayer
before going to work as a secretary in downtown Houston. She
especially thanked God for the love of her mother and her
husband Lester, to whom she had been happily married for ten
years.
Traffic was heavy that morning as she stopped for a red
light. Glancing in the rearview mirror, she saw a sixteen wheel
truck, loaded with chickens, bearing down on her with
tremendous speed. It was too late for her to move out of the
way. There was a sickening crunch, then darkness. The truck,
traveling at more than sixty miles an hour, had totally
demolished her car, ramming it into the auto in front and
starting a chain reaction that involved five vehicles. Judy was
thrown to the floor of her demolished car, seriously injured and
unconscious.
A nurse in the crowd kept bystanders from moving her until
the ambulance arrived.
216
Two weeks later Judy awakened, slowly and painfully, in a

sterile hospital room. Her neck and both legs were in traction.
Vaguely she heard a voice she didn't recognize: “I'm afraid she
will never walk again.”
She couldn't believe what she was hearing. She was twenty-
eight years old and had never been sick a day in her life. What
had happened to her? Why couldn't she move? She just couldn't
be finished at twenty-eight. She began struggling on the bed,
and suddenly she felt a cool sensation on her brow and a voice
—which to this day she insists was the voice of Jesus—
comforting her: “Judy, it will be all right.”
“Only the strength of that promise kept me going,” she told
me, as she remembered the agonies that followed. Her injuries
were listed as four ruptured discs (lumbar and cervical), severe
neck injury, and severe damage to the central nervous system.
For two years she was in and out of the hospital. Eventually
she walked, but in extreme pain and always dragging her left
leg. With her job gone and her health deteriorating, she was
forced to stay at home. Her life began to center around the three
most important things: her mother; her husband Lester, who
had stuck with her throughout the entire nightmare; and her
Bible.
There were other aspects to Judy's life that had not been
there before—the constant rounds of hospitals and doctors'
offices. She was allergic to pain-killing medication and sleeping
pills, so she suffered without relief and tossed with insomnia.
Often she prowled the house at night like some ghostly,
haunting specter, dragging one leg, hanging onto chairs and the
walls while trying not to awaken her husband. With each step
her ruptured discs caused her to grimace in extreme pain.
Judy tried to adjust to her changed pattern of living. The
Bible became very precious to her as she called on God for daily
strength. At least she had her mother and her husband.
217
Then, in September, 1960, while Lester was installing a

central heating and air-conditioning system in a house, he came
in contact with a high-voltage wire. He screamed for someone
to cut off the power, but before anyone could get to the switch,
he was electrocuted.
Then, before the day was over, Judy received a call from the
hospital where her mother was a cancer patient. “Come now,”
the doctor said. “Your mother is dying.”
Judy was adamant. She would not accept the doctor's
judgment. Instead, she went to the hospital and brought her
mother home to live with her. For the next three years she
nursed her tenderly, feeding her through a tube in her stomach.
At the time of Lester's death, Raymond L. McDermott, a
noted Houston attorney, had taken charge of Judy's legal affairs.
He specialized in personal injury litigation and had helped the
Lewis family earlier with claims arising from Judy's accident.
But now there was more disappointment. What Judy thought
was a $50,000 life insurance policy proved to cover only health
and hospitalization. With her mother to care for, and no income,
Judy felt as if the earth had been snatched from under her.
She knew she had to go back to work. But where? Who
would hire a woman in constant pain who could not walk
normally but dragged her left leg? Ray McDermott said he
would hire her.
Being a legal secretary required special study, but Mr.
McDermott said she could learn. He encouraged her to take the
job.
Judy began work at once. Every night she carted home
heavy law books and legal forms to study. Still caring for her
mother, she spent her sleepless nights studying legal documents
until she became a proficient legal secretary.
Judy's Christian faith never wavered, and when she
218
discovered that despite Mr. McDermott's kindness and

generosity, he was not a Christian, she began to pray for him to
accept Christ. The McDermotts were happily married with six
children, all of whom were churchgoers. Judy developed an
obsession to see them born-again. Before that prayer was
answered, however, more tragedy befell Judy.
Judy's life at home seemed to revolve around her bed. After
her mother died she spent most of her time there, reading,
listening to the radio, and talking on the telephone. It was the
only place she could find any degree of release from her pain.
Late one May night Judy dragged herself from the bed to go to
the bathroom. Her clock radio read 1:15. She took one more step,
felt the cord of the electric blanket across her foot, and then with
a violent jerk was hurled to the floor.
Her next sensation was excruciating pain. When she tried to
move, she couldn't. She didn't know how long she had been
unconscious, but her mind was gripped with terror as the word
“paralyzed” flashed back and forth. She kept awakening and
lapsing back into unconsciousness. There was no one to hear,
even if she screamed. Finding that her right arm and hand could
move a little, she grasped the bedspread and used it to pull
herself toward the bed and the phone, little by little. Each time
she pulled, she fell into a black, mind-searing coma. She glanced
at the clock radio just as she reached the phone. It was 6:30. She
knocked the phone from the table and dialed the operator for
help. Then she passed out again.
At the hospital the doctors discovered extensive injuries. X-
rays revealed a broken hip, three fractures of the pelvis, and
further damage to the spine. Part of one of the broken discs had
fallen into the spinal canal, blocking and pinching some nerves,
severing others. Through surgery, her bones were set with
stainless steel rods, plates, and pins. As she recovered, however,
she found the slightest touch or pressure on her hip or thigh
caused painful muscle spasms. She was paralyzed from the
219
waist down. The doctors gave her no hope of ever getting out of
a wheelchair or being free from pain.
Judy was away from her job four and a half months, and
finally returned to the law offices in a wheelchair. Her left leg
would often go into violent spasms, and it would take several
people to hold it down. She was embarrassed by her loss of
control over her bladder, and frequently had to be aided to the
ladies' room by the other woman who worked in the office.
It seemed eons, far back in another world, since she had felt
that cool hand on her brow and heard those comforting words,
“Judy, it will be all right.” Had she really heard them? Was
there really going to be a time when Jesus would make things
all right? Could that possibly mean healing? There was no
answer to her questions. Instead, she got constantly worse.
Judy tried to resign from her job, but Mr. McDermott
refused to consider it. Each morning he picked her up, and
together they drove to work. In the evenings he dropped her off
at her door. Then it was sheer torture until the next morning.
Often Judy pulled herself, fully clothed, onto the bed, exhausted
and filled with despair.
The only solid food she ate was at the office. At home she
lived on Coca Cola, and her weight dropped alarmingly. Her
situation seemed utterly hopeless. However, Judy believed with
all her heart that nothing was impossible with God and, further,
that all things worked together for good to those who loved
God. She was trusting Him to work these things out.
Judy's three young nieces were one of the few bright spots in
her dreary life. Now and then they would spend Saturday
nights with her, but even with her nieces in the house, Judy
spent her sleepless nights reading, usually the Bible. One
Saturday night little ten-year-old Amy, who was sleeping over,
awakened and asked Aunt Judy what she was doing. Judy
explained she was reading about the Holy Spirit.
220
“Who's He?” Amy asked. Judy explained. “Aunt Judy can't

run and jump and play the way you do. Yet my heart is so full
of joy and thanksgiving, I just can't express it strong enough to
the Lord. So the Holy Spirit takes that joy and gives the words
to God.”
Through her litigation cases and through contacts in the law
office, Judy had met police captain John LeVrier. Captain
LeVrier, a deacon in the First Baptist Church, had become a
good friend. When word came that he had been stricken with
terminal cancer, Judy and Mr. McDermott went to visit him in
the hospital.
Then Captain LeVrier was miraculously healed at a Kathryn
Kuhlman service in Los Angeles. Well-known in Houston, he
began testifying all over the city to his healing—and to the new
power of the Holy Spirit in his life. It was fascinating, and for
the first time Judy was aware of the possibility of healing. Yet
she grew continually worse.
When she was unable to attend church any longer, she had
to content herself with staying at home and watching the
services of the First Baptist Church on television. As the
program finished one Saturday afternoon, she turned her
wheelchair and started to leave the room. Then she heard a
voice, a woman's voice, proclaim, “I believe in miracles.”
“It was the most unusual voice I had ever heard,” Judy told
me. She was shocked as she listened to the program. She
believed in prayer and felt her own life was guided by the Holy
Spirit, yet miracles on a television program seemed sacrilegious.
However, it was through this ministry that Captain LeVrier had
been healed. At least she should approach it with an open mind.
The following week she bought both of Kathryn Kuhlman's
books, I Believe in Miracles and God Can Do It Again.
Judy's health was now in sharp decline. Her doctor (who
had been her main physician since 1952) told her that never in
221
his professional life had he felt so completely helpless. Because

of her allergies he could not relieve her pain. All he could do
was prescribe a mild medication to try to ease the violent
muscle spasms that came several times a day.
Often Judy would go for two nights in a row without sleep.
Then, on the third night, she would lapse into a heavy,
unhealthy slumber. In the morning she was as tired as when she
had closed her eyes, with no appetite, violent painful tremors,
and huge black circles around her eyes. Life was draining from
her.
Then Kathryn Kuhlman came to Houston for a miracle
service. Captain LeVrier and Mr. McDermott urged Judy to
attend, inviting her to accompany them. She accepted their
invitation, and on June 21, 1972, they took her to Hofheinz
Pavilion. It had been twenty years since her first accident.
Oddly enough, Judy's primary thoughts were not for herself.
“I had been praying for my precious employer for a long time,”
Judy said, recalling that day, “Even more than I wanted my own
healing, I wanted him to accept Jesus Christ as his personal
Savior.”
Judy was not healed during the miracle service. Nor did Mr.
McDermott accept Christ. Judy left the service, however, with a
deep inner assurance that both prayers would be answered.
The very next week, Mr. McDermott walked into Judy's
office, casually laying some papers on the desk, and said, “You
know, Judy, I've been doing a lot of thinking. I really want to be
born again.”
Judy nodded, too filled with joy to speak. As Mr.
McDermott walked out, however, she exploded with praise.
God was already answering her first prayer.
Mr. McDermott's interest was growing. He joined with
Captain LeVrier, and they made plans to take Judy to the next
222
miracle service in Los Angeles. Mrs. McDermott was not going

to be able to make the trip, and this meant Judy would have to
ask for help from women who were total strangers. But despite
her misgivings about making such a long journey away from
home, she felt she was going to be healed. She made a return
reservation on an airline that did not carry people in
wheelchairs.
The last thing she did before leaving Houston was to call her
ten-year-old niece, Amy. “Please pray for me on Sunday, Amy,”
she said. “Please pray that God will heal Aunt Judy.”
The day before the service, Judy, Mr. McDermott, and
Captain LeVrier checked into the Century Plaza Hotel. The men
helped Judy to her room before going on to theirs. Once inside,
she collapsed in tears, wondering how she would get through
the day ahead without anyone to help her. As she trembled in
anguish, her leg went into a violent spasm. Looking up, Judy
caught a glimpse of herself in a full-length mirror—thin,
wasting away, holding her monstrously jerking leg. “O Lord,
have I come to this?” she moaned. “Surely this is the end unless
I am healed tomorrow.”
That afternoon they went sightseeing but Judy was in
dreadful pain. While viewing the murals at Forest Lawn, she
was forced to ask help in the ladies' room from a woman she
didn't know. The rest of the day was a blurred montage, a
nightmarish tour up and down twisted streets that never
seemed to end.
The next morning, Sunday, the men took snapshots of Judy
in her wheelchair in front of the hotel. At the Shrine Auditorium
they wheeled her backstage, where Miss Kuhlman greeted
Captain LeVrier and autographed Judy's books. Mr. McDermott
took more snapshots. Then the miracle service began.
Judy began praying fervently that her employer would
accept Jesus. During the service she had to leave, as once again
223
the violent spasms coursed through her body. A registered

nurse helped her to the rest room and said, “You can't go back
inside. You need a doctor.”
“I am going,” Judy insisted. “The only doctor I need is the
Great Physician.” Judy pushed away the nurse's restraining
arms and wheeled herself back down the aisle. She had reached
the end. Her entire body was in spasms. She continued to shake
violently throughout the rest of the service. Even if she died, she
was going to stay and pray that Mr. McDermott would accept
Jesus Christ.
Finally the service was over. Mr. McDermott had resisted
the invitation to come forward and accept Jesus Christ, and Judy
was still the same. Captain LeVrier was crushed, but the two
men pushed Judy backstage to say goodby to Miss Kuhlman.
Then, in the dressing room, Mr. McDermott finally spoke up.
Despite Judy's not being healed, he told Miss Kuhlman that he
wanted to make his total surrender to God. Everyone bowed in
prayer. Miss Kuhlman placed a hand on Raymond McDermott's
head and prayed for the Holy Spirit to bring Jesus into his heart.
“I was so happy,” Judy recalled. “I looked up and felt I
could actually see into heaven. I said, 'Thank you, Lord, for
making it more than I ever asked you for.'
“Then,” Judy told me, “I felt the strongest yet most gentle
hands lifting me up out of that wheelchair. I looked behind me,
and there was the chair and the empty footrest. I wondered,
Where are my feet? Then I realized I was standing. I had no
more pain, no pain at all. Then I felt those gentle hands on me
again, and I moved forward in one complete step.”
Captain LeVrier looked across the dressing room and saw
Judy standing. He fell backward into a chair, dumbfounded.
Miss Kuhlman wheeled around, then stood rooted in her tracks,
a startled look on her face. Mr. McDermott muttered, “Praise the
Lord,” his first words since becoming a new man in Jesus. Judy
224
looked down at her feet and saw that her left shoe had fallen off.
Formerly her toes had curled under, but now her foot was
straight.
“Look at my toes!” she cried. “They are straight!” Then
realizing what had happened, she shouted, “Oh, thank you,
Jesus. I'm ready. Let's go.” With that, she kicked off her other
shoe and began to walk up and down the dressing room, never
faltering once. It had been fourteen months since she had taken
a step, but her walking was as natural as if she had never
stopped.
Tears glistened on Miss Kuhlman's cheeks, and she kicked
off her own shoes. Together they walked back and forth as the
men looked on. Finally Miss Kuhlman flung open the door of
the dressing room. “You want to walk, Judy? Well, go on and
walk.” Judy marched out into the hall in her stocking feet, with
Mr. McDermott carrying her shoes, Captain LeVrier pushing her
useless wheelchair, and Miss Kuhlman still in her stocking feet
right behind her—all of them laughing and crying.
When they returned to the hotel the sun was still shining,
and Judy ran out onto the veranda. There in the glorious
sunshine, surrounded by gay pots of colorful flowers, she did
stretches and bends—exercises she had not been able to do for
twenty years. Mr. McDermott kept snapping pictures, while
people gawked. Then Judy rushed inside to make a person-to-
person call to her ten-year-old niece, Amy, in Houston.
As soon as she heard her Aunt Judy's joyful voice, little Amy
began to shout, “Aunt Judy's been healed! Aunt Judy's been
healed!”
“Aunt Judy,” Amy confided, “I prayed for you in church
this morning. I wanted to ask God to heal you, but I was so
afraid I wouldn't say the right words. Then, I remembered what
you told me about the Holy Spirit taking messages. So I said,
'Mister Holy Spirit, would you please tell the Lord for me that I
225
am praying for the healing of my Aunt Judy today! And He

answered my prayers!”
Judy returned to Houston—on the airline that didn't carry
wheelchair patients. The following day she kept her usual
appointment with the doctor. Mr. McDermott came along as a
witness. He sat in the waiting room while the doctor examined
Judy. Shortly afterward, the doctor asked Mr. McDermott to join
him in his office.
“Did you see this?” he asked, pointing to Judy. “She's a
miracle.” Mr. McDermott laughed and said, “I'm glad you said
that. I know she's a miracle. I saw it happen.”
Judy sat across the room, her face beaming through the tears
on her cheeks. There were tears on my cheeks, too. No longer a
skeptic, I was speechless. Seeing the look on my face, Mr.
McDermott grinned. “Why don't you say something?”
But all I could do was shake my head. What is there to say
when you are face to face with a miracle?
I put away my note pad and pencil. Maybe I could write the
story, maybe not. I was uncertain whether I should even try to
record on paper what I had seen and heard that day. However,
there was one thing I was sure of. God's promise, made more
than twenty years before—”Judy, it will be all right”—had been
fulfilled. And no skeptic, seeing Judy Lewis, could ever deny
that.
226
CHAPTER 14
14 THE BIG FISHERMAN
SAM DOUDS
In my imagination, I've often tried to picture what Simon Peter
must have looked like. But it wasn't until I met Sam Douds that I
thought I really knew. Sam is all man. He's six-feet-four and 250
pounds of bone and muscle. Every commercial fisherman up and down
the Southwest Coast knew Sam. He could outdrink, outcuss, outfight
them all. Then one day Sam was hit by something bigger than he was
—cancer. In desperation Sam turned to God, and found that God had
already moved to meet him. Now Sam, a bachelor, has forsaken his
nets to follow the Master. He is living with the Benedictine monks at
St. Charles Priory in Oceanside, California, spending the rest of his
life in service to his Lord, as Brother Samuel, O. S. B.
I had always lived a pretty rough life. I was big enough to
outfight any man I'd ever met, and mean enough to start the
fights for no reason. Several years before I became a commercial
fisherman, I was driving one of those big highway diesels
through Southern California. One morning, after spending the
night upstairs in a truck stop, I woke up in a grumpy mood—I
was always in a grumpy mood. I heard two fellows outside,
sitting in their car, talking sort of loud. If I were still sleeping, I
thought to myself, those guys would probably disturb me. The
more I thought about it, the madder I got. So I went downstairs,
slammed outside, jerked the car door open, grabbed one of the
boys, yanked him upright, and slugged him cold. I was that
kind of a guy.
For the last fourteen years, Santa Barbara had been my
home. Before that I didn't have a home. I spent some time as a
227
catskinner, manhandling a bulldozer, and eight years cutting

the big trees on the timberline in Washington State. If you stay
with the lumberjacks for six years, statistically you're either
maimed or dead. So after a while I moved to Santa Barbara,
bought a sixty-six-foot ocean trawler, and started fishing
commercially.
My real occupation, however, was being an alcoholic. I just
fished for a living—to buy my booze and have my parties
aboard the boat. I guess I was too mean and too self-centered to
marry. So I drank, chased women, and fished—in that order.
One of the reasons I drank so heavily was to deaden the
pain in my body. Working as a lumberjack, climbing those high
trees and sawing off limbs, I had shredded the tendons in my
upper arms and legs. I had been to every orthopedic doctor's
office in Santa Barbara except one. All of them said the same
thing—there was nothing they could do for the pain.
For eight years I had been taking heavy doses of pain pills
every day. My monthly bill for narcotics ran around one
hundred dollars. I wasn't able to get enough pills from one
doctor, so I kept four doctors going at once, using different drug
stores so they wouldn't catch on. I washed all the pills down
with Beefeater gin, which made them work a lot faster.
Back in 1945, in Brawley, California, near the Mexican
border, I was the driver in an automobile accident where a
young fellow was killed. I was arrested, and although I was not
convicted of anything, the whole town wanted to lynch me. I
didn't dare go out on the streets at night, and every few days I
would get in a bad fight in some bar.
With nothing else to do, I stayed in my hotel room and read
the Gideon Bible. I did it partly because I was wondering if I
was as bad as people said I was. One thing that really stuck with
me were Jesus' words about ministering to the sick, feeding the
hungry, and visiting people in jail. I figured I could make
228
The Big Fisherman
amends for killing this guy if I started bailing other guys out of
jail. I didn't care how drunk a panhandler was, I'd always give
him money. And if I ever heard of some guy I knew being in
jail, I'd bail him out. In fact, the game warden in Santa Barbara
used to accuse me of being the bail bondsman of the city,
because every time he'd put somebody in jail for a fish-and-
game violation, I'd go bail him out. The warden said they
needed to stay in jail and think things over, but I had been in jail
once myself and didn't like it.
The only other “religious” experience I ever had was the one
time I went to a Kathryn Kuhlman meeting, back in 1967. A
friend of mine, Grace, had a fifteen-year-old daughter who ran
away from home. Grace was frantic to find her. I had come in
off a fishing trip to complete some paperwork and stopped by
Marian's Secretarial Service to get some forms run through the
copying machine. While I was there, Marian MacKenzie started
telling me about Kathryn Kuhlman.
“She's clairvoyant,” Marian said. “She comes on the
platform and closes her eyes and says, 'There's a woman out
there in a white dress with blue spots on it.'“
Well, since that time, I've learned that Kathryn Kuhlman's
no more clairvoyant than I am the Holy Father. But I didn't
know anything about the gifts of the Spirit at the time, and I
don't think Marian knew very much either. Still, there were a
bunch of clairvoyant nuts in and around Santa Barbara and
some of them claimed to be preachers, too. If Grace went down
to the Kathryn Kuhlman meeting in Los Angeles, I thought
maybe this woman could help her find her kid. Marian knew
Maude Howard, who handled the bus reservations for the
meetings, so I gave her money for one ticket and called Grace on
the phone.
“Hey, I've got a ticket on the bus for you to go see this
clairvoyant woman in Los Angeles. Maybe she can find your
229
kid for you.”

I still don't understand why someone didn't correct me.
Maybe it was God's plan that I not know the truth at that stage.
For as it happened, the only way Grace would go was if I went
with her.
I didn't like to take trips like that, since I knew I couldn't
drink. However, I took on a big load before I got on the bus and
took five four-ounce medicine bottles full of gin along with me.
I didn't really know anything about Kathryn Kuhlman, and
was half-bombed when I got to the meeting. She came on stage,
and it looked like some kind of theatrical act to me. Now I know
that she stays back in her dressing room and prays until she's
full of the Holy Spirit. By the time she gets on the platform, she
can hardly keep her feet on the ground. But when I first saw her,
I was so disgusted that I got up and stomped out of the
auditorium.
I got as far as the lobby and thought, Now, big boy, what are
you going to do? I hadn't seen any bars near the Shrine
Auditorium where the meeting was being held, and the only
place I could go was to the bus. I didn't want to go sit in that
stupid bus for three hours. I felt like a fool anyway, because I
had forced Grace to come, and here I was, walking out. I
smoked a cigarette, drank some of my gin, and went back in.
When the healings started, I stood up to leave again. It was
bad enough being in a Protestant place. I wasn't much of a
Catholic, but I still didn't have any use for Protestants. To
combine Protestants with healing was almost more than I could
stand. But then I remembered I'd just have to turn around and
walk back in. So I didn't get out of the row of seats that time.
The first person Miss Kuhlman called out was an eight-year-
old boy. “There's a little boy out there who's never been able to
walk without braces on both legs,” she said. “He can walk now.
I want somebody next to him, I think it's his mother, to take
230
The Big Fisherman
those braces off and let him run up and down the aisle.”
Then, without waiting, she turned quickly and pointed to
another part of the auditorium. “There is a woman over here.
She's about seventy years old and has deterioration of the spine.
She was healed about half an hour ago. I felt it. You haven't
been able to stand unassisted for several years, but you can do it
now.”
Then I saw the little boy coming up on stage. His mother
was behind him, holding his full-length braces. The little boy
started running back and forth across the stage, and his mother
was crying. I thought, There's a real good actor for a kid. I
wonder how much they paid him.
I thought I was pretty good at figuring, so I began to guess
what Kathryn Kuhlman had to pay to get those two professional
actors. I figured it would take about a thousand dollars apiece.
Right behind them came a seventy-year-old woman. She
had her orthopedic surgeon along with her. He looked like a
nice guy. There were some other doctors on the stage who
recognized him. I thought, Boy, they must have really paid that
sport something to make him corrupt himself. I estimated it
would take at least two thousand dollars to buy him off.
The old woman said she was the one who had been healed
of the spine condition, and Miss Kuhlman asked her to bend
down and touch the floor. Not only did she touch the floor, but
she put her palms flat on it—twelve times. She was laughing
and crying at the same time.
Well, I couldn't put my hands flat on the floor and didn't
know anyone else who could do it either. I thought, They've got
a real seventy-year-old acrobat there. I figured out how much
she must have charged to get up on the stage and pretend she'd
been bad off.
Then there were others who came, and I kept figuring how
231
much each had to be paid. About halfway through, I thought,

My gosh, they've just blown half a million dollars in payoffs! I
didn't know anybody who had that much money to throw
away, so I turned to the woman next to me and asked, “How
often do they do this?”
She said, “Miss Kuhlman comes here once a month. She also
has weekly services in Pittsburgh and in Youngstown and in
some other cities around the nation.”
I sat back, flabbergasted. I began adding up the figures in
my head and it came out to about two million dollars a week.
Wow! Nobody's got that kind of dough, I thought. Then I
started thinking about how she would have to pay off all the
writers in the nation who would want to do the exposes. I asked
the woman if there had ever been any adverse comments
written about Miss Kuhlman, and she shook her head.
I didn't like it, but I had to admit all of it was real. Even so, it
just wasn't my thing. It was for weaklings and those in need,
and I was neither. I returned to Santa Barbara and to my fishing,
satisfied I'd seen the last of Kathryn Kuhlman.
Two years later, however, during one of my trips at sea, I
stepped on a fish spine. It went nearly through my foot and hurt
like crazy. When I got back to Santa Barbara I went to see the
Doctors Carswell. Harold and his brother, Bowdre, who were
both respected surgeons, put me in the hospital. But I stayed
there only one day. When I couldn't drink I got mean, and that
night I did a lot of shouting and used a lot of loud profanity,
giving the nurses a pretty rough time. After ten calls from the
hospital, Dr. Harold finally sent me home.
After the doctor treated my foot, I told him that I had some
bad pains in my stomach. He gave me a prescription for some
codeine pills, thinking the pains could be caused by a virus. I
had the prescription for twenty pills filled Friday night. I
washed them all down with gin and then went back and had
232
The Big Fisherman
the prescription filled again on Saturday. When I went back the

third time, the pharmacist refused to fill the prescription and
called Dr. Bowdre Carswell on the phone. I reached across the
counter and snatched the phone away from him. “Listen, doc,
tell him to give me a few more of those pills. I'll be all right.”
It was night, but the doctor insisted I come to his office for
an examination. An hour later I was sitting on his table while he
finished his exam. “Sam,” he said, “I think you need to see an
internist.”
I balked but finally gave in, and he made an appointment
for early the next week. The pain was increasing in my lower
stomach, but after seeing the internist, I decided to go back out
to sea for a few days. Maybe getting back to work would get my
mind off the pain.
When I returned to port I was feeling rotten—and starved to
death. I went straight to a restaurant, ordered two complete
dinners, and ate them both. Then I called the internist's office.
“The doctor has been trying to locate you for two days,” his
nurse said. “He wants you to come in immediately.”
The doctor had my X-rays set up for viewing when I got
there. He pointed to a four-inch section of my large intestine
that looked like it was plugged up. “I've got a room for you in
the hospital across the street,” he said sternly. “Well, I'm not
going to a hospital,” I growled, getting up to leave. The doctor
turned around and flicked his pencil at the X-ray. “Okay, Sam,
but let me remind you, your mother died of cancer. All your
aunts and uncles have died of cancer. You're going to wind up
in the hospital. And until you decide to go, you better not eat
anything.”
“You're too late,” I snorted. “I just ate two complete meals.”
“Then you're going to be a very sick man,” he said. “It's
impossible for food to pass through that blockage.”
233
I pulled on my jacket, gave him a mean look, and walked

out into the rain. I got as far as the curb before both meals came
right up. I turned around and headed back into his office.
The doctor said he would send my X-rays to Dr. Carswell
and that I should get in touch with him. In the meantime, he put
me on clear liquids. “Don't drink anything you can't see
through,” he said.
The clearest thing I could think of was Beefeater gin, so I
drank that. And I went fishing. I loaded the trawler up with ice
and put out to sea. That night I put in at Port Hueneme, down
the coast. I went to a dockside phone and called Dr. Harold
Carswell. He had seen the X-rays. “Sam, I want you in the
hospital now. Tonight.”
“But, doc, I'm not in Santa Barbara. I'm down the coast.”
“Leave your boat there,” he said. “Don't fool around with a
bus. Get a cab. I don't care how far away you are, get a taxi and
get back up here tonight. We've got to operate.”
“I've got a boat full of ice and a crew that's supposed to
share in the catch. Besides that, I'm supposed to take some deep-
sea divers out this weekend. The operation will just have to
wait.” I cut him off.
The next day, however, I was really hurting. We were about
fifteen miles off the coast, fishing for rock cod and sole, and I
picked up the radio-telephone and called Harold's brother, Dr.
Bowdre Carswell.
“Sam, what's that noise I hear in the background?” he asked.
“That's the exhaust of the boat engine,” I said.
“You get that net out of the water and get right in here,” he
said.
“I can't, doc. I told these fellows I would fish for a week.”
“That Irish stubbornness is going to kill you,” Dr. Carswell
234
The Big Fisherman
bellowed. “If your mother had gone to the hospital when we

told her to, we might have saved her life. Now you're pulling
the same trick.”
By then I knew something was seriously wrong. I fished the
next day and headed for shore. I got somebody to look after the
boat when we docked in Santa Barbara, and called the hospital
to confirm my room.
“We understand you are single. Is that right, Mr. Douds?”
asked the woman in the business office.
“What is this?” I growled. “I want a room in the hospital
and you start asking about my private life.”
“Mr. Douds,” she snapped back, “the operation you're
facing has a high mortality rate. It's extremely difficult to collect
from a single person's estate, so you'll have to put the money up
before we can admit you.”
By then I was mad. “Why should I give you money ahead of
time? I don't get paid in advance for fish. I have to catch them
first.”
“Mr. Douds.” Her voice was icy. “You were in here once
before, and it was a very unpleasant experience for all of us.
Why don't you go to another hospital?”
“You just don't like people dying in your hospital,” I
shouted back over the phone. “Is that it?”
But she won out. I withdrew money from my bank account
and bought my way into the hospital.
I came through the operation, but then all hell broke loose
inside me. I really had a bad time. I didn't see how anybody
could be that sick and still live. I knew I was going to kick the
bucket, and the second night I began to pray. “Listen. I need
help right now, God! Do you hear me?”
After a while, I began to figure that maybe I couldn't bluff
God, much less push Him around. I needed to take another tack.
235
I talked to the hospital chaplain, a priest. I needed all the help I

could get, and he seemed to be my best bet.
Then the third night I had a vision. I'm not the kind of guy
who has visions, yet this was so real I could almost touch it.
I saw a rustic-type house. I could see right into the end of it.
Inside, about halfway down, were two chairs, facing away from
me. Jesus was sitting in the seat on my right, and Joseph was in
the other chair. Mary was standing alongside Jesus. They were
almost in reach. As the vision continued, I really began to pray
hard. I didn't know much about asking God for help in prayer,
but I figured I needed to cut out the profanity, even if it meant
losing about three-fourths of my vocabulary. I was really trying
to put a lot of virgin English in the prayer, but nobody in the
Holy Family paid any attention to me. It looked like they had
their backs turned on purpose. I was beginning to feel
desperate, and really poured it on with urgency. Mary turned
her head and looked back at me, but then the other two got up
and all three just walked away.
I couldn't figure it out. Why had they turned their backs on
me? I called for the hospital chaplain again. He came to my
room, listened for a while, said, “Don't worry about it,” and
walked out.
There was another Catholic priest in the hospital, as a
patient. I paid him a visit in my wheelchair. He confirmed that I
had indeed had a vision, but he didn't have any answers either.
Little by little I was able to squeeze information out of
people about my case. One of the orderlies said he had seen the
waste bucket in the operating room following my surgery. It
was almost completely filled with intestines. But the doctors
were close-mouthed. I really had to sandbag them to get them to
tell me anything.
Bowdre Carswell was coming to see me every day. Each
time I asked him, he said he hadn't seen the pathologist's report
236
The Big Fisherman
yet. Finally I said, “I'm fed up with that answer. If you didn't
have that report by now you'd be looking for another
pathologist. Besides, I know you had the report before you
sewed me up. I want it by tomorrow morning, and I want it in
language I can understand.” The next morning he came in, and I
said, “Where's the report?”
He said, “How do you feel?”
I balled up my fist and began to curse pretty loud.
“Get out of this room and don't come back until you have
that report.”
“I haven't read the report yet.”
I really exploded. My insides were burning like fire, but I
was ready to climb out of bed and tear that hospital apart if I
didn't get some information. And I told him so.
The doctor went down the hall and returned with one of
those aluminum-backed notebooks. “The pathologist's report on
the tissue shows a Grade Three, Class C mass near the cecum
with metastasis to the lymph nodes.”
“Doc, you know I can't understand that stuff. What does it
mean?”
He began to move toward the door. I knew I was forcing
him to tell me something he didn't want to tell.
“Listen, doc, just tell me how long I'm going to live.”
He reached for the door handle. “Six years... but don't count
on the last four.” He stood in the doorway and told me they had
found cancer and removed most of my large intestine.
However, I was filled with tumors, and the cancer had
extended into other tissues of my body where it was inoperable.
I would be able to get up, but in a very short time I would
become nonfunctional. He advised me to get all my affairs in
order.
237
I was in the hospital for nineteen days. After I was released I

spent a lot of time on my boat, sleeping. Two weeks later,
during a routine office call, I spoke to Dr. Bowdre Carswell. “I
keep hearing from people who want me to drink special tea and
eat a bunch of herbs because their uncle or aunt got cured that
way. I really don't care whether I live or die. I've got so much
pain, it's not worth living. But I can't stand all these ups and
downs. I want to know.”
He got out his book and showed me in color what my
tumors looked like. He told me that 85 percent of the tumors
removed from me were fast-growing, malignant types.
Hundreds of tumors were left in me. I had perhaps a year to
live.
“Hey, wait a minute,” I rumbled. “In the hospital you said
two years.”
He pulled off his glasses and looked me straight in the face.
“Sam, in the hospital you were in no condition to be told
anything. You bulldozed us into saying what we did. Now this
is the truth. It will all be over in a year.”
When I left the hospital the doctors had put me on a diet. I
couldn't eat rice, potatoes, peas, beans, fried meats. I thought I
could outdrink, outswear, outfight anyone on the Pacific Coast
from Vancouver to San Diego. I had never been knocked out or
even knocked down in a fight. Yet, now, about all I could do
was eat Jell-O.
I could still drink, however. The doctors warned me to cut
back on my smoking and drinking, but I told them the cancer
would kill me before the alcohol would, so I never really
sobered up—ever. I drank more than a fifth a day, and a lot
more than that on weekends. But anything other than booze or
Jell-O hit me like a ton of bricks. One day I drank a bottle of
beer, and it took me a day and a half to get over it. Another day
I ate a spoonful of rice. That took a day and a half to get over,
238
The Big Fisherman
too. Then I tried some peas. They caused a gigantic upheaval. I

was a real bonehead, but I hated diets, I hated people who were
on diets, and I hated myself. I hated a lot of things.
In the meantime I kept searching for someone who could
interpret my vision. I had been to five priests and even tried out
a couple of Protestant ministers. Nobody had an answer for me.
I had to have an answer, and since the biggest thing I had ever
seen in the religious line was Kathryn Kuhlman, I decided to
make one more visit down there.
I walked into Marian MacKenzie's place. I had lost seventy
pounds, which made me look like a scarecrow. I was as white as
a sheet. Marian took one look at me and gave me the usual
greeting. “You look terrible, Sam. What's the matter?”
I told her I had cancer, had just gotten out of the hospital,
and wanted to attend a Kathryn Kuhlman meeting.
“Oh, you want to go down there for a cancer healing,” she
said.
I got mad—I seemed to stay mad—and cursed. “I don't want
a cancer healing. Furthermore, I don't want her or anybody else
praying for me to be healed. I can take care of myself. I just want
to find out about something.”
Marian didn't ask any more questions; she just got me a
ticket. Riding the chartered bus to Los Angeles, I saw somebody
across the aisle praying. I reached over, shook his shoulder, and
snarled, “If you're praying for me, knock it off. I'll care of
myself.” I didn't want to be healed of cancer if it meant having
to keep on living the way I was. I was sick of the kind of life I
led, tired to death of all the fighting, drinking, and hating.
Anyway, the cancer was just one of several things wrong with
me. The shredded tendons in my arms and legs kept me in
constant pain. I had headaches that wouldn't quit, storming up
the side of my head in a path as wide as my hand.
239
What I really needed, and wanted, was some kind of

spiritual healing. I wanted an answer to my vision. Knowing I
would die within the year, I was desperate to get things right
with God.
Nothing happened at the meeting, however. I returned to
Santa Barbara discouraged but still determined to find the
answer to that crazy vision. One day I turned to the Bible, and
in the book of First Peter I read: “For the eyes of the Lord are
over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers:
but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.”
That was my answer, the reason why Jesus would not look
at me. He had set His face against me because I was doing evil.
Why hadn't those priests and ministers told me that? I knew I
was bad, but how could I stop doing evil? How could I have all
the hate, the meanness, the rottenness taken out of me?
Every two years or so I used to go to confession and try to
get myself straightened out with the church. But the last time I
went, I had sat down in the little booth and told the old priest,
“Father, I've had four different women this week.”
“Four?” he had shouted back through the little screen.
“Unbelievable!”
I hadn't been back to confession since. Now I had the answer
to my vision, but I was just as bad off as before. It all seemed
absolutely hopeless.
Three months later, on a Friday afternoon, Marion called to
say that Maude Howard had one seat left on the bus to the
Shrine on Sunday and wanted me to go.
“No,” I said. “I'm not going. I've been kicking myself ever
since that last time. What if I had gotten healed of cancer, then
had to live to be an old man with all this other junk inside me?
I'm not going to take another chance on going down there.”
“Maybe you'll get everything,” Marian said mildly.
240
The Big Fisherman
“Not me. I've never been lucky. Why should God do

anything for me? He's turned His back on me.”
But Maude Howard refused to take no for an answer. She
kept on holding the seat for me. The very next day a strange,
good feeling about going came over me. Nobody in the world
could have talked me into going, and nobody even tried. But I
just began to feel good about it and knew I was supposed to be
on the bus.
Something mysterious was happening inside me. I had
always been the enemy of love. “Don't use that word,” I would
argue. “It doesn't mean the same thing to everybody. To one
person it means sex, to another admiration. Nobody really loves
anybody. I certainly don't want anybody loving me, and I'm not
about to love anybody.”
Sunday morning, however, as I parked my car and walked
across the parking lot, I saw Maude Howard and Nesta Bonato
standing near the bus with passenger lists in their hands. As I
looked at them, a column of love engulfed me. I had never felt
love for anybody before. When I got on the bus, I felt that same
love flowing from the people to me, and from me to the people.
I wanted to cry. Guys like me don't cry, but I wanted to. That's
how strong the love was.
When we arrived in Los Angeles the bus pulled into the
parking lot beside the Shrine Auditorium. I felt it again—a great
love pouring out of me toward all those people waiting in front
of the building. It was hard to take.
I stood in front of the building next to tiny little Nesta. I
thought she was a religious nut, and sure enough, she began to
preach to me. I had to bend way over to hear her. People like
this have always turned me off but good. Yet even though she
was spouting all this religious garbage, I felt love going out of
me to her the whole time I was bending over and listening.
Ever since the bad accident I had been in thirty years before,
241
my back had hurt like crazy when I had to bend over. I knew it
was going to start to hurt pretty soon, and I started to tell the
woman to shove off. Then I realized something—my back didn't
hurt anymore. And when I straightened up, it still didn't hurt.
We went on into the auditorium, and I found a seat on the
main floor. Again I felt love pouring through me, love for all
those people.
The service began, and about halfway through, Miss
Kuhlman pointed down my way and said, “There's a cancer
healing down here.”
The moment she said it, I felt a warm tingling going through
my body. It was exactly like that warm tingling I had felt on the
bus when all that love poured through me. But I was
determined not to be healed of cancer. I had come for a spiritual
healing.
Moments later Miss Kuhlman said it again, a little
impatiently. “Stand up, sir, and accept your healing.”
The aisle was choked with people waiting to get up on the
ramp. Then I saw a woman who kept going up and down the
aisle looking for healings come toward me. I thought she was as
homely as sin—and yet the most beautiful woman I had ever
seen. She was parting all those people like an icebreaker on the
prow of a ship, zeroing right in on me. I was sitting on the aisle,
and there was no way to escape.
Just about that time, I felt a hot flash in my body. Before I
could figure it out, this woman was standing beside me. She
had a look of great goodness, such a vast welcome that I felt like
I would just fall into it. When she took my hand, I floated up out
of my seat.
“That was for you, wasn't it?” she said kindly.
I was unable to speak. I just nodded my head and followed
her like a little puppy. As soon as I got on stage with all those
242
The Big Fisherman
people—some of them pushing one another—I felt the old anger

and hate trying to well up in me. I wanted to push back and
curse. Then I looked up. Miss Kuhlman was reaching over the
people in front of me and touching my face with her fingertips.
She asked me what my trouble was. I started to say something,
and then I was falling backward onto the floor.
I have no idea how long I was down, but when I got up, I
knew the cancer was gone. I knew it for sure. I had always
doubted those who came forward and testified their cancer was
healed. But now I understood what they meant. I knew that I
had been healed beyond any shadow of a doubt—and it was
wonderful.
When some of the ushers tried to get me to leave the stage
and go down the side aisle, I balked. I had come up the center
aisle and I wanted to go back the same way. I felt the old anger
roaring up inside me again. I was ready to knock a few heads
right there on stage, when I heard Miss Kuhlman's voice again.
She was pointing at me. “Wait a minute, I want to see this one
again.”
She motioned for me to come to the microphone. “Did you
expect a healing today?”
I can remember hearing myself say, “Thank you, thank
you,” as I hit the floor again.
I was still relatively thin then, less than 200 pounds, but it
took three men to pick me up. Miss Kuhlman said, “Now you
go back and see your doctor. You are perfectly all right now.”
Well, I wasn't quite all right. When I started to walk off the
stage, that foot I had stuck the fish spine through began to throb
worse than ever. That was strange, because all the big pains
were gone: my cancer, my back, my legs and arms, and my
headaches. I also knew my alcoholism was healed. But now my
foot was hurting. Then, as if somebody whispered it in my ear, I
heard a voice saying, “You know, Christ had a big fat nail
243
through that part of His foot.”

All the way back to my seat I was nodding. That's right, He
did. Maybe this is my crucifixion of the old rotten man, the one
who couldn't stop doing evil. Maybe this is how the hate and
ugliness are done away with. It's crucified. And maybe I'll be
raised to be a brand-new man, born again, to start over and
clean.
Back on the bus the people were praising God and saying
how wonderful it was I had been healed. I just sat there,
thinking to myself, What kind of silly God is this? Then I
realized I shouldn't call God silly. But I looked around at all the
good people on the bus, people who had always loved God and
served Him. It did seem a prime piece of foolishness for Him to
heal me.
Some fellow came down the aisle and asked how I felt. I
said, “Well, I just think it's a piece of stupidity that God would
heal a creep like me.”
He looked me straight in the eye. “Sam, don't you realize
God doesn't make mistakes?” That really hit me.
When we got back to Santa Barbara, Maude Howard asked
me to come over and eat potluck dinner with a group. I agreed,
and the first thing they handed me was a great big casserole of
chili and beans. The chili would have killed me, and so would
the beans, so I passed it on. The next thing was potato salad.
Potatoes, the celery, and the mayonnaise were very definitely
not on my diet. I kept passing things along till somebody said,
“Don't be so polite, Sam. Take some for yourself.”
“I can't eat any of this stuff,” I said. Someone else said,
“Don't you realize that God has healed you? He doesn't do
things by halves. You can eat anything you want to eat now.”
“But I've had my intestines taken—” And I stopped right in
the middle of the sentence. Yeah, I thought, I guess He doesn't
244
The Big Fisherman
do things by halves. So I said, “Pass it all back.”

I loaded that plate high, four times, with all those
completely indigestible things, and wolfed them down. There
was Jell-O on the table, but I never got around to it.
After I returned to Santa Barbara, I learned one of my
crewmen on the Seahawk had quit. I took that as a sign from
God that I was to shut down the whole operation until I got my
boat right. I wanted it like my life, so clean I wouldn't be
ashamed for Christ to come aboard.
About the third day, I was downtown and saw Marian.
“Have you seen your doctor yet?” she asked.
I said, “No, and I'm not going to. I'm not going to tell the
doctor a story like this. I don't think this is the kind of story that
doctors like to hear.”
“Well now,” she said kindly. “Kathryn Kuhlman was
instrumental in your healing, and she told you to go to the
doctor. I think you should go.” I thought about that and finally
called up Dr. Bowdre Carswell. He told me to come on by his
office.
“What would you have to do to find out if I still have
cancer?” I asked him.
He gave me a funny look and said, “We'd have to cut you
open again.”
“You're not going to do that,” I said, “but—” I came to a
dead stop. I couldn't think how to break into the subject. Then I
thought, Well, the heck with it, and I just hauled off and told
him the whole thing.
He sat there, listening. He had my file in his hand, and when
I finished my story, he began flipping through the file, like he
was trying to think of the best way to answer me.
“Well, Sam,” he said, stopping to clear his throat, “I could
245
tell when you walked into the room that something had
happened to you. You look better than I've seen you in ten
years. My advice to you is this: Don't examine it. Just live it.” He
paused, then looked up again. “And I say that because I don't
think you have cancer anymore. I think God has healed you.”
The Carswells weren't known for their religious fervor, so
that really shook me. “How can you tell I've been healed?” I
asked.
“I can tell by your gestures, your color, and the look in your
eyes. Besides,” he continued, “I have had this happen to me
three times since I've been in Santa Barbara. I think God is
trying to tell me something, too.”
During the following weeks I spent much time reading my
Bible. Not only had my body been healed, but that healing of
the inner man had taken place, too. It was as if I had been born
all over, and I was starting out fresh and new. My talk was not
the same. I didn't drink anymore. There was no more need to
seek love through immorality; I felt love flowing all around me.
Then one evening, lying in my bunk on the Seahawk, I read
the story of Jesus calling His disciples. He was walking by the
Sea of Galilee and saw two fishermen, Andrew and Peter:
“Follow me,” He said, “and I will make you fishers of men.
And they straightway left their nets and followed Him.”
It was like He was calling me, too. He didn't have His face
turned away anymore. He was looking at me. “I will follow you,
too, Lord,” I said.
Three days later I was sitting across from the priest at the
Catholic church, telling him my story. A faint smile played
across his face. I could tell he understood. “There is an Indian
orphanage in northern New Mexico that needs someone to do
some carpentry,” he said.
I used to do carpentry work. I knew it was God's call. I sold
my boat—at a loss. I sold my house. And I took off for the
246
The Big Fisherman
wilderness of northern New Mexico to work in the Indian

orphanage.
After I finished, word came that a group of Benedictine
monks at St. Charles Priory in Oceanside, California, needed
help in building a new bakery. They were already giving away a
thousand loves of bread each week, and with the new bakery
they could do even more. I moved into the priory, and on
February 2, 1973, I was taken into the Order of St. Benedict,
Now I am Brother Samuel, O. S. B.
Once a month, on Sunday, I go to Los Angeles to usher at
the Kathryn Kuhlman services. The last time I was there, I heard
a man call me by name. I looked up. It was Dr. Harold Carswell
and his wife. I could tell by the smile on his face and the twinkle
in his eye that something had happened to him, too.
Our priory is located on the top of a secluded mountain
overlooking the ocean. The only access is a steep, winding dirt
road. The sun rises in the east over the Mission of San Luis Rey
and sets into the Pacific Ocean to the west. Each day is
disciplined. I'm up at five o'clock in the morning to attend the
morning office with the monks. I spend each day in hard,
physical work, and after a quiet supper I attend the evening
office. I drop off to sleep each night like a baby.
Before my life was touched by the Holy Spirit, no one could
have paid me to work as hard as I work now. Only now I do it
for nothing, simply out of gratitude—and love... the love of
Jesus.
247
CHAPTER 15
15 SO MUCH LEFT TO DO
SARA HOPKINS
Sara Hopkins, formerly a Hollywood starlet, is best known as the
co-founder of International Orphans, Inc. She lives with her two sons
in Tarzana, a suburb of Los Angeles.
It was in the midst of the before-Christmas rush when I first
knew I was sick. I was driving home after a board meeting of
International Orphans, Inc., when the pain started—an
unbearable tightness in my chest, that made it seem impossible
to breathe, and shooting pains in both my arms. At first I
thought I was having a heart attack. I had just read of a man
who had had a heart attack while driving on the Ventura
Freeway. His car had gone out of control, killing seven people. I
was not afraid of dying, for I knew my relationship with Jesus
Christ was secure. But I hated the thought of killing someone
else. I started to pull off the road. Before I could slow down
enough to leave the road, however, the pain subsided, and I was
confident that I could make it to my home in Tarzana.
I parked in the driveway in front of the house and reached
for the door handle of the car. The pain hit again. This time it
seemed to be directly behind my heart, traveling down my side
and into my arm. As before, it lasted only a moment.
I sat in the car, resting briefly, and made myself swallow my
apprehensions about a possible heart attack. After all, I had
been to the doctor six months ago for a routine check-up, and he
hadn't found anything wrong with me. There had been no
cardiogram, but...
After we get home from Florida, I promised myself, I'll go to
249
the doctor to see what this pain is all about.

My father, a dentist, was critically ill with cancer, and I was
sure this would be our last Christmas together. My sister-in-
law's family owned a beautiful lodge on an island off the Gulf
Coast of Florida, and our family had decided to meet there to
spend Christmas with dad. John and Chuck, my two boys, ages
six and ten, had been looking forward to the trip for weeks. I
couldn't disappoint them, much less daddy.
And so I didn't mention the pain to anyone in my family,
even though several times it returned with great intensity. We
spent the holidays in Florida, returning to California the second
week in January, just as we had planned. Then I made an
appointment with my doctor in Burbank.
A few days later, I sat on the examination table in his office
and described my symptoms. He leaned against a white
cupboard filled with gleaming stainless steel instruments, and
listened intently.
“Well, Sara,” he said, adjusting his stethoscope, “I know
you're not a complainer. In fact, you work so hard with that
orphans' group that I really have to twist your arm to get you to
come in for a routine physical. I guess we had better do the
works on you.”
My doctor is a very methodical physician. I've always felt
secure in his presence. But as he examined me this time, even
though his reactions were just as noncommittal as they had
always been, I had a strange feeling, a sort of sixth sense, that
things weren't right. He checked me over thoroughly, asked a
hundred silly questions, nodded, grunted, and made little notes
on a pad from my file. He didn't seem alarmed, but something
inside kept telling me that there was something wrong—very
wrong.
Following the examination he said, “I can't find any external
signs, Sara. No heart problem and no lumps. But I think it
250
So Much Left to Do
would be a good idea to have you go by St. Joseph's Hospital in

Burbank for X-rays. If there is anything wrong, they'll catch it
there.”
“Maybe the pain is caused from tension,” I suggested.
The doctor looked at his nurse and grinned knowingly.
“Ninety percent of the pain in Hollywood is caused from
tension. That doesn't make it any less painful, but Sara, you're
not the 'tension type.' That's why I think we had better do some
further checking on you to see just where this pain is coming
from.”
I agreed to go over to St. Joseph's that afternoon for X-rays.
While I was there, they also ran a myelogram and a cardiogram.
The next day I was back in the doctor's office to hear the results.
The X-rays showed up a dark shadow in your chest,” he
said, as I took a seat in his consultation room. “Probably nothing
serious, but we need to operate to find out.” He didn't make it
sound very urgent.
“Well, the operation will just have to wait,” I said, standing
up. “I can't take time out of my schedule for surgery just now.”
International Orphans, Inc., was consuming much of my
time. The year before we had sponsored a fund-raising event at
the Century Plaza Hotel, and most of Hollywood's top
celebrities had turned out for it. Bob Hope, Roy Rogers and Dale
Evans, Martha Raye, Nancy Sinatra, Edgar Bergen (and of
course Charlie McCarthy), and other well-known stars had
received awards for their participation in the work. Now we
were planning an even bigger affair, and it was taking all my
time to get things ready. Even more important, my sons needed
me, and there were some financial affairs demanding my
attention.
But my doctor must have known what was going on inside
my head. He reached over and laid his hand on the back of
251
mine. “Now take it easy, Miss Activity,” he smiled. “I don't

think this is anything too serious—probably just a spot that we
can remove. However, if we don't take care of it now, later may
be too late.”
Suddenly I realized he had been underplaying the part. But I
wanted him to keep on underplaying it. I really didn't want the
truth, not at that moment. Hollywood's a pretty worldly place,
and Christians are in the minority there. But I had been active in
the Hollywood Presbyterian Church, even taught Sunday school
there. For years I had been rattling on about my faith in Christ. I
believed in healing, in miracles, in the supernatural power of a
supernatural God. Now though, faced with the specter of
disease in my own body, I wanted to crawl under something
and pull it in on top of me. Until that moment I hadn't realized
that all my conditioning had been fatalistic: Disease leads to
death. It was hard to approach the truth that God could heal.
The doctor was still talking. “We'll have four other doctors
working on the case. You'll receive the best medical treatment in
the world. But we must not wait. I would like for you to enter
the hospital tomorrow.”
I felt as if I were on a merry-go-round, hanging on for dear
life as it whirled around and around. I nodded my head.
“Whatever you say, Doctor. Just let me go home and pack and
make some arrangements about the children.”
Later that week, I woke up through the blurred haze of
anesthesia and saw Don and Yvonne Fedderson standing beside
my bed. Yvonne and I had founded International Orphans, Inc.,
together, long before she was married. Her husband is one of
the finest producers in Hollywood, responsible for such
programs as My Three Sons and The Lawrence Welk Show.
“Hi,” Yvonne whispered as I blinked my eyes in awareness.
I felt Don's hand in mine, his warm fingers holding me securely.
“You're going to be all right,” he said confidently.
252
So Much Left to Do
“I have cancer, don't I?” I asked, looking up into Yvonne's

face. “I dreamed about it just now—while I was waking up.”
Yvonne nodded. She and Don were trying so hard to be
cheerful, but big tears came rolling down her face. It was
impossible for her to hide anything from me. “You'll be okay,
though,” she smiled reassuringly.
“I'll just have to go to Kathryn Kuhlman,” I said.
“Who's she?” Don asked...
My mind drifted back to the day I had asked the same
question of an eighty-year-old carpenter who was doing some
remodeling in my house.
One day he had said, “You remind me of Kathryn Kuhlman.
You even talk like her.”
“Who's Kathryn Kuhlman?” I asked.
He had reached into his little apron and pulled out a fistful
of nails. “It would take me a hundred years to answer that
question,” he chuckled, kneeling down to hammer away at a
baseboard. “You'll just have to go see her. Otherwise, anything I
tell you will sound ridiculous.” Then, pausing, he looked up.
“You know, she's going to be in town next week. I go to the
meetings with a busload from my church. Why don't you come
along with me?”
So we went, this eighty-year-old carpenter and I. I was
awestruck by the entire service, weeping the whole time I was
there. It was the deepest spiritual experience of my life. Surely, I
thought, this is the way things were in the New Testament
church.
Even though my work schedule and the activities at my own
church had kept me from attending another miracle service at
the Shrine Auditorium, I never doubted that God was working
through Kathryn Kuhlman's ministry. Had I known I had
cancer before I went to the hospital, I'd have gone to a miracle
253
service first....
“Who's Kathryn Kuhlman?” Don asked again, interrupting
my reverie.
Remembering the answer my eighty-year-old carpenter gave
me, I smiled up at Don. “It would take me a hundred years to
answer that question. You'll just have to go with me to see her.
Otherwise, anything I tell you will sound ridiculous.”
I felt Yvonne's cool hand on my head. “You just lie still and
get well,” she said. “Don's going to stay here, but I have to get
back to work on our orphan project.”
“That's good,” I said, feeling sleepy again. “I'll get well.
There's too much left for me to do to die.”
I had never dreamed anything would consume my life like
the work for those orphans. Back in 1959 Yvonne and I were a
couple of kids, doing our bit for the USO in Japan and having a
great time of it. The wild applause from the America GIs for our
corny-comic act in the remote radar-site areas was the greatest
reward any young Hollywood starlet could ever hope for.
Back in Tokyo we had weathered out the third heavy
typhoon of the winter. After the wind died down, we went out
on the streets to have a look. We hadn't gone far before we
found a huddle of little kids, shivery blue, shoeless, with bloody
cracked hands and hunger-racked faces. There were eleven of
them, the oldest about ten and the youngest not more than two.
They were all crying and saying a Japanese phrase over and
over. With the help of our pocket dictionaries, we finally
understood what they were sobbing out: “No mamas, no
papas.”
That did it. We smuggled them all up the back stairs to our
plush hotel room, drew hot baths, and ordered lots of rice. Then
we called our army colonel host and asked him what to do.
“Call the police,” he exploded. The police came, shrugged,
254
So Much Left to Do
and left.
We gathered army blankets and bedded the children down
for the night. The next morning we set out in an army limousine
with a list of orphanages.
Not one of them would take the children. “Too full,” they all
explained. It was late in the afternoon before the driver, who
spoke a little English, told us why. “Blue eyes, light skin.”
Unwanted, the kids had probably been shoved out of these very
orphanages to die.
Shocked and furious, Yvonne and I took the children back to
our hotel room, ordered more rice, and stormed the colonel's
office again.
“Get us an extension on our tour,” we demanded. “We can't
leave now. These are our children.”
Someone gave us the name of the Japanese-American
director of Tokyo General Missions. Through him we found
Mrs. Kin Horiuchi in a far corner of Tokyo. She had gathered
twenty-one half-castes in a one-room shanty with no front door,
no window panes, one hibachi for cooking food and for
warmth, a few scraggly blankets, and only one jacket, which the
oldest took turns wearing to school.
Mrs. Horiuchi took the eleven extra children, and we gave
her all the army blankets we could filch, all the money we had,
and a promise to raise more. Then we set out passing the hat,
collecting dimes and dollars from the GIs and the brass. By the
time we left for home, other urchins were being dumped a few
blocks from Mrs. Horiuchi's shack with notes pinned to their
tattered clothes.
Back in Hollywood, Yvonne and I incorporated ourselves
under the names International Orphans, Inc.—better known as
IOI—and started to work. We organized chapters in cities across
the nation, and as the money began to come in, we began to
255
build orphanages. Soon there were nine of them, a school, and a

hospital.
Many famous Hollywood personalities got involved in our
project. The press gave us good coverage. Mayor Yorty of Los
Angeles, Lieutenant General Lewis Walt of the Marine Corps,
and the Navy Chaplains Corps all supported the program. It
became a full-time job for both Yvonne and me.
That was the reason I had to get well. Too many starving,
homeless children depended on me. If I died, so would they. I
believed with all my heart that God had called me to this task,
and it wasn't completed. I knew I was supposed to remain on
earth—even if it took a miracle to keep me alive.
The doctors were not at all optimistic about my chances.
They told me I would be in the hospital for a long time, and that
I would have many months of cobalt treatment after my release.
The malignant tumor that had been pressing against my heart
had caused the pain, and the doctors suspected that the cancer
had already spread to my rib cage and into my glands.
The day after I got out of the hospital, I called one of Miss
Kuhlman's Los Angeles representatives to find out the date of
the next Shrine service.
Janice Ford, Vice President of International Orphans, Inc.
went with me to the meeting. We didn't know when the service
started, though, and arrived at the Shrine Auditorium an hour
after the doors closed. Throngs of people were waiting on the
sidewalks, hoping someone inside would leave so they could
claim a seat.
I squeezed my way through the mob and banged on the
door with my fists. The door opened.
“Lady, there's no way,” a woman said. “Every seat is taken.”
And the door closed gently but firmly in my face.
“I just don't understand it,” Janice said. “It seemed so right
256
So Much Left to Do
that we should come today. Medically, you shouldn't even be

walking yet. You still have your stitches.”
I put my hand against my side, feeling the prickling of the
stitches in my skin. “Well, I'm not going to leave,” I told her. “I
believe we're meant to be here.”
Janice and I walked around to the side of the building,
trying to figure out how to get in. Halfway down the block,
standing in the middle of the sidewalk talking to people, was
one of the personal workers I had met at my earlier visit to the
Shrine Auditorium. Could it be possible that she would
remember me?
“Sara! Hi!” she called out. “Miss Kuhlman sent me out to
apologize to these people. There aren't any seats left in the
auditorium.”
“I got mixed up. I thought the service began at 1:30. Is there
any way...?” I pleaded.
She stood looking at me for a minute before she spoke.
“You know, Sara, I have a feeling that I'm supposed to give
you my seat. My husband is here, and he can give your friend
his seat.”
I grabbed Janice's hand as I walked through the door,
thankful for the huge crowd. In the midst of it I could be alone.
Nobody knew me, I could lose myself and wait for God to touch
me.
We had no sooner taken our seats in the balcony, however,
when I recognized Gloria Owen sitting beside me. She was an
old friend who had worked with me in International Orphans,
Inc. Then someone touched my shoulder. I glanced back and
saw Sister Mary Ignatius, dressed in her Roman Catholic habit.
She, too, was a dear old friend. The man in front of me
turned and smiled. “Hi, Sara.” He was one of the actors with
whom I had worked when I was playing a role on the Ozzie and
257
Harriet show. I was surrounded by people I knew!

Suddenly we were all on our feet singing “Alleluia!” Over
and over we sang the chorus. I began to have the same feeling I
had had when I went under anesthesia. I knew what was going
on around me, but I wasn't a part of it. When we sat down, the
feeling continued. I was aware that Miss Kuhlman was
preaching, but I didn't hear a word she said. I was in a vacuum.
Then I saw it—a pink mist or cloud, moving across the
balcony to where I was sitting. Suddenly I was completely
engulfed in it. I could see out of it and wanted to reach over and
touch Janice and ask if she saw it, too, but I was afraid it would
go away if I spoke or moved.
Then, in the midst of the cloud, I heard Miss Kuhlman's
voice coming from the stage: “There's a healing way up there in
the balcony, someone with cancer.”
I heard her clearly, but was afraid to hope she meant me. I
began to pray, “God, if it is you, I want to know it. I don't want
to wonder. I don't want to profess anything I'm not sure of. I
have to know, concretely.”
Instantly, something happened. It was as if I had grabbed an
electrical hot line. Needles of fire surged through my body—like
I was being charged with a thousand volts of electricity. I felt
intense heat through my chest and midsection, and my body
began to shake so hard I was afraid I would fall out of my seat.
Again, Miss Kuhlman's voice was saying, “The girl in the
balcony with the cancer healing will know it because it's like a
thousand needles going through her body.”
That was it. Later I learned that all the people around me
had felt the power, too. Janice, Gloria Owen, my actor-friend,
Sister Mary Ignatius—all were knocked back by the shock
waves of the Holy Spirit. But still I was fearful of claiming
something that might not be mine. Miss Kuhlman kept on
258
So Much Left to Do
speaking.
“The girl who is being healed of cancer is sitting in the last
row in the second balcony. Stand up and claim your healing.”
I looked around. That was exactly where I was sitting. And
there was no way Miss Kuhlman could know about me unless
the Lord was revealing it to her. I got to my feet, and an usher
escorted me to the platform, the pink mist still surrounding me.
I tried to tell Miss Kuhlman about my healing, but before I
could say anything, she touched me. My legs buckled, and I
crumpled to the floor under an overwhelming surge of power. I
only vaguely remember returning to my seat.
After the service Janice and I went to the Fedderson house.
When I told Don and Yvonne about my healing, they were
thrilled, but I suspect that both of them would have preferred to
have more evidence than just my testimony about needles going
through my body.
And there was more evidence. That night, as I undressed, I
discovered it. Earlier that day I had noticed the painful pricking
of the stitches at my incision. But that night my skin felt smooth,
unusually smooth, all along the eighteen-inch zigzag scar on the
front and side of my rib cage. I walked to the mirror, and I could
hardly believe what I saw. Skin, new skin, had grown
completely over the stitches, obliterating them. Both scar and
stitches had almost completely disappeared. Only by pressing
firmly could I still feel the lumps of the stitches under the skin.
I was convinced. I wasted no time the next morning before
calling Yvonne and asking her to go to the doctor's office with
me.
We were the first ones at the office. After the doctor
examined me, he left me with nurses while he went out to talk
to Yvonne. I heard him through the open door. “This girl friend
of yours is so kooky that her skin heals up on top of my work.
259
We may have to perform another operation just to get the

stitches out.” He sounded pleased but puzzled.
The nurses worked on me, trying to remove the stitches, but
with no success. Finally the doctor had to take over, using a
scalpel to cut the skin and what he called a crochet needle to
pull out the stitches one by one. It hurt, but it was a happy hurt.
Just a week later my father died in Tennessee, and the
family gathered for the funeral. None of them, except my
brother, knew I had been operated on for cancer, but all of them
could tell that something wonderful had happened in my life. I
knew it, too. Not only had my body been healed (later
examinations proved that every trace of cancer was gone), but I
had new strength, new power, new joy—enough to carry us all
through my father's funeral. It was as if God had made me a
living testimony to the power of Jesus Christ to keep us in times
of stress.
More than a year later, looking back, I give thanks I had
cancer. I realize that when Jesus reaches out and lays His
healing hand on a body, that touch seeps down into the very
innermost parts of the soul. His touch has caused me to
completely reevaluate my life, take a look at my priorities, and
determine what is important and what isn't.
The dizzy tempo of the Hollywood social activity still swirls
around me. My work with International Orphans, Inc., has
increased, and my energy level has grown to fantastic
proportions. I am able to accomplish three times as much as
before—with half the effort.
I know God has given me this victory for a purpose. It may
be to enable me to bring up my own boys. It may be that I may
help provide homes for hundreds of thousands of homeless
children throughout the world. It may be so that I can stay on
the Hollywood merry-go-round and witness about the saving,
healing power of Jesus Christ. Whatever the reason, I know that
260
So Much Left to Do
each day I live is a gift from God, to be joyfully lived to its

fullest, giving Him all the glory.
261
CHAPTER 16
16 SOMETHING TO SHOUT ABOUT
EVELYN ALLEN
Dying from myasthenia gravis, Evelyn Allen was carried into the
Shrine Auditorium to her seat by her husband, where she reclined on
two pillows, barely able to breathe. I had preached only a few minutes
that Sunday when the miracles began to happen. One of the first to be
touched by the power of God was Evelyn Allen. None of us will ever
forget how she came up out of that seat, walking and leaping and
praising God.
Myasthenia gravis is an unbeatable, deadly killer. It attacks
the central nervous system much as a maniac would smash a
telephone switchboard with an axe. Everything is short-
circuited.
Off and on during the years my husband Lee was in the
Navy, I had been bothered with spells of weakness, dizziness,
and fainting. I didn't think it was anything serious. Then Lee
retired and accepted a responsible position with United Airlines
at San Francisco International Airport. We bought a little house
just across the bay in San Lorenzo, and I hoped this would be
the end of my sickness.
Instead, my pain grew worse. It seemed every organ in my
body was in trouble. I was in and out of the Oakland Naval
Hospital several times a week as the doctors sought the cause.
Three major operations did nothing to help.
One Sunday afternoon a Nazarene pastor from Alameda
called to see if I would play for a wedding in his church. I
agreed, although I was feeling so bad I could hardly walk. As
the soloist stood to sing the Lord's Prayer, I feared I was going
263
to black out on the organ bench. The notes of the music began to
run together, and I lost control of my arms and legs. “I'll never
make it through this song,” I thought. “Please, God, help me.”
He helped, and I did get through, even though I could not
see the music and didn't even know if my hands were touching
the keyboard. Afterward, Lee took me right home and put me to
bed. I was down for three weeks. Each time I would try to get
up, it felt like my chest was caving in on my lungs, forcing all
the air out of me. I had the strange feeling that I was coming
apart from the inside out.
The neurologist at the Naval Hospital frankly admitted he
was unable to diagnose my problem. By this time I was having
two or three fainting spells a week and frequently losing control
of my arms and legs. My body was filled with a raging fire of
pain that seared every nerve ending. I could breathe better
when I was lying down, my heart racing in my chest like an
automobile engine with both the gas pedal and the clutch
pushed to the floor.
Lee arranged to have full-time nursing aid around the clock.
He moved my organ across the living room and set up my bed
next to the wall. Our little house was transformed from a
retirement nest to a nursing home for a dying woman.
I began to say prayers like, “Lord, let this next breath be my
last one. I cannot stand the pain any longer.” But I didn't die. All
I did was waste away. The days and nights were superimposed
on each other, running together in one long montage of pain.
The Navy paid all our medical expenses as long as I
confined my visits to the Naval Hospital. But when they could
no longer help me, I was more than ready to seek outside help.
Money didn't matter. It was a matter of life or death.
In desperation I went to a civilian physician, Dr. Phelps, in
San Leandro. He got all my medical records from the Navy,
admitted me to San Leandro Memorial Hospital in May and
264
Something to Shout About
immediately began an extensive series of tests. From the very

onset, Dr. Phelps knew what was wrong with me—yet no
doctor wants to pronounce an irrefutable death sentence.
In August of that year I had gone to his office following a
severe seizure. Normal pain relievers, even narcotics, could not
help me, since they all work on the nervous system—and it was
my nervous system that was being short-circuited.
“Evelyn,” Dr. Phelps said kindly, “I have to level with you.
There is no mistaking this diagnosis. You have familial periodic
paralysis and myasthenia gravis. It probably started fifteen
years ago and has grown progressively worse. I wish I could
help you, but there is absolutely nothing I can do. The
Myasthenia Gravis Foundation has done some research on the
disease, but at this stage they have nothing to help you.”
I was too sick to be surprised. For some time I had known
that I was dying. All he had told me was the name of my killer.
Dr. Phelps took his time and patiently described the nature
of the disease. “Familial periodic paralysis is a rare disease,” he
said, “that usually occurs in young people. It's marked by
recurring attacks of rapidly progressive paralysis that affects the
entire body. Myasthenia gravis is a chronically progressive
muscular weakness affecting all the vital organs of the body.
Death, when it comes, is usually from heart and respiratory
failure. All I can say is that most patients in your condition
aren't living now.”
I nodded. “Dr. Phelps, I gave my heart to Jesus as a child
back in the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Easley, South
Carolina. I am thankful I grew up in a Christian home where the
Bible was taught. I'm ready to go whenever He wants to take
me.” I could not hold back the tears, and dropped my face in my
hands.
A Baptist friend of mine had given me a copy of I Believe in
Miracles and suggested I listen to Kathryn Kuhlman's radio
265
broadcast over KFAX. I began to look forward to the daily

program. I was in total agreement with Miss Kuhlman's
theology and believed that healing was part of God's plan for
today. Yet it didn't seem to be His plan for me. I had prayed
desperately for God to either heal me or take me. He did
neither. It was as though He had forgotten all about me, leaving
me to die slowly, by excruciating painful degrees.
Lee called my parents, Frank and Grace Knox, in South
Carolina, and told them he didn't think I would last very long.
Both of them were elderly and sick, but they wanted to see me
one more time before I died. They flew out from Greenville,
South Carolina, stayed two weeks, and returned home,
promising to get everyone in the Wesleyan Methodist and
Baptist churches to pray for me.
Many in our area were praying also. The pastor from the
Neighborhood Church, a large Christian and Missionary
Alliance Church, came by the house to see me. “Pastor, the
doctor has said there is nothing they can do for me,” I said,
weeping when he came in.
“Well, it might be so with men,” he said, “but God is still on
the throne, Evelyn. His stripes are for your healing, and we're
going to ask God for a miracle.” Then pausing and looking
around, he asked, “Do you have any oil in the house?”
“All we have is some bath oil,” I answered.
“Well, God didn't say what kind,” he said. “Bring it to me.”
He and his companion put their hands on me and anointed
me with oil. “Lord, we are praying in faith and obedience,” he
said. “We claim healing for this child of yours.”
September rolled around. By that time the only bright part
of my day was the Kathryn Kuhlman radio broadcast. One
Tuesday morning the announcer talked about the services at the
Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. I knew it was impossible for
266
me to make that 450-mile trip. I could hardly get out of bed to

go to the bathroom. The program closed with music from the
Shrine. The marvelous choir was singing, “My Hope Is Built on
Nothing Less.” In the middle of the song I heard Miss
Kuhlman's deep voice as she spoke to the congregation, saying,
“Everybody sing it with them.”
It was more than I could take. I had played the organ in
church for years, and I knew I had to join in. I rolled out of bed
and crawled across the floor to my organ on the other side of the
living room. Clawing my way up on the bench, I flipped the
switch and opened the hymnbook to the song they were
singing. But as I put my fingers on the keyboard, the weakness
swirled through my body. I fell forward, and the organ gave
forth a bellow of discord, as though it was suffering with me.
It was hopeless. I flipped the switch off and lay across the
keyboard, weeping in pain and frustration. I couldn't even
worship God.
The program was over. Miss Kuhlman was gone, and the
radio shifted to some commercial announcement. When I
looked up, my eyes focused on the hymnbook, and the third
stanza of that grand old hymn stood out in bold relief. I had
played it hundreds of times in dozens of different churches. But
somehow I had never seen the words—at least had not let them
speak to me. Perhaps I had to get in the position of desperation,
lying across the keyboard, before the truth could come home.
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
I put my head on the organ and said out loud, “Lord, I'm
going to that miracle service in Los Angeles—even if I die on the
267
way.”
I crawled back to bed and had a real good cry. I continued to
pray aloud. “Job came out of his suffering. The people in that
book of Miss Kuhlman's came out of their suffering. Lord, I
intend to come out of this, too. If you don't want me to go to
that service, you had better take me now, because I'm going.”
I reached for the telephone and called a friend who
sometimes attended services at the Neighborhood Church. She
was different from many of my Christian friends in that she
prayed in a special way, “in the Spirit” she called it. If anybody
would help me, she would.
“Will you go with me to the Kathryn Kuhlman service?” I
cried into the phone. “I have to go, even if I die.”
“Oh, yes!” she almost shouted into the telephone. “I'll go
with you. I've been praying.” I knew that hundreds of others
had been praying also.
Lee made reservations on the special plane that would fly us
down from the Oakland Airport. But on Friday, two days before
we were to leave, I had a terrible attack. Lee called Dr. Phelps.
“Let me talk to your wife,” the doctor said. Lee put the
phone down next to my ear, and Dr. Phelps said, “Evelyn, I'm
sorry, but there is nothing anyone can do. Most patients in your
condition aren't alive.”
“Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do, doctor,” I wheezed.
“I'm going to a Kathryn Kuhlman Miracle Service—if I'm
still living when it comes time to leave.”
“Now tell me how you're going to do that,” he said kindly.
“I can tell by listening that you have a severe respiratory
problem.”
“I'll make it,” I said, gasping for air. “Just wait and see.”
There was a pause. “I want to see you in my office on
268
Tuesday after you get back,” he said. Then there was another
pause. “And, Evelyn, I'll be praying for you as you go.”
The next day, Saturday, I was so weak and in so much pain,
that when my friend called on the phone, I tried to back out. “I
can't make it,” I cried. “I can't even lift my head off the pillow
without suffocating. How do you think I'll make it on the plane
and into the auditorium?”
Her voice came through the telephone like the voice of God.
“O Lord, I know you're going to use her—I know you're going
to heal her—I know you're going to make her a great witness.
Oh, thank you, Lord.”
I was too sick to pass judgment on her type of prayer. All I
knew was she was getting through to God. I was grateful.
Saturday night I lay in bed and looked at my watch.
“All right, Lord,” I said. “Tomorrow night I'm going to walk
back into this house, or else I'll be walking the golden streets. If I
can't come back healed, I want to die right there in the Shrine
Auditorium.”
I wasn't bargaining with the Lord. It was more like an
ultimatum. He could take me or He could heal me; it made no
difference. But I wasn't willing to settle for anything halfway.
Sunday was the roughest day of my life. Lee picked me up
like a sack of potatoes and put me in the car. A wheelchair was
waiting at the airport and they lifted me in.
“Oh, don't push me fast. Don't push me fast,” I moaned as
Lee rolled the wheelchair across the ramp.
“Evelyn, we're barely creeping,” he said.
They arranged seats on the plane so I could lie down. I felt
myself turning blue as the weight of my muscles pulled against
my respiratory system. “I can't make it,” I gasped to my friend.
“I'm going to die right here on the plane.”
269
“Oh, no you're not,” she said with authority. “God, don't

you let her die! O Lord, heal her. We claim your healing.” I was
convinced that God was listening to that beautiful, auburn-
haired woman.
Lee had brought two pillows, and when we got on the bus at
the Los Angeles Airport, they again fixed a seat so I could lie
down.
We were late in arriving at the Shrine Auditorium. The
building was packed, but seats had been reserved for those on
our plane. Lee carried me down the aisle to my seat and
propped me up on the pillows. I felt every eye in that great
auditorium was on me. But when you're dying, you don't care
what anyone thinks. You'll do anything to live.
I was suffering more than ever before. The choir sang the
Lord's Prayer, and I whispered to Lee, “Lay me down on the
floor near the door. I don't think I can sit up anymore.” But
before he could move, it happened.
Miss Kuhlman stepped to the microphone. “I'm not going to
preach this afternoon, because there is so much suffering here
today. The Holy Spirit is eager to move.” She started calling out
healings. One, two, three—and then I heard her say, “To my
right, there is a healing of respiratory problems....”
“That's me!” I whispered to Lee.
I reached out to the seat in front of me and tried to pull
myself up. I couldn't. I fell back on the pillows, my body limp as
a wet rag. I tried again, but couldn't even close my fingers on
the back of the seat.
“The Lord has passed me by,” I moaned to Lee. “I'll never
make it back home.”
Just then a lady dressed in a white knit dress came down the
aisle. “Has there been a healing in this section?” she asked Lee.
Then she saw me on the pillows. “Are you receiving a
270
healing?”
“No,” I said, “but I sure could use one.”
“Will you try to walk in the name of Jesus?” she asked.
“I can't stand up.”
“Will you try?” she urged.
I felt Lee's big strong arm around my waist, and before I
could answer, he hoisted me to my feet.
Then I felt it. It was a light tickle, like the tips of a feather,
that started behind my left ear and with a faint brushing feeling
swept down the left side of my body, tickling, touching ever so
lightly. Suddenly I was weightless. The paralysis was gone. The
pain was gone. I was strong—stronger than I had ever been
before. Before I knew it, I was running down the aisle toward
the stage. I could hear the roar of that great crowd as they saw
what was happening.
Behind me, I heard Lee shouting, “Oh, she's been healed!
God, don't let her break her leg.”
I ran the length of the aisle to the platform, leaving the
personal worker far behind.
When I was on the platform Miss Kuhlman approached me.
“Have you received a healing?” All at once I was afraid. I
looked out at that great sea of faces. I looked down at my feet,
and like Peter walking on the water, I began to sink. I choked
out with fear and desperation, “Miss Kuhlman, the paralysis is
coming back. Please help me.”
She grabbed me around the waist. “I can't help you. I have
no power to help or heal. Look to Jesus.” Then she turned to the
congregation and said, “I want everyone here to pray that this
woman's healing will be complete.”
I was aware of the choir beginning to sing again, and all
around me people were praying. Miss Kuhlman touched me on
271
the forehead. I knew I felt the Holy Spirit as He flowed through

my body. The feather-feeling returned, sweeping all the way
from my head to my toes. I was conscious of everything. I didn't
faint. But it was the greatest relaxation I had ever known. I was
floating, yet I was on the floor—under the power of God.
Someone helped me to my feet, and Miss Kuhlman said,
“Stomp that foot, in the name of Jesus!” I stomped and stomped
and stomped and laughed and cried and ran back and forth,
splashing tears all over the platform. Then Miss Kuhlman began
talking to the devil. I thought, “My word, that woman will talk
to anybody.”
“Satan,” she said, “this girl belongs to God Almighty, and
you shall never bind her again.” The entire audience was on its
feet, applauding and shouting praises to God.
“Is there a doctor in the auditorium who is willing to come
up here and examine this woman?” Miss Kuhlman said into the
microphone.
Moments later a man appeared on the stage. He introduced
himself as a surgeon from Anaheim. He felt my muscles, took
my pulse, listened to me breathe, and then turned to Miss
Kuhlman. “I was sitting back there with three other doctors,” he
said. “I do not doubt her doctor's diagnosis. This has to be the
power of God, for nobody with myasthenia could ever do what
she is doing now.” His face was awash with tears as he testified.
After the meeting the bus driver took one look at me and his
face broke into a huge grin. “You've been healed!” he exclaimed.
“I'll never doubt the power of God again. I saw you before, and
I see you now.”
When we reached the airport the people in our party
grabbed Lee, holding him back. “We want to see your wife go
up those steps by herself,” they said.
I ran all the way to the ramp and up the steps—myself.
272
It was the day of the final game of the World Series, and we
arrived in Oakland at the same time the Oakland A's arrived,
fresh from their World Series victory over the Cincinnati Reds.
Thirty-five thousand people had packed into that little airport to
greet them. It took us three hours to get out of the airport.
Lee and my girl friend were both complaining of their
hurting feet, but I felt I had wheels for feet. “Those A's think
they have something to celebrate,” I shouted above the uproar.
“Nobody in the world has more to shout about than I do. I've
been healed.”
The next Tuesday I went to Dr. Phelp's office. His nurse
immediately noticed the change in my body. “Don't say a
word,” I cautioned her as she helped me undress. “I want the
doctor to find out for himself.”
Dr. Phelps came in and looked at me sympathetically.
“Evelyn, how are you today?” he asked in his deep base
voice.
“I've got trouble with my big toe,” I snickered. “I think it's
from wearing shoes.”
He grinned slightly and started his examination. He took my
blood pressure, and I noticed wrinkles across his brow. I could
hardly keep from laughing. Then he checked my reflexes. For
the first time in years, everything worked. Stepping back, he
folded his stethoscope and stuck it in the pocket of his white
coat. “Evelyn, I want to know what's happened to you.”
I jumped down off the table and did a little dance right there
on the floor of the examination room. “Dr. Phelps,” I giggled,
“you can start taking care of the sick—I've been healed.”
“I believe it,” he smiled broadly. “God did this! Now go and
give Him the glory.” I left the doctor's office that morning and
stood on the sidewalk breathing deeply. The seagulls were
wheeling overhead as the tide from the bay ebbed seaward,
273
leaving the exposed mudflats. My feet were not planted in mud,

but on a firm foundation that would never move. I broke into
song as I got in the car to drive home:
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
274
CHAPTER 17
17 GOD LOVES US ALL
CLARA CURTEMAN
Clara Curteman lives in the little Northern California community
of Fortuna. She worked as a waitress in Fred Deo's restaurant and bar
in Loleta before she was disabled by a paralyzing stroke. A devout
Roman Catholic, she and her husband, Vern, who works in a lumber
mill, have five children.
It all started one evening in Fred Deo's restaurant where I
was waiting on tables. As I was picking up a tray of dirty
dishes, I felt a sudden wave of nausea, accompanied by
shooting pains in my head and stomach. I almost collapsed, but
one of the other waitresses rushed to help me while another girl
told Fred of my condition. He called my husband Vern, who
came and picked me up.
I got as far as the sofa in our tiny living room before I
collapsed. I had never been so ill. Vern told our five children to
put themselves to bed. Then he tucked me in right on the sofa,
where I spent the night.
When I awoke the next morning the sun was streaming into
the living room. I tried to sit up. I couldn't. My left leg and left
arm wouldn't move. I tried to call Vern, but only funny noises
came from my lips. I felt a wave of panic sweeping through my
mind. Paralyzed! Finally my incoherent sounds woke Vern. He
could tell by the terror in my eyes that something was
dreadfully wrong.
It was Saturday morning, and Vern called several doctors
before he found one who would see me. The doctor made a
quick examination and said, “I think it's probably a pinched
275
nerve. You'll get better after some rest.”

Confused, Vern took me home. My ability to speak returned
slowly, but I remained in bed. The pain in my left arm and leg
grew more intense.
After two weeks, Vern called Dr. Dixon in Rio Dell, a small
town south of Fortuna. Dr. Dixon, who had treated my
grandmother, agreed to see me. The moment I hobbled through
his door, he said, “I can tell right now you've had a stroke. You
don't belong here, you belong in a hospital.”
I objected. I have five children to take care of, and we were
hard-pressed financially. Dr. Dixon reluctantly agreed to let me
return home.
My condition continued to deteriorate. One night at the
dinner table our six-year-old Michael said, “Dad, why doesn't
my mother learn how to talk right again?”
I burst into tears. Vern tried to smooth things over.
“Mother can't help how she talks, Mike. She's sick.”
Even so, none of us realized just how sick I really was.
In October I entered the University of California Hospital in
San Francisco. Vern drove me down, three hundred miles, and I
was admitted on a Saturday night. The doctors began tests that
same evening. Three days later one of the doctors came by my
bed in the ward. “Mrs. Curteman, it looks like you've had a
cerebral arterial occlusion. This is a medical name for a stoppage
of the blood vessels in the brain. It's called a stroke, resulting in
the paralysis of your left side.”
Vern came for me shortly before Thanksgiving. The doctors
didn't want to release me, insisting they needed to remove part
of my right lung where clots had formed. They warned me I
could suffer another stroke at any moment. However, I was
allowed to be home with the children for the holidays.
It was a long trip home. Even the drive through the
276
God Loves Us All
magnificent redwood forests meant nothing to me. I had always

admired those towering redwoods of Northern California,
standing there since the time of Christ in mute testimony to the
eternal goodness of God. Now, however, eternity seemed too
close.
Back in Fortuna Dr. Dixon ordered a brace for my left leg
and a cane. My foot was beginning to twist under, and the only
way to hold it straight was with a special shoe and a brace that
went as high as my knee.
A week before Christmas I became violently ill again.
The vomiting returned, along with terrific headaches and
muscle spasms in my back. Then in early January I had another
stroke. I awoke one morning to see my left hand horribly
twisted, looking like a claw, accompanied by a burning in my
arm and hand.
Dr. Dixon examined me again and finally ordered me back
to the hospital in San Francisco. One week and a hundred tests
later, one of the doctors came in. “If you had a choice,” he said,
half laughing, “which would you rather lose—your arm or your
leg?”
“You're kidding, aren't you, doctor?” I asked.
“It's just a question,” he said, smiling reassuringly. “But why
don't you think about it and give me an answer one of these
days?”
I tried to forget what he had said, but it kept coming back.
Why did he ask it? Was he kidding, or was he serious? Did the
doctors know more than they were telling me?
Three weeks later I was released from the hospital,
scheduled to return every two weeks for additional treatment.
Since Vern was working, and our finances were stretched to the
limit, this meant I had to ride the bus back and forth.
I had a wonderful priest, Father Ryan, from St. Joseph's
277
Catholic Church in Fortuna, who made regular calls to my

house. One afternoon I was lying on the sofa in so much pain I
thought I would die. “Father, what am I going to do?” I cried.
“All you can do is ask God to heal you,” he said kindly.
“And I shall join you in that request.”
Then he prayed for me.
On his way out, he met the pastor of the Foursquare Church
and his wife, who were on their way to see me. These two
precious people had ministered to my father during his illness,
and continued to stop by to see me after I became ill.
I was getting progressively worse. My vision had become
blurred and I had trouble focusing my eyes. My left leg was
useless and my speech very hard to understand. One Sunday
afternoon, after another severe attack, Vern took me back to Dr.
Dixon, who insisted I be sent to San Francisco at once.
“Don't even wait to change clothes,” he told Vern.
“I'll call ahead and make reservations. I see symptoms I
don't like.” Dr. Dixon thought I was dying. So did I.
Once again the doctors at the University Hospital ran me
through a whole battery of tests. On the fourth day one of the
neurosurgeons stopped by my room. “Well, Mrs. Curteman, I
think we need to do a little surgery on your head,” he
announced, without any preliminaries.
“Why? Do I have a brain tumor?” I asked.
“It looks like it,” he confessed. “But we can't be sure until we
go in and look.”
“You're not going to shave my whole head, are you?” I
asked. It is amazing, now that I think back on it. A
neurosurgeon was telling me they were going to open up my
skull and look at my brain, and I was concerned about how I'd
look!
278
God Loves Us All
He laughed, though, and it broke the tension. “I'll try to save

most of your hair,” he promised.
He did save it, but he made a nice-size hole in the back of
my skull. Following the surgery, it was Dr. Burton who brought
the news to me. “Good news and bad,” he grinned. “First of all,
you don't have a brain tumor. That's good. However, you do
have a condition known as vasculitis, a very rare blood disease.”
“And that's bad?” I volunteered.
He nodded his head. “I'm afraid so. This is a deterioration of
the blood vessels in your body. It caused the strokes you've had
—and can certainly cause more. Any one of them could kill
you.” He then went on to say that the disease itself could kill me
and that there was no known cure.
“What's going to happen?” I asked.
He pulled a chair up beside my bed and sat down.
“Clara, I don't know what is going to come from all this,” he
said softly. “We really can't do anything about it. I think you
should start making plans for someone to take care of your
children.”
I knew he expected me to die.
Released from the hospital, I started making my every-
other-week trips back and forth. The disease progressed to the
extent that the doctors told me I could expect a massive—even
fatal—stroke any day. They began talking about amputating my
leg as a means of prolonging my life.
Then I got a call from Katherine Deo, my boss's wife. We
had been in close contact since my sickness began, but this one
day in November she called with exciting news.
“Clara, Fred's brother-in-law, Don, has just come back from
a wonderful meeting in Los Angeles. It's called a miracle service
and it's conducted by a woman from Pittsburgh. He said he saw
hundreds of sick people healed by the power of God.”
279
“Oh, that's wonderful!” I said.

“That's not all,” Katherine continued. “Fred and I both
believe that you can be healed, too.”
I knew Fred and Katherine pretty well. Neither one had ever
shown much interest in spiritual things. But Katherine was
bubbling over. “Don brought us copies of Kathryn Kuhlman's
books. I know your eyes are bad, so I thought maybe you'd like
me to read them to you over the phone.”
I agreed to listen.
One night, several weeks later, as Katherine was reading
from God Can Do It Again—about a pitiful little clown who had
been healed even though he never got into the miracle service—
she started crying over the phone. Fred picked up the phone
and continued the reading. Then Fred started crying. I heard
Katherine say, “Let me finish it. This is one story I really want
Clara to hear.”
Katherine did finish the story, and when it was over, I knew
I was supposed to go to a miracle service.
I thought about my grandparents, who were wonderful
Christians. As a child I could remember how my grandmother
prayed for me when I was sick, and how I would be healed. I
knew she was still praying for me. A feeling of excitement
began to build as I lay on the sofa in my living room, thinking
about how God answered her prayers—and about the healings
in the Kathryn Kuhlman services.
But I couldn't afford the trip to Los Angeles. Vern and I
prayed about it, believing God would provide a way. When
Fred and Katherine offered to take me, I knew God had planned
it.
I also knew this miracle service was my last chance. I had to
cancel an appointment at the hospital in order to go. The doctors
had wanted to begin preparations to amputate my leg. Yet I was
280
God Loves Us All
so sure that God was going to heal me that I packed my only

pair of high-heeled shoes, planning on walking out of the Shrine
Auditorium as a whole person.
That's how we happened to be driving south down
Highway 101 in Fred Deo's Cadillac that Sunday morning,
singing and praying and crying and holding hands. We were an
odd mixture. Fred had been in the liquor business for twenty-
two years. Katherine was a staunch Lutheran who chain-
smoked through one pack of cigarettes after another. In the back
seat, beside Fred's mother and aunt, was his sister Donna, a
member of a Pentecostal church in Santa Maria.
We had driven down from the northern part of the state two
days before, stopping over in Santa Maria with Donna and her
husband. For two nights we sat up late while they talked to us
about God's healing power. As a Roman Catholic I had no
problem believing in God's ability to heal and perform miracles.
For centuries the Roman Catholic Church has held to such
doctrines. But this was different. We were going to a specific
place at a specific time, expecting a specific miracle.
Fred's brother-in-law had told us that one of the favorite
songs at the Shrine Auditorium was “He Touched Me”. None of
us knew it, but Katherine had copied down the words. She was
trying to teach them to us as we drove toward Los Angeles.
Although the car was filled with cigarette smoke, and
Katherine's voice was hoarse and wheezing, she kept trying to
teach us the song. “No, that's not right,” she would say,
stopping in the middle of a phrase. “It goes like this...” Then we
would all launch into the song again.
“Let's hold hands while we pray,” Katherine said, grinding
out her cigarette in the ashtray. So we all joined hands and
cried, prayed, and sang songs together. After a while Katherine
turned to me. “Clara, you've prayed for everybody else but
yourself. Now ask God to heal you. Pray for yourself.”
281
For a long time I had believed that God was going to heal
me. Hadn't I brought my high-heeled shoes to wear when I took
my leg brace off and left my cane in Santa Maria? But praying
for myself was something else.
“Go on,” Katherine demanded. “You Catholics beat around
the bush. We Lutherans go straight to the Big Boss, but you
Catholics go through all the saints. This time, go straight to the
Top Man.”
“Dear God,” I finally stammered, “I'm asking for myself this
time. Please touch me and heal me.”
“Hallelujah!” Fred blubbered, tears streaming down his
cheeks. “She really means it, God. I know she does. And we
want you to heal her, too.”
I closed my eyes and praised God under my breath as the
car turned into the Harbor Freeway and headed south through
the city toward the Shrine Auditorium.
The others helped me climb the stairs, and we all found
seats high up in the balcony. There we sat until the service
began, holding hands and praying for my healing.
Halfway through the meeting Miss Kuhlman said, “There is
a leg healing in the balcony.” In fact, she said it three times, and
finally one of the helpers approached me and said, “I think Miss
Kuhlman is talking about you. Take off your brace and walk.”
I was shaking so badly I could hardly unbuckle my brace.
All the others in our group were crying, really sobbing. I
removed the brace and began to walk up and down the aisle. It
felt like fire was running through my body. I turned to the
helper and said, “I can't breathe. I'm so hot.”
I heard someone say, “Don't touch her, she's anointed.”
Then I fell to the floor. Later, Donna told me that as I lay on
the floor my left foot kept flopping back and forth so violently
she was afraid it would break off.
282
God Loves Us All
The ushers finally helped me to my feet and guided me to

the platform. Miss Kuhlman was smiling as they brought me
forward. I was still holding my brace and shoe, and she said,
“Well, now, what are you going to wear home now that you've
taken your shoe off?”
“Oh, I have my other shoes in the car,” I said excitedly,
completely oblivious to the fact that I was standing in front of
more than seven thousand people. “I knew God was going to
touch and heal me.”
Miss Kuhlman reached out to pray for me. “Dear Jesus...”
and that's all I remember. When someone helped me to my feet,
I heard Miss Kuhlman say, “Now what are you going to do?”
I was still flustered, but I managed to choke out, “I hope my
boss gives me my job back.”
“Your boss?” Miss Kuhlman chuckled. “Is your boss here in
this service?”
I pointed to the balcony, and Miss Kuhlman began to call.
“Boss, are you here? Come on down to the platform, and bring
your wife.”
They all came to the stage. Miss Kuhlman prayed, and we all
fell under the power of the Holy Spirit. One of the men on the
stage later told me that while I was lying on the floor that
second time, he could actually see the blood returning to my
face. He said it looked like a transfusion, as the color of my skin
changed from its usual sickly gray to a rosy pink.
I knew my leg had been healed. Yet it wasn't until we got
back in the car heading north through Los Angeles that I
noticed my hand. “Look!” I screamed. “I can move my hand!
My fingers are limber. They don't look like claws anymore.”
“And your eyes and face!” Donna shouted. “Your eyes are
healed! I can see the difference.”
Everything about me was whole.
283
We stopped at the first gas station off the freeway so I could

call home. Ten-year-old Vernon answered the phone. I could
hear him shouting, “Daddy, mama can walk! She doesn't have
her brace and cane! She's been healed!”
Vern came to the telephone, but all I could do was sob.
That's all he could do, too. Fred took the phone away from
me to tell Vern what had happened, but then he began to sob. I
finally had to get back on the phone to explain to Vern. We had
a revival meeting right there in that phone booth next to the gas
station.
We stopped in Santa Maria where I shared my testimony in
the Foursquare Gospel Church. When we finally got home, Vern
and the children were waiting on the curb.
“Mama,” Vernon shouted, “run a race with me and Mike.”
I dropped my suitcase and took off down the street, my two
youngest sons in hot pursuit. We ran all the way to the end of
the block (I think I won) and then walked back, laughing and
playing.
“Daddy,” little Mike said, holding me around the waist with
his pudgy arms, “Mama can run faster than me. She's not a
limper anymore.”
All of us were changed. Fred started making plans to get out
of the liquor business. I knew deep inside that God wanted to
use me to share my testimony not only among my Catholic
friends but in churches of all denominations. But first I had to
have my healing confirmed.
I returned to Dr. Dixon in Rio Dell. The minute I walked in
the doctor's office, his nurse jumped up from her seat behind the
desk. “Clara, what's happened?” Then she began to call for the
doctor. “Dr. Dixon, come in here. Come see Clara.”
Following an examination, Dr. Dixon said, “This is
wonderful, Clara.” Then he asked, “Are you still taking your
284
God Loves Us All
medicine?”
“I flushed it all down the toilet as soon as I came home from
Los Angeles,” I confessed. “Since then I haven't had any need
for medication.”
The next month I took the bus back to the hospital in San
Francisco. I made a point of wearing my best clothes, including
my high-heeled shoes. After reporting to the receptionist, I took
a seat in the waiting room.
Several minutes later Dr. Burton walked through the lobby.
He glanced at me and kept walking, then whirled in his tracks
and stared. “Clara?” he stammered, shaking his head in
disbelief. “Clara Curteman?”
I grinned. “That's me, doctor. Remember?”
“Will you come in here right away?” he asked, motioning to
his office. When he had closed the door he asked, “What
happened?”
“The Lord healed me.”
“Tell me all about it,” he blurted out. “And start from the
beginning.”
After I finished my story, he stepped into the hall and called
one of the other doctors. “Now you tell him what happened,” he
said.
“You mean from the beginning?”
“No, I mean the part about God healing you.”
The second doctor gave Dr. Burton a strange look but sat
and listened. When I finished, he wrinkled his forehead and
again looked at Dr. Burton.
Dr. Burton knew what he was thinking. “Psychosomatic?
Forget it. I've been in on this case from the very beginning. This
is the real thing.”
The second doctor turned back to me. “Behind every event
285
there is a logical reason,” he said. “What do you think is the

reason behind this?”
I thought of Vern and our children. I thought of my
suffering. I thought of Fred and Katherine and Donna—all of us
driving into Los Angeles in that car, singing and crying and
praying. I thought of their love, and of God's love flowing
through them to me. In my mind I kept hearing the echo of the
hymn, old to many but new to me, that I had heard sung in the
little Foursquare Church in Santa Maria:
Down in the human heart,
Crushed by the Tempter,
Feelings lie buried that grace can restore;
Touched by a loving heart,
Wakened by kindness,
Chords that were broken will vibrate once more.
I looked up at the doctors. They wanted a reason—a logical

reason. “There is a reason,” I said. “The reason is God's love. He
loves us all.”
286
CHAPTER 18
18 WE TRIED EVERYTHING BUT GOD
DR. HAROLD DAEBRITZ
Be not wise in our own eyes: revere the Lord and depart
from evil; it will he healing to your body and nourishment to
your bones.
(Proverbs 3:7-8 Berkeley)
The tangled mess began in my childhood. I was born in

Bulgaria, where my German father was an editor for a Seventh-
day Adventist publication. In 1938, the year before the war
began, all Germans were deported back home. I was ten years
old when we settled in Schneidemuhl, Pomerania, on the border
between Germany and Poland.
At the time we did not know that Hitler had issued an edict
that every youngster ten years of age or older had to belong to
the Hitler Youth. One day there was a knock at the front door.
Uniformed policemen were standing outside. “Look,” the leader
said to my mother, “you are keeping your children at home.
That is against the law. We warn you, you are responsible to
send them to the Hitler Youth meetings.”
My parents had no choice. My father was drafted into the
army and sent to the front. My sister and I began attending the
Hitler Youth meetings. The Nazi philosophy was being thrust at
us from all sides.
I advanced rapidly in the Hitler Youth. One day I found that
my skills on the violin qualified me to transfer from the militant
brownshirt group to the musical and cultural group. As time
went by I became the leader of an orchestra and band. By the
time I was sixteen I was in charge of over 500 young people in
287
an orchestra in Schneidemuhl.
Hitler's Germany had abandoned God. I remember vividly
the day the Hitler Youth participated in the burning of the
Jewish synagogue in Schneidemuhl. We were being taught
through example that there was no need for God.
Of course, the war went badly for Germany. We now realize
wars always go badly for those who oppose God. In honesty,
though, most of us knew nothing about the things that were
going on in occupied Poland. We knew very little or nothing
about the horrible concentration camps or the murder of the
Jews. We were content to stay at home playing Mendelssohn,
Mozart, and Beethoven—and occasionally watch a Shirley
Temple movie.
By the time the war was over we had lost everything. We
escaped to the American sector of Germany with only two
suitcases among the four of us. After the war there was a
resurgence of religion, but it was primarily a matter of the
intellect. I attended some small group Bible studies and was
even baptized in water in a bombed-out church. The search,
however, was for knowledge, rather than for the One who is the
Truth. Everything was a matter of the mind.
I entered dental school. However, when I graduated and
married Ingeborg, I learned it would take two years of private
practice before I could qualify to practice under the national
insurance program. Having no financial backing, we decided to
move to the United States, where we found a whole new set of
problems. The United States refused to recognize my degree in
dentistry from Germany. I would have to start all over again.
About this time I began having some physical problems. On
several occasions, sharp, shooting pains coursed through my
chest, and I felt waves of nausea, along with an awareness of a
rapidly beating heart. The doctor in Detroit diagnosed my
ailment as tachycardia and arrhythmia. My heartbeat would
288
We Tried Everything but God
sometimes increase to 240 beats a minute from the normal 80 to

100. Whenever this happened, it could mean death unless I
received immediate medical attention.
We moved to Los Angeles, thinking the climate would be
better. I opened a technical dental laboratory specializing in
ceramics. My health improved a little, and the local dentists
were impressed with the quality of my work. Soon our business
was expanding and flourishing. We had two wonderful sons. It
looked as if we had achieved the American dream of financial
success and security.
Then, one Friday afternoon as Ingeborg was driving home
from our dental laboratory in Fullerton, a young man plowed
into the back of our car. Both cars were badly damaged, and
Ingeborg suffered a severe whiplash. By the next day the
muscles in her back had begun to spasm and she was in terrific
pain. I rushed her to the Palm Harbor Hospital in Garden Grove
where she stayed for five weeks, attended by an orthopedic
surgeon. Despite massive doses of medication—analgesics and
barbiturates—her pain grew worse. It moved from her back into
her head, and the doctors offered little hope for healing.
The next two years were an unending nightmare for us both.
Even after she was released from the hospital, Ingeborg was
under the constant care of a physician. Not a day went by that
she did not stagger into the bathroom vomiting, because of the
excruciating pain in her head. She spent much time in traction
in a hospital bed we had moved into our home. Her doctors
prescribed increasing amounts of drugs, until our narcotics bill
was averaging $200 a month. Finally, Ingeborg was referred to a
neurological group at the White Memorial Hospital in Los
Angeles.
In April, 1964, two years after the accident, the doctors
performed a laminectomy, removing a piece of bone from
Ingeborg's hip and transplanting it into her spinal column.
289
Three vertebrae in her neck were fused and held together with
silver wires. We were hopeful the surgery would give her some
relief.
The morning after the surgery, we discovered the entire
procedure had failed. Her spine had not been braced
sufficiently, and when it collapsed, it left exposed nerves under
great pressure. Additional surgery was out of the question. The
only thing we could do was to load Ingeborg with narcotics and
wait it out.
Every night for the next seven years she took between eight
and ten sleeping pills. During the day she was on tranquilizers. I
gave her constant injections of Demerol, a synthetic morphine. I
knew she was becoming addicted, but we had no choice. It was
that or the unbearable pain.
The drugs and the pain began to take their toll. Sometimes at
night I would sit in our living room, my heart breaking as I
watched Ingeborg stagger around the house, her body jerking,
her lower jaw flopping open and remaining in constant motion.
She had been so young, so blonde, so beautiful when I married
her. Now she was becoming a staggering wreck of a human
being, like an old building that had been condemned but is still
inhabited.
We consulted four other specialists—an orthopedic surgeon,
a neurosurgeon, and two internists. Their final diagnosis shook
me: “Your wife has Parkinson's disease and muscular
dystrophy. The disease is progressing rapidly, and within two
years she will be confined to a wheelchair.”
I refused to accept their diagnosis. In fact, the doctors wrote
into the medical record, “Husband very obstinate. Will not face
facts.” I knew I was stubborn, I wasn't going to rest until we had
tried everything. In May, 1967, I flew Ingeborg to the Mayo
Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, for a complete examination.
Although the doctors there said they saw no evidence of
290
Parkinson's disease or muscular dystrophy, they couldn't offer

any cure for her pain. Despite the danger of addiction, they
advised me to continue the Demerol.
By this time Ingeborg's neck was almost immobile. The only
way she could turn her head was to twist from the waist. Her
once happy voice had given way to constant whimpering and
crying. “There is no help for me,” she said. “I am this way
forever.”
We tried everything man had to offer—medicine, surgery,
thirty-two specialists, five different chiropractors, hot steam
baths, massages, herbs and teas. I took her to a famous ethical
hypnotist in hopes he could probe into her life to see if the
problem was psychosomatic. He spent four and a half hours
with her and came out reporting he was unable to hypnotize
her. Nothing helped.
Fortunately my business was prospering and I was able to
travel to various parts of the world seeking help. I heard of a
large clinic in southern Germany where an orthopedic surgeon
was using osteopathic treatments. Leaving the children in care
of a friend, we flew to Germany, where the doctor manipulated
Ingeborg's back. For the first time in almost nine years, her
headache disappeared—temporarily. Eight hours later the pain
was back, as severe as ever. But now we had hope. We had
discovered that relief was possible, even if only for short
periods of time.
Returning to the States, I heard of a famous chiropractor in
Wisconsin who was having significant success with patients like
Ingeborg. We talked to him on the phone, and Ingeborg flew to
Wisconsin.
I didn't learn until later that she had taken sixty sleeping
pills with her. She had determined that if the doctor in
Wisconsin was unable to help her, she would not return home
alive.
291
The doctor did help, though. This time, his spinal

adjustments relieved the pain for thirty-two hours. When
Ingeborg returned home, I decided that if chiropractic could
help, I would learn it myself. That way I could give her daily
adjustments, and perhaps we could return to a semblance of
normal living. With my background in medicine I had a
running start, already being trained in chemistry, anatomy, and
physiology. I enrolled in chiropractic college in the evenings,
going to class every night from 5:30 P.M. until almost midnight.
It wasn't long before I was giving Ingeborg daily
adjustments instead of the constant shots of Demerol. It took
more than two years before I became proficient, but finally I
reached the place where I was able to relieve her pain on a
temporary basis, something that drugs and surgery had been
unable to accomplish.
By 1969 Ingeborg had stopped using drugs, although she
was never completely free from pain. The damage caused by the
unsuccessful surgery still remained, and her neck was
immobile. She wore her neck brace most of the time. Even so,
any slight jar, such as the car crossing a railroad track, could
increase the pressure on the nerves in her neck. She would twist
and cry in agony until we found a place where I could stop to
help her.
After 4,480 hours of academic training I received my Doctor
of Chiropractic degree. Ingeborg was my only patient. But I was
still unsuccessful in bringing her lasting relief.
As a last resort we started going to church. Maybe, I
thought, there was some religious power that would help. I
loved the music in church, especially the liturgical music of
Bach and Beethoven. But there was no “life” in the church we
attended, no feeding of the lambs.
I finally said to Ingeborg, “Look, it's nice enough to go to
church, and if you want to go, I'll take you. But frankly, I feel
292
those two hours could be much better spent in bed, for at least
there you get something useful—sleep.”
All Ingeborg could do was cry. I determined not to pray
anymore, not even to ask a blessing when we sat down to meals.
One day I realized that we had tried everything—but God.
Yet how does one try God when he doesn't know Him? We
tried religion, but now I understand that religion is man's search
for God. Christianity is quite another matter, being God's
revelation of Himself to blind people—through Jesus Christ. No
man ever really finds God. He just makes himself available to
God, and God finds him.
So it was with us. It had small beginnings, that revelation of
God coming to us. Although now we can see the mighty
moving of the Holy Spirit, at the time it seemed so natural. We
were much like the children of Israel camped on the shores of
the Red Sea. Behind us were the chariots of the Egyptians,
coming to take us back into captivity. Before us was the
impossible sea. Then, one night, the wind began to blow.
It was such a small breeze at first. A friend gave us a
subscription to Guideposts magazine. We enjoyed the magazine
with its brief stories of God speaking to people in various ways.
Then, through the Guideposts book club, we received a book by
Kathryn Kuhlman entitled God Can Do It Again. The book was
filled with testimonies of people who had been healed. We
didn't know it at the time, but the water was beginning to move
in front of the wind of the Holy Spirit.
Ingeborg read the book. In fact, every night she read a
chapter out loud to the children. Then, later at night, still unable
to sleep because of the constant pain, she would get out of bed,
go downstairs, and read her Bible. Sometimes she read until
dawn. Like Pharaoh, however, I was stiff-necked and obstinate.
One beautiful Saturday morning I planned to stay home and
work in the yard. Ingeborg stopped me as I was heading out on
293
the patio. “Daddy, would you like to read something?”

I knew she had been poring through the Kathryn Kuhlman
book. Although I wasn't interested, I hated to hurt her feelings.
“Just read this one short chapter,” she said. “It's about a clown
who was in much pain from a back accident. God healed him.”
I took the book and quickly read the chapter. Closing the
book, I handed it back. “Thank you very much,” I said. “Now I
must go to work in the yard.”
I was reluctant to look her in the face, knowing that she was
crying on the inside. I knew she wanted me to become
interested in spiritual things, but I was a scientist and there was
no place in my intellect for a God of the supernatural. I had read
my Bible many times. I knew Jesus healed people when He was
here on Earth. But those days were past. Jesus had returned to
Heaven. Now it was up to us.
Ingeborg had been unable to do heavy housework, so she
had hired a cleaning man to come on a regular basis. This way
she could spend what little energy she had left tending the
children.
Doyle Smith turned out to be a missionary in disguise. He
knew that Ingeborg had read Miss Kuhlman's book and was
now reading the Bible. He grabbed every opportunity he could
to talk to her about the Lord. The wind was whipping into gale
force.
One day he said, “Mrs. Daebritz, why don't you attend one
of the miracle services at the Shrine Auditorium?”
“Oh, no,” Ingeborg answered. “I could never get my
husband to a meeting like that. He's too unemotional, too
intellectual.”
Doyle didn't press the point, but before leaving the house
that day, he switched our radio to the station that carried Miss
Kuhlman's program. The next morning, while Ingeborg was in
294
the kitchen fixing breakfast, she heard Miss Kuhlman's voice

coming from the radio. As the days went by, I found the radio
constantly tuned to this station. Not only that, Ingeborg was
making it a point to be in the kitchen every morning at just the
right time to hear the broadcast.
One morning I came into the kitchen and found Ingeborg
kneeling on the floor, with her shoes off. The radio was playing
a song, “He Touched Me”. Ingeborg looked up. “God is real,”
she said. “I had to take my shoes off, for I feel Him in this
place.”
Poor wife, I thought. Too many drugs have damaged your
mind. However, the wind of the Spirit continued to blow. One
night as Ingeborg tucked our youngest son into bed, he said,
“Mommy, if daddy would take you to one of Miss Kuhlman's
miracle services, maybe God would heal you.”
Ingeborg shook her head. “It would take a miracle just to get
him there.”
“Then I'll pray for a miracle,” our son said, reaching up and
kissing his mother good night.
Two weeks later, on a Tuesday morning, I had overslept and
was late leaving the house for work. Rushing through the
kitchen on my way to the car, I heard Kathryn Kuhlman's voice
on the radio. Then I heard an announcement giving a telephone
number to call for reservations on the bus that was going to the
Shrine Auditorium next Sunday.
“Well, write the number down,” I said to Ingeborg, as I
pulled on my coat and headed out the door. “How else will We
get there?”
As I closed the door behind me and slipped into my car, it
suddenly dawned on me what I had said. I sat there in silence,
my hand on the key in the ignition. I knew that Ingeborg was on
the telephone, making reservations. What, or Who, had made
295
me say a foolish thing like that?

Sunday rolled around and I tried to back out. But Ingeborg
had made up her mind for both of us. I found a seat for her on
the bus, then took a seat beside a heavy-set woman right behind
the driver.
“Young man, where do you go to church?” she demanded
with authority.
“I don't go anywhere, lady,” I said firmly. “And I wouldn't
be going to this meeting today except that my wife put pressure
on me. I would much rather be home in bed.”
The lady looked shocked. I could feel her beginning to
bristle. Putting her hand on my shoulder in a matronly way, she
started to preach, “Young man—”
“Madam, if it is all the same to you, let's make an agreement.
You don't talk to me, and I won't talk to you.”
The woman withdrew her hand and remained silent the rest
of the way to the Shrine Auditorium. But while we were
standing outside waiting for the door to open, another woman
approached me, a Bible in her hand.
“Young man, the dear Lord says in His Book that we should
all repent.”
“Yes, yes,” I said, hoping fervently she would go away.
“Not only that,” she continued, as though I had begged her
to tell me more, “the Lord also says we should be born again,
filled with His Spirit, forgive our enemies.”
It was bad enough having to come to a miracle service, but
to have to put up with a bunch of religious nuts was almost
more than I could take. “Look, lady,” I said. “Are you doing all
those things yourself? Until you are perfect, don't preach to
me.”
I turned my back and shoved my way through the crowd.
296
“What's going on here?” I moaned to Ingeborg. “All I'm

doing is standing here minding my own business, and those
people keep picking on me.”
“Maybe the Lord is trying to get through to you,” Ingeborg
said quietly.
Leaving the noise on the sidewalk, we walked into the
auditorium where it was quiet, hushed, reverent. The huge
auditorium was packed with people, and we had to find seats in
the balcony. Yet even as we sat down, I sensed something
special in the air. For the first time in years I wanted to cry.
The choir was on the platform. Four hundred trained voices
began practicing. The director led them in a few bars, stopped,
and had them do it over. Suddenly I was back in Schneidemuhl,
leading my own choir and singing Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. I
was a child again. My adult sophistication, my intellect, my
snobbery began to melt.
I tried to hold back the tears, but they just rolled down my
face. I was embarrassed and glanced around. Even though the
service hadn't even begun, other men around me were crying,
too. It had not taken a hurricane to blow back the water, only a
still small voice whispering, “God is in this place,” I nodded,
and cried some more. I knew it was so.
Nothing happened to me at that first meeting. But
something did happen to a lot of other people. A black lady
with her six-year-old son had taken a seat behind us in the
balcony. The little boy was in braces from his feet to his hips.
His legs were braced apart, so when he walked it was like
walking on stilts. I could tell the muscles in his legs were
atrophied, almost gone from disuse.
As the service progressed I heard Miss Kuhlman say, “There
is a healing in the balcony. Somebody with a brace. Take it off
and you will find God has already healed you.”
297
The mother gave a gasp and started removing the child's

brace.
I was shocked. I knew his little legs could not possibly
support him. Yet the child stood. Not only did he stand, he
walked. And when he reached the platform, he ran back and
forth. The mother, overcome with joy, explained that the child
had been born with the problem and had worn the braces all his
life. This was the first time she had ever seen him run.
My intellect was demolished. There was no medical
explanation for this. The man sitting next to me had a pair of
binoculars. I borrowed them to study the child as he ran back
and forth across the stage. This was no trick. The child's
affliction could not have been caused by autosuggestion or
hypnosis. He came in with braces and left without them. It was
a miracle—and that was a word which had never been in my
vocabulary.
The monthly meetings at the Shrine Auditorium became a
regular part of our lives. On the second trip we watched as Miss
Kuhlman introduced a Spanish fellow named Graviel. He had
come to the platform during our first meeting and testified he
had been a heroin addict for twenty-two years. He had looked
like it, too. His face was ashen, his body shaking, his eyes
riveted on the floor. His clothes were dirty and disheveled. Miss
Kuhlman had put her arm around his shoulders and led him to
pray aloud, “Lord Jesus, set me free.” Then the man had
collapsed on the floor under the power of the Holy Spirit.
“Come back next month,” Miss Kuhlman had said, “and let
us hear from you.”
He was back. He had been touched by God. Before, he could
hardly speak. That day, Miss Kuhlman could hardly shut him
up. He was dressed nicely and came with a brand-new Bible in
his hand. I turned to Ingeborg. “What we are seeing is real. I
now believe God can heal you, too.”
298
When it came time for us to make our fourth visit to the

Shrine Auditorium, I realized Ingeborg could no longer ride the
bus. It was too painful. That Sunday morning I called the lady
who handled the reservations and told her I would drive
Ingeborg in our Cadillac and meet them at the auditorium. She
agreed.
As I hung up the phone, Ingeborg said, “Those people are so
simple. They expect a miracle every time they enter the Shrine.”
“Just what's wrong with that?” I said, still amazed at the
change that was taking place in my own way of thinking.
Ingeborg sat down at the kitchen table, stirring her coffee. “I
always knew Jesus died for the whole world. Now I know that
means me, too. Jesus died for me.” She began to cry but this
time it was from joy.
Ingeborg didn't wear her neck brace to the meeting that day.
She gripped my hand tightly as we took our seats in the
auditorium. “God loved me so much that He let Jesus die that
horrible death on the cross for me. It is so clear now. When I
think of that, I know He can do something about that silver wire
in my neck. He can restore my health.”
I dared not look at her. I could only suck breath through my
teeth. Every time I entered the Shrine, I felt like crying, but this
time it was even stronger. It was like the atmosphere on one of
those heavy, humid days we used to have in Germany. If just
one more drop of water were added to the air, it would begin to
rain. I dared not move a muscle, I was that close to tears.
Then the choir began to rehearse, singing “He Is So
Wonderful to Me.” It was the drop of water I had feared, and it
started the waterworks in my eyes. The power of God was
falling like the latter rain, not only for me but for Ingeborg as
well. I felt her hand tighten on mine and turned to look at her
through my tears. She was twisting her head back and forth, at
least 60 degrees in both directions, something many normal
299
people cannot do.

“Oh, look what's happening,” she cried. “He touched me.
My head turns. I'm healed!”
Forgetting where I was, I leaped to my feet and began an
examination of her spine. After years of adjusting Ingeborg's
back, I knew where every pressure point was, every pain
location. I ran my hands up and down the back of her neck and
spinal column. The lumps were gone. I poked harder. There was
no pain. Cervical six and dorsal two-three had always been
puffy. Now they were clear. No pain! I was ecstatic with joy,
and began telling the people all around us.
“She's been healed! God has healed her!”
During the service, we went to the platform and testified to
the power of God. We both wound up on the floor. If there was
any intellectualizing left in me, it was all washed away by the
mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit that Sunday afternoon. We
had passed through to the other side of the sea, and the waters
had rushed back into the void, drowning the old Pharaoh who
had lived in my mind. I was a new man.
The next day, Ingeborg awakened in great pain. She tried to
keep it from me, fearing I would return to my old intellectual
approach. She misjudged me, however. The old man was dead
and—by God's grace—would never again come to life.
Instead of giving in to the pain, Ingeborg began praising
God for His perfect healing in her body. Upstairs and
downstairs she went, praising God throughout the house. Her
headache lasted just that one day. By nightfall it was gone. It
has never returned.
While Ingeborg's pain disappeared, my old problems with
my heart began to flare up. Some days at work the chest pain
was so intense I could hardly bear it. My associates in the clinic
became concerned about me. On several occasions they came
300
into my lab and found me pressing my fists against my chest,

my face white with pain. Two months later, with the pain
growing worse all the time, I told my employees which
physician to call in case I collapsed. All the symptoms of an
extreme cardiac case were present. It seemed to be a matter of
time.
We had joined the choir at the Shrine Auditorium. The
Friday before Thanksgiving we had a special choir practice.
Ingeborg begged me not to go, but I replied, “I might as well go,
darling, because I will feel just as sick at home as I would there.”
We attended, but on several of the numbers I had to sit down
because of the dizziness and pain.
The following Sunday we attended the afternoon service at
the Shrine. Again Ingeborg begged me to stay home.
“No, I'm going! Why shouldn't God heal me as He did
you?”
The healing service was under way, and many people with
spinal problems were being touched by God. Then, in the
middle of a sentence, Miss Kuhlman whirled and faced the
choir. “Back here,” she said, pointing toward the middle where I
was sitting. “Somebody with a heart condition is being healed.
Stand up.”
Surely, I thought, with more than four hundred people in
the choir there would be dozens with heart conditions. But no
one was standing.
“Who is it?” Miss Kuhlman was saying. “Stand up and
claim your healing.”
I took a deep breath and stood. I was shaking and perspiring
profusely. I tried to speak, but nothing came out. The pain was
still there, but I was willing to step out on faith. At Miss
Kuhlman's urging, I came to the microphone. People all around
me were rejoicing and praising God.
301
“In the name of Jesus, receive your healing,” Miss Kuhlman

said. I collapsed to the floor. I didn't know how long I was
down, but as I regained my feet I felt like I had received an
artificial pneumothorax—a pumping of air or gas into collapsed
lungs so I could breathe again. The pain was gone. I had never
felt so light, so whole. God must have taken my old heart and
replaced it with a new one.
It's hard for people to understand what has happened to us.
When we tell them our physical healings, some rejoice, others
just shake their heads in disbelief. It makes no difference to us.
We know what we were—and what we are now.
The biggest healing of all, however, was not the healing of
our bodies but the healing of our souls. The Holy Spirit has
filled us both, and now I feel like Moses, standing on the far
shore of the Red Sea, looking back at where he had been and
singing: “The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become
my salvation” (Exodus 15:2).
302
CHAPTER 19
19 HOPE FOR THOSE WHO SUFFER
DONNIE GREENWAY
Mrs. Zel Greenway is the wife of the fire chief in St. Petersburg,
Florida. She and her husband are active members of the St. Luke's
Methodist Church.
I sat at the kitchen table finishing my coffee. Little Donnie,
our eleven-year-old daughter—D. J. we called her—had already
left for school. It was a beautiful Florida spring morning, and
the songs of the mockingbirds rode the soft tropical breeze
through my kitchen window.
I glanced at the clock. It was almost eight, time to pick up
Zel from the fire station. Even though Zel had been with the St.
Petersburg Fire Department all our married life, and was in line
for promotion to chief, I never had grown accustomed to his
hours—on duty twenty-four and off twenty-four.
I gulped down my last swallow of coffee and pulled open
the yellow curtains above the sink. The scent of orange blossoms
from our backyard tree filled the air. I breathed a quiet prayer of
thanksgiving for being alive and healthy on such a beautiful
day, and I headed to the car.
God had always been very real to me. My dad had died
when I was eleven, leaving my mother and twelve children. She
brought us up in the Baptist church, teaching us to pray and to
love Jesus. My marriage to Zel had been happy. We had a
Christian home. What more could I ask?
I nosed the car out of the alley beside our house, looked both
ways, and made a left-hand turn onto Twelfth Street. Suddenly I
303
heard the terrifying screech of tires and looked up just in time to

see a speeding automobile crash into me broadside. The impact
knocked my car over the curb and into our neighbor's yard.
Even though the car was demolished, I didn't seem to be hurt. I
called Zel at the fire station, and he arrived before the policeman
had finished making out the accident report.
Zel wanted me to see a doctor, but I insisted I was all right.
The next morning, however, I was black and blue and hurt in
places I didn't know I could hurt. I told myself it was from being
bounced around inside the car. (Cars weren't equipped with
seat belts back in 1957.) I figured I'd be back to normal in a few
days.
I did gradually recover from the bruises and aches, but
several months later, I was running the carpet sweeper and
leaned over to move a small table in the living room. As I
started to lift it with my left hand, excruciating pain snatched at
the lower part of my back. I gasped for breath and tried to
straighten up, but I was stuck in that position. Moving just a
fraction of an inch up or down sent spasms of unbearable pain
through my body.
I dropped the table, let go of the carpet sweeper and, still
bent over, made my way to the bedroom. Zel was at work, D. J.
at school, and I was at home alone. Gradually, with tears
streaming down my face, I was able to lower myself onto the
bed and call my husband. It was the beginning of a sixteen-year
nightmare.
Zel was a deeply committed Christian and the first thing he
did, when he came in that afternoon and found me in such
intense pain, was to lay his hands on me and pray, asking God
to relieve the pain.
The pain did subside, enough so I could get up in the
morning and go to an osteopath. I never dreamed at the time
that he was only the first of more than twenty doctors I would
304
Hope for Those Who Suffer
see over the next sixteen years.

There were X-rays, massages, hot baths, and other therapy.
Nothing helped. Pain was my constant companion, day and
night. Each morning I woke up almost paralyzed from lying in
one position. The pain moved up from my back to my
shoulders, then down into my left hip. At night, as Zel would
massage my back, he said he could feel little knots under the
skin. The doctor said they were muscles convulsed with pain.
Much larger knots appeared on my neck. X-rays showed a
bump growing on my shoulder, which felt like a sharp spur
under the skin. My knees became covered with callouses, not
from praying but from falling. Since it was impossible for me to
bend over to reach anything or to pick up anything, I had to fall
on my knees for such simple tasks as getting food out of the
refrigerator or a pan from a low cupboard.
After I had undergone five months of treatment without
noticeable improvement, a neighbor recommended a medical
doctor who had been known to help people with back problems.
I made an appointment, and the pattern of going from doctor to
doctor was set. He examined me, said the problem could be
caused by poison in my system, and recommended an ear, nose,
and throat specialist. The specialist admitted me to St.
Anthony's Hospital, cut out my tonsil tabs, and scraped the back
of my throat. I left the hospital with back problems and throat
problems.
Another doctor said my pain could be caused by my teeth. I
was referred to a periodontist. He examined me and said he
thought I had poison in my bloodstream. He recommended
gum surgery.
This was even more painful than the pain in my back. He
cut away the gum above my teeth, peeled it back, then covered
it with plaster of Paris. The treatment lasted for more than a
month. I tried not to complain, but Zel knew how much pain I
305
was in. Night after night he would pray for me, massage my
back, and share my desperate frustration.
Even routine matters were becoming extremely difficult. We
had been in the habit of driving to Tampa several times a month
to see Zel's parents. However, my pain had become so intense
that it was impossible for me to cross the Gandy Bridge without
having to stop so I could get out and stretch my back.
When Zel was promoted to the position of chief of the fire
department he had better working hours, but as chief he was
expected to attend various firefighters' conventions across the
nation—as many as five or six a year. The men always took their
wives, so I began to travel with him. If I had to sit for any length
of time, I supported my back with a rolled-up towel. Pain was
my inescapable bedmate every night.
One night in the Hyatt House in Atlanta, where Zel was
attending an International Fire Chiefs' Conference, I woke him
up in the middle of the night with my crying. I told him I
wished he would just cut my left leg off, the pain was so bad.
Zel rubbed me, applied hot towels, and prayed. He never
stopped praying, not a single day.
Back in St. Petersburg we moved into a new house on Eighth
Avenue. My mind was constantly occupied with the pain. I
knew I had to get my mind on something else or I would go
insane. I tried working in the yard. Sometimes, after working on
my hands and knees, I would have to crawl up the steps and
collapse on the carpet inside the door before I could even get up.
Then I would stagger into the bathroom and sit long hours in a
tub of hot water. But nothing seemed to ease the torture.
Zel was active in the St. Petersburg Rotary Club, and I
worked with the Rotary-Anns. The wife of a Rotarian doctor
knew of my condition. She was going to fly up to Detroit,
Michigan, to be admitted to a diagnostic clinic, and she
suggested I go with her for a complete examination. Zel agreed
306
to let me go.
The clinic doctors confirmed the diagnosis of curvature of
the spine, and said the vertebrae in my lower spine were
deteriorating. They felt that surgery would aggravate rather
than improve my condition. They also suggested that my
problem could be caused by infected sinuses, so they did
surgery on my face to try to correct that.
In the meantime my back problems grew more acute. I tried
a new doctor every time a friend suggested one. A
neurosurgeon described my spine as an electric wire with most
of the insulation scraped off, the slightest movement causing
extreme shocks to my system. An orthopedic surgeon fitted me
with a harness to be used in traction. An internist prescribed
drugs. But nothing helped.
By 1968 Zel was desperate to find me some relief from the
incessant pain. He approached one of his Rotarian friends, a
leading neurosurgeon, describing my symptoms, and begged
him to see me.
“Well, chief, I usually don't see patients like this,” the doctor
said, indicating that most of his patients were referred by other
doctors. “But since she's your wife and is in so much pain, have
her come in next week.”
He ran a series of tests and put me in another type of
traction—a neck harness that hung over the doorpost with a
strap around my neck like a hangman's noose. It was like being
hanged as the weights, attached by pulleys, stretched my neck.
I used this contraption three times a day for two years. If I
were able to accompany Zel on a trip, I took my gallows along
with me.
Each night I prayed, asking God to take away the pain, then
awoke in the morning to the same agony. As the years wore on I
began to wish I wouldn't wake up at all.
307
Sometimes, when Zel was at work and D. J. at the university

in Lakeland, I would sit down and try to remember what it was
like when I had no pain. I could never remember how it felt to
live without it.
In September, 1971, I was in St. Anthony's Hospital again for
three weeks. Two orthopedic surgeons were doing everything
they could do to help me. But it was the same old story. One
Saturday evening, about six o'clock, one of the surgeons came
into the room. Nonchalantly pulling up a chair, he loosened his
tie and sat down. He grinned weakly. “Well, you've got no back
left.”
I couldn't believe him. I pulled the traction harness off my
neck and sat up in bed. “What do you mean?”
“We've looked at your X-rays from every angle. Your entire
lower spine has deteriorated.”
“But isn't there anything you can do?” I blurted out. “Can't
you operate?”
“We've got nothing to operate on,” he said, trying to soften
the blow. “You have no whole vertebra left below the
waistline.”
“That doesn't give me too much to look forward to, does it?”
I said, a feeling of hopelessness settling down on me like night
fog on a tidal basin.
He reached over and patted my arm. “No, but a lot of people
live with this condition. You need to prepare yourself for a life in
a wheelchair.”
I think he kept on talking, but “wheelchair” was the last
word I remember hearing him say. I would rather be dead than
spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair.
Zel came by to see me later in the evening. I kept my head
turned the entire time he was in the room, afraid I'd burst into
tears.
308
Sunday evening the pastor from St. Luke's Methodist

Church stopped in to see me. The sun had already dropped into
the Gulf of Mexico, and I was lying in the semidarkness of my
room, feeling lower than I had ever felt in all my life. I saw no
future. I had nothing to live for. Sensitive to my wounded spirit,
he told me about a prayer chain that had been started at the
church. People had been praying around the clock for me. He
reached over, took my hand, and prayed for me also.
Just as he finished his prayer, the phone beside my bed rang.
It was Martha Bigelow, whom I had met at St. Luke's several
years before. Her husband, Jimmy, had suffered a heart attack
during one of the services, and Zel had ridden with him in the
fire department rescue truck to the emergency room of the
hospital. I had sat with Martha in the waiting room. Jimmy had
recovered, and Martha and I had had occasional contact since
then.
Martha had a facial condition known as tic douloureux.
During surgery, a doctor had accidentally cut a facial nerve,
causing her eye to droop. “I have two books on prayer I'd like
you to read,” she said.
“Well, Martha, I'm not much of a reader,” I confessed.
“But don't you know?” she said, ignoring my disinterest.
I've been healed of my tic douloureux. My disfigurement is
all gone.”
Suddenly my heart began to pound in my chest. “You don't
mean it! What happened?” I knew her condition had been
considered permanent.
“I was healed through prayer, and these two books helped
show me the way. It started when I read Prison to Praise,” she
went on. “Then someone gave me another book about prayer.
Later I went to a prayer group in Tampa conducted by a
surgeon from Tampa General Hospital. He prayed for me, and I
309
was healed. You wouldn't recognize my face.”

I was so excited I could hardly talk. A wonderful, warm
feeling was flowing through me. It started at my feet and
flowed all the way to my scalp. All I could think about was that
I might be healed, too. I wanted to get on top of the hospital and
shout, “Hope!! Hope!! There's hope, everybody!”
Zel, D. J., and her husband, Bud, had been out to dinner.
When they came in, I chased the men right back out. “Go right
now to Martha Bigelow's and pick up two books she has for
me.”
Zel gave me a surprised look. He knew I didn't like to read.
“But we came to keep you company,” he protested.
“I don't want company. I want those books. And please
hurry. I must have them.”
The two men went after the books, and D. J. stayed behind
with me. I told her how the people at St. Luke's had been
praying; how the pastor had come in and prayed; about
Martha's phone call. And then this wonderful, warm feeling
that was still flowing through me.
D. J. began to cry. It has been so long since she'd seen me
happy, or showing any signs of hope. “Oh, mother, I know
you're going to be all right.”
Zel and Bud returned with the books, and again I chased
them out. I could hardly wait to begin reading. Always before I
had hated to see Zel leave the hospital. In fact, we had a little
secret code. After he left I would climb out of bed and wave
from the window. His fire chief's car was usually parked right
in front of the hospital. When he saw me wave, he would turn
on his flashing red light. That was our way of saying “I love
you.”
But that night I didn't even go to the window. Before they
got to the elevator I was digging into the books, reading
310
hungrily of the supernatural power of God to change lives. An

hour later, the nurse came in with my sleeping pill. I didn't take
it. I read through the night. It was like stumbling on an oasis
after sixteen years in a parched desert. I felt I could drink
forever of the fountains of hope.
The next day Zel came by and I said, “Honey, check me out
of the hospital. I'm going home.”
He argued that the doctor had ordered a back brace for me
and it wasn't ready yet. But I knew if I ever put that thing on, I'd
never get out of it. I insisted that Zel take me home. I knew that
somehow, some way, God was going to heal me.
I started attending the healing services at St. Luke's
Methodist Church on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. In spite
of the pain in my back I always made my way up to the altar
and asked for prayer. Each time, the pain would go away for a
while, but it always came back. There was just enough relief,
however, to let me know it was possible for God to heal me
completely.
Three weeks after I left the hospital I returned to the
orthopedic surgeon. He ran his hand up and down my back.
“Your back is different, Mrs. Greenway,” he said.
I grinned. “I know.”
He continued the examination, asking me to bend over,
twist, and stretch. I heard him making little grunts as he ran his
fingers up and down my spine. “I just can't get over how much
your back has improved.”
“There have been so many people praying for me, it had to
get better,” I said.
He walked around to the head of the table where he could
look me in the face. “You know,” he said soberly, “we doctors
need all the help we can get from the Man upstairs.” I was a
little taken aback by his impersonal reference to the God who
311
had become so personal to me, but I was pleased. At least the

doctor recognized that something miraculous was beginning to
happen in my body.
I still had pain, however. And with it, splitting headaches
that sometimes lasted as long as thirty-six hours. Six weeks later
I returned to the doctor.
“Would you consider going to a large university medical
clinic in North Carolina?” he said. “They have some of the finest
medical facilities in the nation. Maybe they can help you.”
I felt the old hopelessness welling up inside me, even
though in my heart I knew God was going to heal me
eventually. “Doctor, we've spent more than $17,000 on doctors
and hospitals,” I said. “We just can't afford a trip like that.”
He tapped his stethoscope in the palm of his hand and said,
“Mrs. Greenway, I don't think you can afford not to go.” Zel and
I prayed about it, and finally we agreed to make the trip. The
doctor said he would start collecting my records from all the
other doctors and send them to North Carolina. They would
contact me about an appointment.
It was hot in St. Petersburg. Usually there is a breeze
blowing in off the coast, but that summer the fronds on the
palm trees hung motionless in the heat. My pain grew worse as
July sweltered into August. I was going to prayer meetings all
over the area: St. Petersburg, Clearwater, even across the bay to
Tampa. Someone gave me a copy of Kathryn Kuhlman's I
Believe in Miracles, and then I bought a copy of her God Can Do It
Again. As I read how others had been healed of conditions even
worse than mine, hope returned, and with it an increased faith
that God was going to heal me, too.
Then I learned that in September, for the first time in many
years, Kathryn Kuhlman was coming to Florida to conduct a
miracle service in Orlando, just one hundred miles away.
Something inside me clicked into place. I knew this was to be
312
the time and place of my healing. That night when Zel came
home, I asked him if I could go.
“We're supposed to leave on the thirteenth of September for
a fire chiefs' convention in Cleveland,” he said. “Let's pray
about it.”
We did pray, and it seemed the answer came the next week
at a prayer group where an announcement was made that there
were no more seats available in the Orlando Municipal
Auditorium. Only those who had reserved seats on the buses
could get in. That afternoon I came home sick with
disappointment and started packing to go to Cleveland. If God
wanted me at the miracle service, He would have to get me
there.
D. J. came over the next day. “Mother, daddy doesn't seem
to be very enthusiastic about going to Cleveland, does he?”
“No,” I agreed, “but it's an important conference, and I'm
not going to question him about it.”
That night Zel was quiet at dinner poking his food with his
fork. “You know,” he finally said, “I don't think we're supposed
to go to Cleveland this year.”
I felt that sense of excitement, accompanied by the flow of
warmth, moving through my body again. “I'll be glad to go if
you want,” I said, in my most submissive tone. But inside I was
standing up and cheering, “Oh, praise the Lord! Now I can go to
Orlando.”
Of course, there was still the matter of seats. The
reservations on the buses were being handled by someone in the
Blessed Trinity Catholic Church. They had a Friday night prayer
group that met each week, and Zel took me and Martha Bigelow
to the meeting. “Maybe someone will cancel out, and you can
get their seats,” he said.
Zel was right. There were two seats available, and they went
313
to Martha and me. A little Roman Catholic nun from Ireland

was at the meeting. When she learned of my condition, she
came over, laid her hands on my head, and prayed.
On the way home, Zel remarked that I was the most prayed-
for person in St. Petersburg. An entire Methodist Church had
prayed all night for me, numerous prayer groups, a husband, a
daughter, a son-in-law, brothers and sisters, a Methodist
minister, and now a Catholic nun. “If God doesn't heal you in
Orlando, it's not because of lack of prayer,” Zel laughed. I
laughed too. Zel believed, just as strongly as I, that this was
God's time.
Early Thursday afternoon five charter buses sat at the
parking lot at Bayfront Auditorium. Their engines were
running, the air-conditioners whirring. A pastor and his wife
and the priest from Blessed Trinity Catholic Church were all
aboard—along with two hundred others. Zel said he would be
waiting when we returned, and then he put Martha and me on
the bus. My pain came along too, sitting right on my shoulders
all the way to Orlando.
Orlando is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Built
around a hundred lakes, many of them right in the center of the
city, it gives the impression of leisure-living at its finest. As we
pulled off the interstate toward the auditorium, I could see the
cars backed up for blocks. A special lane was provided for
buses, and we inched our way toward the parking lot, which
already seemed jammed with buses and hundreds of cars from
all over central Florida.
“Look at that!” Martha whispered from the seat beside me.
She was pointing to the mob of people standing in the broiling
sun, waiting to get in the auditorium. “The doors won't open for
another two hours, and already there must be two thousand
people waiting outside.”
The bus pulled around to the back door and we were
314
permitted to go into the auditorium early. The moment we

walked in, my eyes filled with tears. I saw a woman on a
hospital stretcher, two ambulance attendants alongside giving
her oxygen. A man I took to be her husband was standing next
to her, holding her hand. I saw a little baby in a hospital crib
with a nurse hovering over her. The child's head was bigger
than all the rest of her body. The room seemed filled with
people like this. Many of them were in wheelchairs. There were
fathers holding sick children in their arms. It was as if all the
hospitals in Florida had tilted up on their sides, pouring their
sick into this one big room.
I began to cry. Here I was, with my only affliction a bad
back. Sure, I was in pain, but nothing like these others! At least I
could get up and walk around. At least I could ride on a bus and
not have to be wheeled in from an ambulance. I turned to
Martha, the tears pouring down my face. “Much as I want to be
healed, if just one of these could be healed, I would leave with
joy.”
Martha couldn't answer. She was crying too.
For the next two hours (from the time we found our seats
until the service started), I never again thought about myself.
Instead, I spent every second praying for those around me.
Suddenly there was singing, marvelous singing from a huge
choir on the stage. Then Miss Kuhlman appeared. I thought she
looked like an angel, dressed in white with a glow that
surrounded her as she moved across the platform.
I turned to my right and saw a woman fall to the floor. I had
read in Miss Kuhlman's books about the many people who fall
under the power of the Holy Spirit in her meetings. I knew this
was of God. “Oh, Martha, isn't this wonderful?” I whispered.
My mind was in a whirl. I tried to focus in on what was
happening, but so much was going on, I couldn't comprehend
it. People were being healed. Many of them were coming to the
315
platform to testify to the power of God.

Suddenly, out of all the cacophony of sound, praise, and
music, I heard Miss Kuhlman say, “There's someone in the
balcony who is being healed of problems in the back, neck and
shoulders.”
Before I knew it, I had leaped to my feet.
“Wherever you are—you know who you are—come on to
the platform,” she said.
Things rushed before me. Faces flashed by. I was running
down the steps. Then, my mind still in a whirl, I found myself
standing in line on the platform. I was saying, “Praise the Lord,”
and “Thank you, Jesus”—phrases I had never used before.
The stage was crowded, and I was being pushed back by
others shoving forward to testify. I sensed the ushers were
having problems controlling the crowd, yet I, too, wanted to get
close so Miss Kuhlman could touch me. “Oh, if only she would
touch me,” I cried inwardly. “Then I would be healed.” But the
crowd was pushing me all the way to the back of the stage,
behind the piano.
Then, very softly, I heard a sensitive masculine voice over
my shoulder: “You don't need to be touched by Miss Kuhlman.
It's the Holy Spirit who heals.”
I turned. There, set in the midst of a handsome, black face,
were the most tender eyes I had ever seen. It was Jimmie
McDonald, Miss Kuhlman's baritone singer.
“Oh, thank you,” I said, and turned back toward center
stage. As I did, I heard Miss Kuhlman say, “Oh, there's glory
over there.” She was standing on tiptoe, pointing over the top of
the crowd to where I was standing.
I went down. It was such a beautiful, wonderful feeling. I
didn't know how I got to the floor, or how I got up. All I knew
was that the Holy Spirit had come upon me, in me, over me.
316
I staggered back down the steps of the platform in the

general direction of my seat. As I reached the main floor I was
aware of something falling off me, something like a cloak that
had been draped over my body. I stopped and looked down at
the floor, trying to see what it was I had lost, but I saw nothing.
I walked on, then turned and looked back at the floor.
Something had dropped off me; I had felt it. But there was
nothing on the floor. I moved on.
I couldn't find my seat and just wandered around the
auditorium. I finally stood against a side wall, basking in the
glory of God's presence. Yet something was still missing. I had
dropped something, left it behind. I felt incomplete.
The next thing I knew, Martha Bigelow was touching my
arm. The service was over and I wasn't even aware of it. I was
still saying over and over, “Praise the Lord. Oh, praise the
Lord.”
“You left your purse and glasses on the seat,” Martha
grinned. “I've got them with me.”
“Oh, thank you,” I mumbled, still dazed. “I knew I left
something behind, but I thought I had dropped it on the floor.”
It was after midnight when the buses pulled into Bayfront
Park. Zel was waiting for me. I fell into his arms, and we wept
all the way home. It wasn't until we were in bed, still talking,
weeping, and praising God, that I realized what was missing. It
wasn't my purse or my glasses. It was the pain. My constant
companion for sixteen years was gone. I was free. The bondage
had dropped off.
The next week, following the Tuesday morning service at St.
Luke's, I spoke to the pastor. “My doctor said, 'Praise the Lord'
when I told him I had been healed, but he still insisted I go on to
North Carolina for the examination.”
He nodded, then said, “It seems I heard Miss Kuhlman
317
telling the people to have their healings confirmed by their

doctors. Wouldn't it be wonderful if you had the medical
experts confirm that you were indeed healed?”
It seemed such a waste of time and money that I didn't want
to go. But I told the Lord I would go if I heard from the Medical
Center. It had been three months since they had received my
records.
The very next day a letter arrived. The doctors wanted to see
me on October 4.
Zel and I drove up. The North Carolina hills were dressed in
their most colorful costumes. The trees alongside the road were
ablaze with red, orange, and yellow frocks and jackets. It was a
beautiful time for praising the Lord. I knew I had been healed
and could hardly contain my joy.
The security guard at the door of the Medical Center must
have thought I was being admitted as a mental patient, I was so
happy. I checked in at nine in the morning, and Zel went with
me to the examining room. The resident orthopedic surgeon
came in and did a preliminary examination. He had with him a
huge sheath of files and records on my case, dating all the way
back to 1957. After he finished his examination, he said, “Ah,
Mrs. Greenway, just what is supposed to be wrong with your
back?”
I glanced at Zel. His face was deadpan. “Well,” I said, “I've
been having extreme pain.”
He glanced at my report. “Yes, I can see why from these
records and X-rays. But now I'm confused.”
“Confused?” I said, having trouble keeping a straight face.
He cleared his throat. “The chief surgeon is on his way up.
I'll let him look at you, and then we can tell more,” he said.
Moments later the chief surgeon arrived and looked over my
charts. He wrinkled his forehead and looked at me over the top
318
of his glasses. “You amaze me,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.
“You are supposed to be in a wheelchair.”
I tried not to smile. “Yes, I know.” I lay on the examining
table while he examined my back, feeling, poking, pounding.
He finally sat down in a chair and pulled off his glasses.
“You know, I can't find anything wrong with your back.” Then
he turned to Zel. “Sir, how do you feel about coming this far
and not finding anything wrong?”
“It's the best news I've ever heard,” Zel answered.
“I really don't understand this,” the doctor continued. “I
could admit your wife and run tests on her, but it would be
useless. It seems a shame you have come all this distance just to
turn around and go home.”
“Doctor, there isn't anything wrong with me,” I said. “Since
this appointment was made, I have been healed.”
He stopped leafing through the papers in my folder.
Looking up, he said slowly, “I'm sorry. I don't think I
understand you.”
“I have had a healing,” I said. “I attended a Kathryn
Kuhlman meeting. If I hadn't had a healing, I would be in a
wheelchair. But now I am in perfect health.”
The surgeon chewed on the end of his glasses. “Hmmmm.
Well, I think I'll take a few X-rays just the same.”
After two hours of X-rays we returned to the examining
room and waited. Shortly afterward the doctor reappeared with
two sets of X-rays. Holding up one set, he asked, “Are these
yours?” They were marked September, 1972, St. Petersburg.
They were the last ones made before I attended the miracle
service. I glanced at them and nodded. “I'd recognize that spine
anywhere.”
319
The doctor pointed out the mushy cloud at the base of my

spine where all the vertebrae had disintegrated, the knot on my
shoulder, and the S-shaped curve of the backbone. Then,
holding up the other set of prints, he said, “These are the ones
we have just taken. This is what you look like now.”
I gazed in wonder. My spine was straight. All the lower
vertebrae were in perfect shape. The knot on my shoulder was
gone. The X-ray pictures were of a person with a normal back.
The doctor didn't say anything. He just stood there holding
the two sets of prints. Finally he said, “It has to be a miracle.
You had a classic back condition that always leads to total
disability. But,” he said with a crooked smile, “obviously all that
has changed.”
Zel put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me tight,
echoing the doctor's words. “Obviously.”
The security officer opened the front door of the Medical
Center as we left. “What did they find wrong?” he asked.
“Not a thing,” I bubbled over. “Not a thing in the world.”
He just shook his head. “I stand at this door eight hours a
day. I see people bringing their loved ones, and leaving under
the sentence of death. They come and go in ambulances,
wheelchairs, on crutches. Sometimes they come and never leave.
But I've never seen anyone like you. Why did you come to begin
with?”
“I came because once I was in so much pain I could hardly
walk. I had been sentenced to a life in a wheelchair. Then Jesus
Christ, the Great Physician, touched me in the power of the
Holy Spirit. Now I am perfectly well.”
The guard turned and looked at the fading sunset. A cold
wind was whipping around the edge of the hospital, but it
wasn't the wind that was making his eyes water. “That's
wonderful,” he said in a faraway voice. “I'm glad to know there
320
is still hope for those who suffer. It will make things easier as I
stand here at the door.”
321
CHAPTER 20
20 YET IN LOVE HE SOUGHT ME
PATRICIA BRADLEY
I'll never forget the little girl in the big boots running across the
stage in Dallas, Texas. Nor will I forget her mother, a strikingly
beautiful young woman with a West Virginia drawl who bubbled over
with the excitement of having been born again and filled with the Holy
Spirit. Pat Bradley was born and raised in Kenova, West Virginia. At
the age of fifteen she left home with her husband. Three years later a
daughter, Gina, was born. It took thirteen years for the circumstances
to get so bad that she finally turned to the Lord.
The muted roar of the night traffic outside the dimly lighted
Catholic church formed a background for my desperate sobs
echoing through the empty sanctuary. It was almost midnight
and I had been kneeling at the altar rail for two hours, weeping.
My eight-year-old daughter, Gina, sat quietly on the front pew.
I had been a topless nightclub dancer in Dallas. I was
divorced, lonely, and desperate. I had worked as a stripper in
such clubs as Little Egypt and The Landing Strip in the bawdy
part of town. My former husband was deep into drugs and
alcohol. Three times he had beaten me so badly I had to go to
the hospital. The last time, it required plastic surgery to restore
my nose and cheekbones.
There are some who think the life of a striptease dancer is
fun. I knew better. Lonely, pawed over by men, expected to
enter into all kinds of perversion for money, I finally broke
under the strain and my world collapsed around me.
I knew that back home in West Virginia, my folks, especially
my mother, were praying for me. I had been brought up in an
323
evangelical church and had gone to Sunday school as a child.

But when I married at the age of fifteen, I had turned my back
on God and plunged headlong into a hell on earth.
First it was the world of drinking and drugs. Then, after we
moved to Dallas from Oakland, I started working as a stripper.
Our marriage fell apart. One of my friends offered to murder
my husband, and I encouraged him to go ahead. But my
husband found out about it and hired killers to murder Gina
and me. We fled for our lives.
I moved into a small apartment and took a job as a waitress
in a German restaurant. With my life crumbling around me, I
began reading the Bible, hoping God might intervene and save
me. My boss, the other strippers, and my friends all thought I
had lost my mind. They didn't understand. All they could see
was a young divorcee with a pretty face and a sexy body. They
couldn't see into my heart—the torment, the guilt, the gnawing
hunger to be more than an object.
“Wrestle a live nude girl,” said one sign in front of a club in
Dallas, as if a girl were an animal, like a chained bear. Some of
the clubs put the topless dancers in cages and suspended them
above the audience, where they twisted and gyrated to the
deafening beat of the acid rock music. Oh, God, didn't they
know we were creatures of God—made in His image and
longing to be persons, not objects or animals?
One December night after spending the evening in my tiny
apartment, weeping and trying to read my Bible, I snatched
Gina by the wrist and headed out the door onto the sidewalk. I
would walk the dark streets of Dallas until I found a church.
There, I knew, I would find God.
It was just a few days before Christmas and many of the
stores were still open. But the only church I could find still
unlocked at ten o'clock was a huge Roman Catholic one. It was
back off the sidewalk, dark and foreboding in the shadows. A
324
Yet in Love He Sought Me
small light burned over the door of the sanctuary, and we

gingerly made our way up the steps and slipped inside.
Gina clung to my hand as we walked down the dimly
lighted aisle. On the sides were statues with cold melted wax
around their feet. A robed priest appeared from a side room,
moving silently in my direction.
“I'm Protestant,” I said, my voice shaking. “But I need to
pray.”
He looked at Gina, who had crawled up onto the front pew
and was sitting, frightened, her hands squeezing together in her
lap. He glanced back at me, knowing the kind of girl I was from
my dress and makeup. He nodded, waved his hand toward the
altar rail, and disappeared through a door in the shadows. I
collapsed at the altar, and my sobs bounced through the hollow
stillness of the empty building.
I had forgotten how to pray. I could remember the first few
words of the childhood formulas—”Now I lay me down to
sleep” and “God is great, God is good”—but the rest had faded
from my memory, obliterated by the years of rebellion. All I
could do was sob convulsively and cry out to God to help me. It
never dawned on me that this was prayer in its finest form. “I
don't want to be like I am,” I sobbed. “I want to be pure. I want
to be clean. Please, God, please.”
It was almost midnight when I finally quieted down.
Exhausted, my tears drained dry, I leaned my head on the altar
rail. The statues stared down, their lips sealed, their eyes
unseeing, their hearts stony. But Someone had heard.
Gradually I became aware of a light in the sanctuary. It was
soft and quiet, filling every comer. Where was it coming from?
The only lights were the artificial ones burning behind the
communion table. But there was another source of light there,
one I couldn't see. I could feel it however. It was like warmth
and peace. It seemed to soak into me, bringing its illumination
325
into the darkest corners of my heart, chasing away the darkness.

Like a tiny child who crawls out of bed in the middle of the
night and snuggles in between her father and mother, I felt
secure and loved. All my fears drained away. My yesterdays no
longer pressed down, causing me to stagger, to want to hide. All
the dirt, and shame, and guilt were gone, covered by an ocean
of love and peace. I was free.
I knew almost nothing about spiritual things, but I knew I
had cried out to God, and He had answered me. “Lord,” I
whispered, “I don't have a son to give you, like you gave me.
But I give you my little girl, more precious to me than my own
life. Use her for your glory.” I was to forget that prayer in the
months that followed, but God remembered it.
When we came out of the church, the Christmas lights still
blinked in the streets. The December wind still stung my face.
Gina still gripped my hand tightly, looking up into my face,
wondering what she saw there. But I was no longer the same. It
was as though I had been born for the first time.
Wafting up through the mist of memory came the words to
an old country hymn I had heard sung in mama's West Virginia
church
Perverse and foolish, oft I stray'd,
But yet in love He sought me,
And on His shoulder gently laid,
And home, rejoicing, brought me.
We returned to the church the next night at the same time.

As before, the church was empty. This time there was not even a
priest to greet us. Gina and I sat down on the front pew.
But something was different, something was wrong. The
peace of the night before was gone, replaced by some sinister
sense of foreboding. I felt a chill. Involuntarily, I shuddered.
Gina huddled up against me as though she felt the same
326
ominous threat. Her short, dark hair framed the fright in her
round child's face.
“Don't be afraid, honey,” I said, trying to reassure her and
myself. “This is God's house.”
Suddenly we heard a noise, like the opening of a trap door.
It came from somewhere behind us, down the aisle. Gina
whirled to look. Her little arms reached out and grabbing me
around the neck, her eyes widening in terror. “Mommy!” she
screamed.
I looked back over my shoulder. Coming down the aisle
were two grotesque figures. Apparitions! They were walking
like puppets, arms and legs jerking stiffly, yet they seemed to be
floating.
“Mommy!” Gina screamed again. We jumped and backed
against the altar rail, clinging together.
The man had Mexican features, but his skin was bloodless
gray, his face the mask of death. The woman, jerking along
beside him, had pale white hair falling alongside colorless
cheeks. Their eyes, unseeing, stared straight ahead. They were
like walking corpses.
I was petrified with fear. They approached within arm's
reach, and the female, her face still expressionless, reached out
and touched Gina on the shoulder. Then they were gone. I
began to scream. Holding Gina by the hand, I raced down the
long dark aisle and out onto the sidewalk.
Back at the apartment, I continued to scream. A neighbor
called friends who came and tried to calm me.
“I saw them!” I screamed. “I saw them!”
One of my friends called the police. I tried to tell them what
I had seen, but like my friends, they just looked at one another
and shook their heads. Gina and I were put in the police car and
taken to the hospital.
327
“She's seeing things,” one of the officers told the psychiatric

nurse. “We'll take the little girl down to the juvenile department
at the station.”
“No,” I pleaded. “You can lock me up—but not Gina. Let me
call my sister. She lives close by and works at Baylor Hospital.
She'll take care of Gina.”
The officers agreed, and my sister Faye came by and picked
up Gina. I was locked in the psychiatric ward for observation.
“O God, what is happening?” I moaned as they put me in
bed and gave me a shot. “Yesterday everything was so
beautiful. Now this. Were those demons? Why did they touch
Gina?” I drifted off to sleep, crying softly, my questions hanging
in the air. I didn't know then that during my years of alcohol,
drugs, sex, and sin, I had been opening my life to the power of
Satan. When I invited Jesus into my life the night before, He had
cast out all the demons. But they had come back—to touch Gina.
The results of that creature's touch were about to break into the
open in a nightmare too horrible to describe.
I was in a mental hospital in Terrell, outside Dallas, for six
weeks. One psychiatrist said I had a nervous breakdown.
Another said I was hallucinating. I tried to argue that I was
sane, but they didn't believe me. Instead, they kept pumping me
full of drugs.
Faye brought Gina to see me each Saturday for a while. On
the third visit, when we were alone, Gina whispered, “Mommy,
those two people meet me every Friday after school and walk
home with me. They say I am going to die. I'm too scared to say
anything to anybody about them. They might put me in a
hospital, too.” Her eyes had a haunted look, deep inside.
“Just pray to God, honey,” I wept, holding her close. “He'll
see us through this.”
I was released from the hospital the first week in February.
328
Faye came to pick me up. A “blue norther” had blown in out of

the Texas panhandle that morning, and the temperature had
plunged below freezing, accompanied by a dry, biting wind that
whined through the branches, hurtling bits of twigs against the
side of the car. We sat in the parking lot for a few moments,
waiting for the car to warm up.
“How's Gina?” I finally shivered out, my nose still stinging
from the cold wind.
Faye didn't reply. She just sat looking at the steering wheel. I
thought she hadn't heard me, and started to ask her again, when
she looked up; fear was written across her face.
“What's wrong?” I asked, my voice shaking, remembering
that Gina hadn't come to see me last Saturday.
“We were afraid to tell you, Pat,” Faye said, her eyes
brimming with tears.
“What are you talking about? Where is Gina?” I grabbed her
arm, my fingers biting through her coat.
“Two weeks ago, on Friday afternoon, she came home from
school complaining of a pain in her left ankle,” she explained.
“We took her to the doctor, thinking it might be a sprain, but he
could find nothing wrong. Then, Saturday morning, when my
kids tried to get Gina out of bed to watch cartoons on TV, she
couldn't move. Her whole body was stiff and swollen, and she
could barely talk. We rushed her to Baylor Hospital.”
I sat stunned. It was like a horrible dream.
“How is she?” I finally asked.
Faye shook her head. “Not good. She's been transferred to
another hospital, and the doctors don't know yet what's wrong
with her. But it's serious, Pat. She's mighty sick.”
We went straight to the Children's Medical Center, where
things were even worse than Faye had described them. Gina
was lying naked on a bed in an isolation room in the children's
329
section. Her body was swollen out of shape, her joints so stiff
she couldn't move. Her head was drawn back, the muscles in
her neck standing out like ropes. Saliva drooled from the comers
of her mouth as she moaned in pain. A nurse was beside her,
checking the I.V. tubes that dripped their colorless liquid into
her arms. Twice, the nurse told me, they had to pack Gina's
body in ice to reduce the raging fever.
I bent over Gina. Although conscious, she was unable to
speak. Her eyes searched my face for help and comfort, but I
was too shocked to give her anything. Even as I watched, her
eyes slowly rolled back into their sockets until only the whites
showed.
I was horrified. The nurse just shook her head. “We can't put
clothes on her, because she screams in pain when anything
touches her body,” she told me.
Then she pointed out that Gina's hands and feet were
beginning to draw up. “It's some outside force that the doctors
haven't been able to identify yet,” she said. “They're doing all
they can, though.”
I believed her. But I also feared that no medical treatment
would ever be able to release Gina. I could tell her pain was
increasing. Days and nights blended together in one long
nightmare. I stayed with Faye during the day and spent the
nights beside Gina's bed.
It was during one of those long, lonely night sessions that
the convulsions began. Gina's little body began to bend
backward, twisted by some invisible hand of cruelty. Her eyes
rolled back and she began to gag.
The nurse rushed in, took one look, and gasped, “She's
swallowing her tongue!”
Grabbing a cloth, she pushed her fingers deep into Gina's
mouth. She was able to keep the air passage open, but Gina's
330
breathing rapidly became faster and more shallow. Then it

stopped.
We stood looking in silence for a fraction of a second. Gina's
body was jerking involuntarily, much as a snake or chicken
twitches after its head has been chopped off. But from
somewhere behind me, I heard a gentle voice, speaking ever so
softly. “Do not be afraid. I am right here with you.”
Who had spoken? Turning, I saw no one, but at the sound of
the voice I felt the fear drain out of me. Gina's body relaxed
immediately. The nurse began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. In
seconds, Gina was breathing again. A doctor rushed into the
room and started oxygen. The nurse put her arm around my
waist and guided me out into the hall. I looked back over my
shoulder at the little form on the bed as the doctor reinserted the
tubes that had been pulled out during her convulsive thrashing.
I wondered how she could survive such a convulsion.
She did survive it, however. Not just that one, but many
more. Several times she stopped breathing, and the doctors
finally told me that she had suffered irreparable brain damage
from being deprived of oxygen.
By this time Gina had lost control of her bodily functions.
We had to change her diapers and tend to her as if she were an
infant. The first week of April, Gina began to scream with pain.
She didn't stop. She screamed for a week and a half before the
doctors increased the drugs sufficiently to bring the pain under
control. They still had not been able to fully diagnose her illness.
Even though Gina was a welfare case, the doctors and
nurses at the Children's Medical Center were kind and patient
toward us. They pulled a cot into Gina's room so I could sleep
during the long night watches. One morning I noticed a lot of
loose strands of hair on Gina's pillow. I gently ran my hand over
her head, and the hair came loose in my fingers. In days she was
completely bald. Then black hair began growing on her arms,
331
legs and back. The doctors said it was caused by a hormonal

change.
Dr. Chester Fink, a pediatrician who specialized in blood
disorders, asked permission to perform surgery on Gina's legs.
He wanted to open her thighs and take a biopsy of the muscles.
I consented, and the procedure was successful, leading to the
diagnosis of a rare blood disease called periarteritis nodosa.
One evening I picked up a pad of paper and sat down to
write my mother a letter, bringing her up-to-date on Gina's
condition. I knew she had been praying for both of us. The pad
was one that Faye had used previously, and I was flipping
through the pages to find a clean sheet on which to write my
letter when I ran across a note in Faye's handwriting: Pat doesn't
know this yet, it read, but the doctor called yesterday from the
hospital and said Gina could not live. He told us to begin
making arrangements for her funeral.
I sat staring at the words, as if I were reading a novel. They
were unreal. Yet they were in Faye's handwriting. I knew I had
stumbled upon an unfinished letter to my mother.
Faye was sleeping in the other room, and I ran in and awoke
her. “I've got to know what is going on. You have been hiding
the truth from me, afraid I'll have another breakdown. Tell me
everything.”
Faye reached out and put her hand on my arm. “I'm sorry,
Pat,” she said. Then she admitted what the doctor had said.
There was no hope. Gina was dying.
I went to the hospital to spend the night. The next morning
when the doctors made their rounds, I cornered one of the
physicians—a young doctor, very feminine and very pretty—
and asked her if Gina was going to die. Looking me straight in
the face, she said, “Mrs. Bradley, there's no sense in trying to kid
ourselves. Gina cannot live. She's too sick. The disease is getting
worse. At the most she has six months to live—maybe only
332
three.” She continued to look deep into my eyes. Just a trace of

moisture formed around her pale blue ones. “There's nothing
we can do,” she said. Then, squeezing my hand, she turned and
walked out of the room.
In July the doctors finally regulated Gina's blood pressure
and gave in to my constant nagging, saying I could take her
home, even though she was taking drugs fourteen times a day. I
moved into an apartment, the Welfare Board increased my
allowance, Buckner Baptist Benevolences helped me with some
food, and a special nurse came over every morning from the
hospital to help with Gina's medication and feeding. I was
hoping for those six months.
While she was in the hospital I had been praying for Gina
and talking to her about Jesus, but her mind was so confused
that I was not sure she understood. After she got home, I sat
down beside her bed and told her again about the Jesus I had
met. I knew she had brain damage, but I had decided that Jesus
died for retarded children just as much as for normal ones—
maybe even more. Satan might kill her body, but Jesus could
save her soul. She understood, and asked Jesus to come into her
life. In the midst of sorrow, it was a joyful moment.
One day while Gina was sleeping, I went through the yellow
pages of the phone book until I found the name of a funeral
home in our neighborhood. The director gave me prices on
embalming, casket selection, and transportation of the body
back to West Virginia for burial. Then I called my father and
asked him to see about a cemetery lot and to make
arrangements with a local funeral home in Kenova. Then daddy
asked me if there were any way I could bring Gina home for a
visit before she died. He too was dying of cancer. He wanted to
see us one last time.
I wanted to try to take Gina to see him, even though I knew
it would be an ordeal. I talked with the airlines and with the
333
doctors. Scottish Rite Hospital in Dallas furnished me with a

wheelchair, and with the attendants helping at airports along
the way, we were finally able to get home.
I could tell that daddy didn't have long to live. He had lost
so much weight, he didn't even look like himself.
One warm summer afternoon he drove me out to the
cemetery to show me the lots he had bought. I was crying so
hard it was difficult for me to see. “Daddy, this is the hardest
thing I've ever had to do,” I sobbed.
We got out of the car and started walking across a grassy
space toward the woods. “Nothing in life is easy,” he said, his
voice shaky with pain. “'Yet man is born into trouble, as the
sparks fly upward.' Job said that, and it is still true. But he also
said something else we both need to remember: 'Though He
slay me, yet will I trust Him.'”
I put my arms around daddy's waist and held on. The sun
was slipping behind the clouds, casting shadows across the
grave sites. A soft breeze blew out of the woods, and I could
hear behind it the sound of birds singing in the trees.
Everything spoke of life. But we were here on death's business.
Mother really ministered to me. I had known for years that
there was something different about her. Even while I was
dancing in the strip clubs, mother would write or call and say
she loved me and was praying for me. She never looked down
on me. She just loved me with more love than I could imagine.
While I was at home, I asked her about it.
“We don't have much of this world's goods,” she said,
sitting down beside me on the old worn sofa. “We've had to
work mighty hard just to have food on the table. But I've got
something that's worth more than all the money in the world.
It's the Holy Spirit.”
“I thought we all had the Holy Spirit when we accepted
334
Jesus,” I said, quoting the last sermon I had heard in the Baptist
church in Dallas.
Mother smiled and raised her wrinkled hands over her
head. “Oh, we do, honey,” she said. “But it's the baptism in the
Holy Spirit that gives you the power.”
I didn't understand what she was talking about, but I knew
that for mother, it was real. She said something else that was so
far out I just let it slip through my mind at the time. She said,
“Patricia, God can heal Gina. Take her to a service where the
power of God is falling, and she'll be healed.” I couldn't believe
that, because I knew that Gina was under a death sentence from
medical science. It was beyond me to even consider anything
else.
We flew back to Dallas amid many tears. The next time I
returned to West Virginia, it would be to bury Gina.
Faye met us at the airport and drove us to our apartment.
Gina was terribly weak and crying out with pain as we picked
her up and carried her into the house. After we got her into bed
and filled her with drugs, Faye pulled me aside.
“Pat,” she said hesitantly, “a friend of mine, Diane Smith,
gave me a book. I read it and think maybe you should read it,
too. I don't want to get your hopes up, because we all know that
Gina is dying, but this is a book about healing. It's called I
Believe in Miracles, by Kathryn Kuhlman.”
I read the book, and the next week I met Diane. An active
worker in the First Baptist Church of Dallas, she told me that
Kathryn Kuhlman was going to be speaking in a large
Methodist church the next week. She urged me to take Gina. My
mind backtracked over mother's words—”Patricia, God can heal
Gina”—and I agreed to go.
It was hot that day in Dallas. The August sun burned down
on the concrete streets and bounced up in shimmering heat
335
waves that seemed to make the sidewalks move up and down.

For two hours we stood in line outside the huge Methodist
church, waiting for the doors to open. Gina was in a wheelchair
in front of us. I kept expecting her to cry out in pain, but she
seemed content just to sit and look around at the other people.
Finally the doors opened and we went inside. Diane helped
us to our seats. “I can hardly believe it,” I said to her. “Gina has
not been able to sit up for more than fifteen minutes at a time.
Look how well she's doing now.”
Diane smiled, as though she knew something I didn't, as
though she couldn't see how pitiful Gina looked.
I had bought Gina a wig to hide her baldness before we
went to West Virginia, and it was difficult to keep it on straight,
since she had no hair to fasten it to. Her feet were so twisted
they no longer fit in her old shoes. The only thing she could
wear was a pair of my old knee boots that laced up the front.
They were many times too big, but by lacing them tight I was
able to make them stay on. I knew Gina looked strange, sitting
there in the big wheelchair with those oversize boots, her wig
askew, and such a pathetic look on her blank face. But I was
desperate enough that I didn't care what people might think. I
just did what I had to do.
It was a beautiful meeting. I had never attended anything
like it. Throughout the afternoon Miss Kuhlman kept using the
same term my mother had used, “the baptism in the Holy
Spirit.” My heart responded. I knew this must be the secret to
power in the Christian life.
Gina grew restless. The ushers kept bringing us water so I
could give her more medication. But something was happening.
As Miss Kuhlman started the healing portion of the service, I
heard her say, “Satan, I command you, in the name of Jesus
Christ, to release the captives in this audience.”
At the same time, I heard an inner voice saying to me, “Gina
336
is healed.”
I turned and looked at Gina. She seemed the same, but I
knew I had heard the voice. It was the same voice that had
spoken to me in the hospital room. Suddenly I knew whose
voice it had to be—and I believed it.
Partway through the healing service the people stood and
broke into spontaneous singing. It was so beautiful. The tears
washed down my face as I sat and listened, deeply touched. I
glanced at Gina again. Her lips were moving, and she was
making strange sounds. I bent over, knowing that her confused
brain often caused her to do odd things at unpredictable times.
But this wasn't odd. Gina was singing. The sounds coming from
her lips were not very musical, but there was no doubt as to
what was happening. She was singing along with the crowd,
making up her own words and music as she went.
Then, very slowly, she reached out and grabbed the back of
the seat in front of her. With great effort she pulled herself up
out of the wheelchair and stood with the others. It had been
seven months since she stood up. She couldn't walk, and had to
hold onto the seat in front of her to keep from falling, but here
she was, on her feet. Her head was up, and her lips were
moving in time to the song.
When the other people took their seats, Gina sat down, too.
She didn't try to stand again, but I knew that her healing had
begun.
During the next two weeks I noticed remarkable
improvement in every area of her life. She began to talk with
understanding. Before, her eyes looked dead and blank. Now
they sparkled—as though someone had turned on a light
behind them. Not only that, Gina was getting out of her
wheelchair. By holding onto the wall or a table, she was able to
take steps.
A group of Christians I had met at the Berean Fellowship
337
started coming to the house. One black couple, in particular,

meant much to me. I knew them only as Brother and Sister
Phillips. Gina and I lived in a mixed neighborhood and were
not accepted by some of our neighbors. I knew this wonderful
couple was running a great risk in coming to see us, but they
insisted God wanted them to visit and bring encouragement.
One afternoon Sister Phillips looked at Gina and said, “You
can walk. I know you can. Why don't you just get up out of that
chair and walk across the room?” Gina looked at me. “Mommy,
give me your boots again.” I pulled them out from under the
bed and helped her put them on. Then, slowly but with
deliberation, Gina rose up out of the wheelchair, without
holding onto anything, and took a step toward Sister Phillips,
then another and another.
I felt the tears again, splashing down my face onto my
blouse.
“That's right, honey,” Sister Phillips encouraged.
“That's right. Praise the Lord. Thank you, Jesus.” She was
crying, too. Brother Phillips was crying also.
Everyone was crying but Gina. She had the biggest grin on
her face I had ever seen.
After the Phillipses left, Gina returned to her wheelchair.
The next day, when she tried to walk again, she fell. Instead of
getting up and trying again, she crawled back toward the chair.
“No, Gina!” I insisted. “You can walk. You can't give in to
fear.”
“I can't walk, mommy,” she said. “I can't walk anymore. I
want my wheelchair back.”
I pushed it away, across the room. Gina went after it, sliding
along on her bottom. “Please, mommy, give it back. I can't
walk.”
Finally I let her return to the chair. Once again,
338
discouragement descended on the house.

In September Miss Kuhlman returned to Dallas to speak at a
meeting sponsored by the Full Gospel Business Men's
Fellowship International. New friends from Berean Fellowship
called to tell me about it. Time was short, but we made it to the
meeting, getting there just before it started.
This time an usher met us at the door and took us by
elevator right into the auditorium. Several thousand people had
already been packed inside, but he rolled the chair right down
near the front and found a seat for us. As he left, he whispered,
“I'll be praying for you during the meeting.”
It was a needed gesture. I felt love again.
I looked at Gina. She was sitting transfixed. Then I heard
Miss Kuhlman say, “There is somebody here with a fatal blood
disease. God has healed you, and every bit of that disease is
burned out of your body. Satan made you sick, but the Great
Physician has made you well. Stand and claim your healing.”
Gina was struggling with her boots again. She finally got
them on, and straightening her wig, she stood to her feet. One of
the personal workers came quickly down the aisle.
“Has she been healed?”
Before I could say anything, Gina moved past me and into
the aisle. “Yes, ma'am,” she said, in perfectly clear English.
“Satan made me sick, but God has made me well.”
“Come with me,” the worker said, tears running down her
face. “Let's go up there and tell Miss Kuhlman all about it.”
As Gina walked to the platform, the entire congregation
broke into thunderous applause. Many of them had seen Gina
come in, riding in her wheelchair. Miss Kuhlman asked her a
few questions, and then began walking with her, back and forth
across the stage. Faster and faster they went, until Gina broke
into a run.
339
“Look at her go!” Miss Kuhlman shouted to the audience.

“Those of you who believe that's the power of the Holy Spirit
say, 'Praise the Lord!'”
“Praise the Lord!” The building thundered. “Praise the
Lord!”
Back in her seat, Gina was radiant. She could hardly hold
still. I reached over and put my hand on her arm—and noticed
something else. The long black hairs on her arm were just
brushing off and falling to the floor.
“See, mommy,” she grinned. “I'm well all over.”
She was well in every way. That night we had a great
service in the bathroom—pouring all her pills down the toilet.
The doctors had told me that rapid withdrawal from the
cortisone could have disastrous effects, but I figured that since
God was taking care of everything else, He could certainly take
care of that too.
Within a week I noticed stubble appearing on Gina's head.
Her hair was growing back. And as it grew longer, I saw God
had given her a bonus. Instead of coming in straight as it had
been before, her hair was coming in curly. Her face, once chalky
white, was now rosy pink. She never again returned to the
wheelchair.
Sometime later, I took her back to the Children's Medical
Center. After a brief examination, the doctor looked up at me
quizzically.
I knew he was Jewish, but I also knew I had no choice but to
tell him what had happened. “Do you believe in God?” I asked
him.
“Did you take her to a faith healer?” he asked, without
otherwise acknowledging my question. I remembered what
Miss Kuhlman had said. She was not a faith healer. She had no
power to heal anyone. Only the Holy Spirit healed. “No, I didn't
340
take her to a faith healer,” I said. “But I did take her to a miracle
service.”
The doctor bit his lower lip and shook his head.
“Well, I believe it!” I heard a woman's voice say.
I looked up to see the woman doctor with the pale blue eyes.
“I've seen others healed in just the same way,” she said. “And
there is no explanation for it except the power of God. This child
was ready to die. Look at her now.”
We went into her office and she gave Gina a thorough
examination. “We really don't need an examination to see that
she's been healed,” she said. “But there are always some people
who have to be shown the facts on paper. Even then they don't
want to believe.” On our way out of the office we were stopped
by one of the other doctors who had previously treated Gina
and had heard of her healing. “Mrs. Bradley, Gina will get sick
again if you withdraw her medication—especially the
phenobarbital. That's the only thing that is preventing her from
having a fatal seizure.”
I looked at him straight in the eye. “Doctor, I thank you for
your concern. You folks have been wonderful to me here. But
the phenobarbital is not what's keeping Gina alive. It's the Holy
Spirit.”
Two weeks later we returned to West Virginia. There was no
need for a wheelchair this time. When we got out of the car in
front of the old house, mother came running down the walk to
meet us, her arms in the air, her face shining with the glory of
God.
“I had a vision,” she wept as she embraced me. “I had a
vision of Gina out in the backyard playing under the apple tree.
Her cheeks were rosy, and she had a head full of long, curly
dark hair. Oh, praise the Lord!”
Three months later, daddy died. His sins, like mine, had
341
been washed away in the blood of Jesus. We buried him in the

plot that had been picked out for Gina. That afternoon, when we
returned from the cemetery, we sat quietly around the living
room. Mother got up and stood at the window. Beckoning to
me, she said quietly, “Patricia, come here. I want to show you
something.”
I stood beside her and looked out in the backyard. There
was Gina, her cheeks rosy, her glossy hair blowing in the winter
wind, standing under the apple tree.
Mother reached for the old Bible beside the lamp on the
table. Picking it up, she leafed through it until she found a verse
of scripture in the Old Testament.
“Your daddy's in Heaven,” she said, brushing away a tear
with the back of her hand. “But Gina's still here.” Then she read:
“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the
name of the Lord.”
342
A Message to the readers of this book:
Many of the radio messages by Kathryn Kuhlman are

available on cassette tape, as well as in book form. If you desire
any of her talks, you may request a listing of subjects by writing
to:
The Kathryn Kuhlman Foundation

Post Office Box 3
Pittsburgh, PA 15230

Nothing Is Impossible With God Kathryn Kuhlman PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Nothing Is Impossible With God Kathryn Kuhlman PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Nothing Is Impossible With God Kathryn Kuhlman PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

What is the book about?

What is the book about?

What are some of the stories included in the book?

What are some of the stories included in the book?

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD

Published by Bridge Publishing, Inc.

Nothing Is Impossible With God

Printed in the United States of America.

Foreword by David Wilkerson______________________________9

2 No Shortage in God's Storehouse

3 Walking in the Shadows

4 The Day God's Mercy Took Over

5 When Heaven Comes Down

6 Speak to the Mountain

7 Is This a Protestant Bus?

8 Healing Is Only the Beginning

9 The God-Shaped Vacuum

10 Skeptic Under a Fur Hat

11 Once I Was Dying...

13 Face to Face with a Miracle

14 The Big Fisherman

16 Something to Shout About

17 God Loves Us All

18 We Tried Everything but God

19 Hope for Those Who Suffer

20 Yet in Love He Sought Me

A TRIBUTE TO KATHRYN KUHLMAN

I should think that everybody knows her by now. For nearly

And suddenly she bursts on the scene. It's explosive and

godly wisdom. She is not wealthy, nor is she “hung up” on

man who enjoyed the sacramental life of the Roman Catholic

my home in the country. I felt very well, rested, and at peace,

physician, Dr. Newton McDonald. He minced no words. “How

Baptist that Harry Truman said he was, the bourbon-drinking,

long time. What would you say if I went back to work?”

few Baptists are impressed with a woman preacher. But as the

ask her to call you, as a personal favor to me.”

the service at the Shrine. I also checked around, using my know-

recognized his name immediately. I had read his testimony in

no particular gifts of healing herself. She motioned for me to

As I stood looking, I heard, for the first time in all my life,

many young people here today, I must speak to them.”

I looked up. She was pointing to the opposite side of the

in the name of Jesus Christ and claim it.”

without these braces. But look at her go now!”

Hippies were saved. Twisted limbs were straightened. My

“Let me tell you something,” she said. “The only miracle

Saint Elizabeth School. “Please look into this. Lisa is having

crutches for another week,” he said. “Bring her back in next

radiation therapy,” Dr. Higgins objected when we told her.

Unknown to me at that time, though, Lisa did suspect

section, calling out healings in other parts of the auditorium. My

aisle. Slowly, then with more confidence, they walked to the

said. “That is something we have not had before. We have had

I swallowed into the phone. “You mean something's

It has to be learned by walking with Him through the shadowed

However, both my parents and Rosie's sister noticed

The doctor carefully placed the leg back in its original