In Straight Paths

by Georgia McCain

  * * * * *

  A few years ago a young pastor's wife was brought to her parents' home (the McHugh home). She was very ill, confined to her bed awaiting a trip to the Cleveland Clinic. Her husband, Rev. L. Burcaw, came to the parsonage to break the news of Jane's condition.

  She had grown up under my ministry and I had presided over their God-owned and beautiful wedding. All in all, I had great interest in this young couple. I also had a part in his ordination ceremony, and they were pastors in our conference.

  I decided to spend that night in prayer for Jane. It proved to be a long, lone wrestle. Prevailing darkness in more than one way hung low and pressured in on me for she had a family to live for.

  At ten minutes to four in the morning, the light broke in upon my soul and oh, how sweet to hear Jesus whisper, "Jane is going to be all right." Tears of joy welled up within my soul and it seemed almost impossible to contain myself.

  At 9:00 a.m. I drove out to the McHugh home. Jane's husband met me proclaiming that Jane had taken a big turn for the better, and was sitting up in bed. When I went in, the big tears of joy were filling her eyes and running down her face that shone with the light of Heaven. The trip to Cleveland Clinic was cancelled and in two days Jane was taken to her home to resume her duties as a mother and parsonage wife.

  There was joy over Jane's recovery such as we have seldom witnessed.. Oh, what a living testimony of the wonderful love and grace of God. Hallelujah! Rev. Claude Eshelman

  You Drive--I'll Pray

  Years ago, we rode the buses for much of our travels, and they furnished some very interesting as well as precious opportunities to witness for the Lord and to win folk to Him. One such incident stands out clearly in my mind, for it involves the bus driver.

  I had been to Central, South Carolina, to the Central Wesleyan College--for a meeting of the Board of Managers. I served on that board for twenty years, and many times rode the bus back and forth from home to the meetings. The route that the bus took was from Central to Greeneville, then to Asheville, North Carolina, and then across the mountains (and they were mountains then), and to Knoxville, Tennessee. In the summer, this was a most beautiful journey, but, in the winter, it could be very dangerous at times, especially if there was snow on the roads.

  On the night of which I wish to tell you, the Board Meeting had lasted until late, and it was past midnight when I finally arrived in Asheville. There was a very heavy snow falling and the roads were getting slicker and slicker. I had to change buses at Asheville, and it began to appear that no bus would be going out that night. However, there were a number of men who needed to get across the mountain and they continued to urge the manager of the station to send a bus across. Finally, he consented, but did so with the understanding that all who went did so at their own risk. This announcement was made on the speakers, stating that the road was slick and that those who went would not be guaranteed that the bus would make it through. As a consequence, no women went and only twelve or fifteen men.

  The Lord was usually good to me and allowed me to have a seat near the front, and this time I sat right next to the driver, on the first seat behind him. As we went out of the city and hit the slick, snow covered roads, heading for the mountains, we fell into conversation. I told him that I knew the road well and that I believed that we would be able to get across. The fact is, I was not so sure myself, but wanted to reassure him. He then confided to me that he had never driven this route before. He had ridden across with another driver to learn the route only a few days before, but that due to sickness, they were short of drivers, and that he had been assigned this trip even though he had never driven it before. It was easy to see that he was nervous and even scared. So I said to him, "Driver, you do your best to keep this thing in the road and drive, and I will pray and I believe that the Lord will get us through."

  What a ride we had. That big Greyhound Bus slid, slipped, skidded, and spun its wheels, and many times it appeared that we would go off over the mountain side, but each time it caught just in time and righted itself and went on. There was hardly a word from the other passengers aboard, and I kept my word and held on to God for protection and help. He never failed us and after a very slow and dangerous journey, we finally began to emerge from the mountain and get into safer territory.

  When the big bus came into the town of Newport, Tennessee, everything was closed, even the filling station that was used for a bus station. But, in spite of the fact that he had no passengers to get off and it was evident that there was none there to get on, the driver stopped and went outside. Occasionally, in the side mirror, I'd catch a glimpse of him walking back and forth at the rear of the bus, and 1 began to think that something was wrong with him. Finally, 1 got off and went back to where he was pacing back and forth.

  "Driver, is there something wrong?" 1 asked.

  He stopped his pacing and leaned up against the side of the bus and burst into tears. "Preacher," he said, "I have never believed much in God or miracles, and I have had a lot of bad things to say about people who believed in prayer. But I can't go any further. If God had not answered prayer tonight, we would probably be at the bottom of one of those mountains. It had to have been God who brought us over here. Several times when I did not know what to do, something just seemed to take hold of that bus and pull it back into the road. It had to have been God, Preacher, no one else could have done it. And to think that I have tried not to believe in Him. Preacher, pray for me. I want to get right with Him before I go another mile."

  What a joy it was to put my arms around that big bus driver as we stood there in the snow in the driveway of that filling station and ask God to save him. How he poured his heart out to God and begged God to forgive him, promising the Lord that he would live for Him and do anything that He wanted him to do. It wasn't long until the glory of God seemed to settle down on the place and he began to rejoice in the fact that the burden was lifted and that he knew he was saved.

  Going back into the bus, he told the other passengers of how the Lord had saved him out there in the snow, and testified to them that it was only the Lord that had brought us across the mountains. They all agreed, and some even asked for prayer.

  What a time we had the remaining fifty miles of that trip. He was about the happiest man I have ever seen, and I am sure that he was the happiest bus driver that I have ever seen, During the years, God gave me a number of good friends among the drivers, and I surely wish that all of them could have gotten what that man did.

  1 saw him several times after that, rode on his bus a few times, and he was always giving his testimony to anyone that would listen. It was about three months after his conversion that he told me one day that God had called him to preach and that he was planning to give up his job with the bus company and go to school again. Later, I learned he was pastoring a church, and that almost every service, he referred to a snowy night and a wild bus trip, and also a prayer meeting in the snow.

  Rev. David Denton

  (This account was taken from Brother Denton's book, It Happened on the Road. Address: P.O. Box 226, Concord, Tennessee 37720. Used by permission).

  Answered Prayer for an Unspoken Request

  My telephone rang and a man of our acquaintance asked me to pray for an unspoken request. "Try your best to get under the burden with me," he pleaded. He sounded quite desperate. I knew how he had been fasting and praying, but somehow his faith would not reach through to God and claim the answer. I went to prayer and God helped me to believe Him to answer prayer. He assured my heart that He had the situation in hand. He spoke from Exodus 3:7, 8-"I have surely seen the affliction of my people ... and have heard their cry ... and I am come down to deliver them .... "I rested the matter in the hands of God, and when my husband came home from work, I testified how I believed that God had taken over and answered prayer for Brother Miller for He had witnessed to my heart.

  Later that night I received a call from him and he informed me, "The Lord h
as answered your prayers." "No," I said, "God has answered your prayers. You folk did the praying, and God just helped me to do the believing." I continued, "God told me He had seen your affliction (suffering, distress) and heard your cry and had come down to deliver you, so it was your prayers that God answered." He was elated that God had heard and answered, regardless of whose prayers had touched through.

  Georgia D. McCain

  "With His Stripes We Are Healed"

  Carrie Trusler was a hard worker, helping with the school activities and entertaining extensively. She was not one to give in to minor aches and pains.

  One day, she noticed a small red spot on her ankle but paid little attention to it in her busy activities. Then, the redness began to enlarge and be feverish. Soon the infected area had open sores, blisters, and cracks. Her whole foot began to swell until she was no longer able to wear her shoe. For one in her position, it was decidedly inconvenient and also alarming. No one seemed to have a cure and the disease which now had been diagnosed as erysipelas (an acute streptococcal skin infection) was spreading rapidly. What could be done?

  Golden, her seventeen-year-old daughter, was especially worried about her mother. She went to one of the prayer warriors of the church, but her only admonition was that she must be resigned to the Lord's will. Golden and Carrie were willing but didn't feel it to be the Lord's will that this disease continue.'

  Golden called the ladies together for a special session of prayer and after some time Carrie claimed the victory. With her eyes raised heavenward and with faith in the promise, "With his stripes we are healed", she pulled on her shoe and with the stride of a conqueror walked to the kitchen and began to prepare supper for company. How she ever did it she never knew, but when she pulled off her shoe at bedtime, her stocking and shoe were soaked with drainage from the infection. The swelling had receded and her foot and ankle healed rapidly. All praise to the Great Physician!

  (Taken from the book, A Walk to Glory, by Lillian M. Knapp. Used by permission.)

  For Eight Years, She Came To Tell Me About Jesus

  At the age of sixteen, I was confirmed in the Jewish faith, and I waited for a manifestation from God. I was valedictorian of my class, so it was my privilege to repeat the creeds in Hebrew, the first one being, "Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echod." In Hebrew this means, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." I repeated the other twelve, and waited for God to bless; but no blessing came. I grew disgusted, I was discouraged. What I had been seeking for I could not find. At last I said, "My father is right. There is no God." If there were, why had He not revealed Himself to me when He knew how sincere I was seeking Him and honest I was?

  About that time I had a teacher in high school, my science teacher, who I knew had gone to college and university. I thought, "Now here is a woman who does not believe in God. I will befriend her and she will befriend me." I thought that surely anyone who had gone to college and university would not believe in the Genesis account of creation. I did not see how anyone with a smattering of education could believe such a ridiculous fairy tale. But I soon found out that she did believe it. She was a Christian, although I wonder now, because she had no concern for my soul. I think that when Christians can come into the presence of sinners day in and day out, mingle with them week after week, and month after month, and never once take the precious Word of God and try to lead them to Jesus, there is something wrong. She had no concern for my soul at that time, although later God dealt with her mightily.

  When I was eighteen, I met my husband, who is a Gentile. After a few short months of courtship, we were married, much against my parents' will, and even without their knowledge. My father would never have consented to this marriage for he had made other plans for me. My husband was not a Christian at this time.

  In the meantime, this science teacher had received a real experience with the Lord Jesus. She had learned the joy of full and complete surrender, and God laid me on her heart. Every other Saturday afternoon she knocked on my front door, coming to tell me about the Lord. I did not want her to come, and if I would see her first she would not see me next! But she kept on coming--if not every other Saturday; it would be every Saturday. She would come into my home, sit in my living room, talk about Jesus, and as she did so her face would shine. Often a tear would glisten in her eye. I watched her intently and when she had finished testifying, I would sneer at her, and mock and say, "Oh, you're just emotional, that's all." Yet at the same time, way down deep in my black, darkened, wicked heart, I knew that she had something that I did not have .

  She kept on coming, and she used to anger me for she would tell me that unless I repented I would go to hell. And she said it just that bluntly! But it took just that blunt talk to get me to God, for after her visits, after I had pushed her out of my home, she would stand on the porch and weep. I even laughed at her tears. Oh, the love of God! Amazing is His grace, that He could save such a one as I! I never tell this without stopping to praise Him that He would forgive such blasphemy as I was guilty of. That teacher's bluntness and truthfulness and faithfulness to my soul brought me under conviction, although I did not know what to label it. I could not sleep, I could not eat, I would walk the floor, pacing, wondering how long I could keep up with her coming to see me. I thought if she kept coming I would go crazy. I was under conviction and did not know it. God was answering her prayers and the prayers of His saints everywhere.

  She kept on coming--do you know how long? Well, Sunday school teacher, how long would you visit one who treated you as I did her? And you, too, pastor, how long would you visit someone who gave you the treatment that I gave this schoolteacher? Oh, I know. I've been around some of them. I've heard them say, "I've been there two or three times. No use going back." And with a shrug of the shoulder, they dismissed their responsibility. Some have even said, "I don't think the Lord expects me to cast my pearls before swine." Oh, I'm glad the schoolteacher didn't say that. Not after two or three times, not after two hundred times did she say that. She kept on calling--for eight long years, she came every other Saturday, sometimes every Saturday, to tell me about Jesus. Oh, she surely loved the Lord or she could not have loved anyone such as I. Conviction began to settle more heavily, day by day.

  One morning when my little daughter was in school, my husband at work, and my little boy sound asleep, I began to pace the floor. Questions began going through my mind, and fears began to penetrate my heart. What if the schoolteacher were right? What if there really were a God? What if Jesus were His Son? Then, if there is a God and if there is a Jesus, there must be a Heaven and a hell. These thoughts sent pangs of fear into my heart. Maybe I have been wrong, I reasoned. For the first time in my life I fell on my knees. I fell on my knees because I had heard that was what Christians did. I had never seen them do it for, you see, up to the time I was saved I had never been inside a Christian church of any kind. I had heard that Christians knelt when they prayed. I fell on my knees that morning but I didn't know how to pray. I didn't even know if there were a God Who would hear me, but I wanted to believe. I wanted what the schoolteacher had, even if there weren't a God, even if there weren't a Jesus.

  As I knelt there, I looked up and cried, "O God, if You really are, give me faith to believe." And God did! You know, even our faith is a gift from God, but I knew I would have to go further than this. I had believed in God when I was a child, but I wasn't satisfied; I was constantly seeking. I knew I would have to go on. I cried again, "O God, if Jesus is Your Son, give me faith to believe this, too." And God did! It seemed as though He pulled the curtain back, truly He did--He pulled back the veil. Paul tells us in Romans that blindness, in part, is happened to Israel, and again we read in the Scripture that to this day there is a veil over the eyes of the Jewish people, but it says that when that heart is turned to God the veil is taken away. Thank God, that morning when my heart was turned to God in honesty and sincerity, and now having had light, I could find Christ as my Saviour. I c
ried to God for faith and He took the veil away. I saw the blessed Son of God, Virgin-born, dying on the cross for my sins. I cried out to God in Jesus' name, and in the name of Jesus He immediately forgave my sins. Thank God for that morning. It wasn't a self-induced experience; it wasn't altogether emotional. Yet it affected me all over-intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, physically. Thank God, I was born again, but it wasn't until three weeks later that I knew what the experience was called. All I knew was that something wonderful had come into my heart. My heart was warmed. I had passed from death unto life, from darkness to light. Oh, I know we are not saved by experience; we are saved by grace through faith. But I'm glad I know when Jesus came into my heart. I know when my sins were lifted.

  Something else happened to me while I was on my knees. At Easter time, we used to watch the folks baptize at the Mississippi River, and I always said that if I had my way I would see to it that every preacher got shot for making people get baptized. While I was still on my knees I knew that the next thing I wanted to do was to be baptized. I arose, gathered up some clothes, and knocked on the door of the closest preacher's house. I didn't know what kind of preacher he was; it didn't matter to me then because I thought everybody believed alike.

  I knocked on his door, and when he answered, I stepped back, for I used to fear this man before I was a Christian. As children, we would never go by his house after dark. We were afraid that he belonged to the organization that had driven us out of the other town. I stepped back from him and said, "Sir, I am a Jew. I just now believed in Jesus. He just now took my sins away, and I want to join your church. See--I have brought my clothes, and I want you to baptize me right now." The poor preacher got so excited that he couldn't even talk to me for a few minutes. He stuttered and stammered, and finally invited me into his study, and explained what I would have to do. He said that I would have to come into his church on Sunday morning and make a profession of faith, give the people my testimony, and if they were satisfied that I had really been born again, or really saved, as he called it; then I could be baptized that night.

  I went home from the preacher's house, laid down my bundle of clothes, and searched through a drawer into which I had thrown a New Testament that the schoolteacher had given me. I wouldn't read it before this time; I was so prejudiced. I wouldn't open it. When she gave it to me, I told her she was wasting her time and money. Every time she came, she quoted John 3:16, so this was the verse I hurriedly searched for and found, to my delight. There it was, just like she said it would be.

  I had many Gentile neighbors, and I was sure they did not know about Jesus, for they had never told me about Him. They had never mentioned John 3:16, so why not go tell them? And so, one hour after I was saved, I became a missionary of the cross, although it was a year before I knew that was what you called it. I went next door to my neighbor's home, knocked on her door, stood there very businesslike and read John 3:16 to them. Of course, I was businesslike. This was big business, the best and biggest business in all the world. I told this neighbor what had just happened to me and how happy I was. Jesus had taken my sins away, was in my heart. I had prayer with her and went on to the next door, and from there to the next door. I thought that all I had to do was to tell them and they would all believe right away. Well, God honored my childlike faith, for that day seventeen of my neighbors were saved.

  That evening when my husband came home from work I told him what Jesus had done for me. He got on his knees in the kitchen, and he, too, trusted the Lord as his Saviour.

  Irene Hanley

  Illinois