Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
We had moved to University Park, Iowa, and I was attending Central Holiness University. Because of my sickness, I was running out of money and was unable yet to work to buy proper feed for my milk cow. She was giving only about a quart of milk at a milking. While I was praying one morning the Lord spoke to me, "Give half the milk that you get to Brother and Sister Cooley." As I went to one of my Bible classes I met Brother Cooley. I told him what the Lord had told me about the milk. I asked, "Now when do you want to get your part?" He said, "At night." When we were getting all that the cow gave, it was not enough for us, and now the Lord had said, "Give half of it away." I did not question the Lord, but gave the milk as He had said to do.
In a couple of days, my neighbor, Brother Farnsworth, said to me, "You don't have any shed for your cow. Bring her down and put her in my shed. You can leave her in my lot. I will have my cows in the pasture in the daytime. My cow began gaining, and in a few days she was giving over half a gallon at a milking. Soon she was giving over two gallons at a milking.
One morning I had to milk earlier than usual. What did I find my cow eating? Ground corn, ground wheat and oats, sugar beets, and bran. God had spoken not only to me; He also had spoken to my neighbor. He not only gave a shed for my cow, but fed her, and fed her well.
I did not get to finish the semester of school, but I attended the graduation service. Several of the students testified. Among them was Brother Cooley, and he gave this touching incident. He told how he and some of the other boys stayed in "the tower" so that they would have money enough to get through school. Then he told of his marriage and their poverty. He said that about the last of January, they counted all the money they had, then the remaining days of school. They found they had five cents for each day. They figured they could buy one loaf of day-old bread each day, and how they wished for some milk to go with it. Oh glory! It makes me cry for joy just to mention it! What a wonderful God we have! Oh, Hallelujah, glory! His glory is flooding my soul just now!
Brother Cooley said, "That morning when I went to school, a very poor man called me to one side and said, "Brother Cooley, God told me to give you half the milk that my cow gives. I chose the night milking. At first we received about a quart. Then it increased until we were getting a milk pail nearly full. We had milk to sell to buy other needed things. This will be an ever-standing monument for our faith as we go to China in a few months." Dear Brother Farnsworth sobbed and cried.
It pays to obey God. I could easily have missed that blessing. I could have said, "Lord, I am not well and have no money, and my children need that milk." Or I could have argued, "It is just an impression from the enemy," and have tried to reason it out. But thank God, it was He who spoke. If we will obey, He will make ways where there are no ways.
Soon after this incident the Lord healed me of the leakage of the heart. But it was not until twenty years later that I was healed of diabetes.
I was so weakened at one time that the doctor said, "I don't see anything to keep you from dying, as bad as you are with that diabetes." I said, "Doctor, the Lord is keeping me going." He said, "You are now in a stage where you should be in a coma. You must take insulin." I said, "No, I will diet and watch the Lord work."
I was going to hold a meeting and stopped over in University Park, Iowa, where I had a little property. I asked Brother Glendening if he would shingle the south side of my house. He said that he could if I would help him.
On the ninth of September, 1938, we were working on the roof of the one and a half story house. The comb board broke off, letting loose the ladder on which I stood. This caused me to drop twenty-four feet. As I was falling the end of the ladder was against my left side. I called on Jesus to help, knowing that falling with the ladder in this position would mean certain death. By the hand of God the ladder was removed and it dropped six feet off to the side from me. I landed with one foot on a side piece of cement and the other foot in an open cellar.
Upon striking the ground, these words came to me, "For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God" (Rom. 8:28) Lighting in this position caused serious injury. Because of the one foot lighting in the open cellar, the right V bone of the hip was broken. The left foot striking the cement caused the slitting of the heel bone, breaking off the socket that the heel bone sets in and that bone was driven up into the ankle. This split the large bone, breaking the ankle bone and also the limb above the ankle. All the vertebrae were slipped until there were no two in the proper position. This caused a complete nerve tension of the entire body. These being pinched put the flesh in a cramp, which caused my body to be in a state without relaxation for thirteen and one-half days.
When the boy came to pick me up, I said, "Don't pick me up, but bring me a chair and let me pull myself up." Even at that he had to help me. He then helped me into the car and we started to the doctor. I took hold of the broken part to steady it and began to sing:
"Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to take Him at His Word,
Just to rest upon His promise,
Just to know, 'Thus saith the Lord."
The boy began to cry and asked me how I could sing under such circumstances. I told him that it was blessed and wonderful to have one's trust in Jesus.
We arrived at the doctor's office and examined the injured limb. He told me that he would have to take an X-ray. I remarked, "I see on the board that the terms are cash. I'm prepared to live or to die; I'm prepared to go anywhere in the world, but I am not prepared for an accident. I haven't a dollar. You say the terms are strictly cash, so you can't take an X-ray."
"I can play Santa Claus, can't I?" he asked. I answered that he might have to. He took three X-rays and informed me that my limb would have to be put in a cast. He also told me that I would have to go to the hospital.
"Doctor, I can't go to a hospital. They want money out there and I don't have it, but I can go to my mother's place about twelve miles away."
Once again we got into the car and again I had to hold the broken part to steady it. Now I began to sing:
"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine,
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine."
There was a foretaste of glory in this. I had never tasted Christ more blessedly in my life.
When they had gotten me in bed, the nerve tension set; the leaders in my neck stood out and this caused severe pain. In those thirteen days I did a great deal of suffering. I couldn't sleep so I began to pray. I prayed for everyone, every place, and everything that I could think of, over and over and over again. But I will say this -- in all of those thirteen days I do not remember of saying one time, "Lord, remember me" or "Lord, relieve the pain."
Just a few nights after the accident, it was whispered around that they couldn't have the prayer meeting as planned at my mother's home because of my nervous condition. I got hold of it and told them to go right ahead and have the meeting.
When the lady who led the service read the Scripture lesson, the spirit of exhortation came on me and for thirty minutes I exhorted and preached and enjoyed the Lord's blessing while doing it.
While at mother's and in the condition I was in, I sent a card to a dear brother who contacted the folk at Tabor, Iowa, and some other folk who could pray for me.
The doctor told my mother that I would pass away about the next day as the nerve that led to the heart would cramp and that would mean death. He also said that he would like to see me the next day.
The next morning there was an unusual presence of Christ in the room. I felt Him as a person. He seemingly came to my bedside and said, "My visitation has granted unto thee life and favor." No sooner had He said that until the lumbar vertebra at the base snapped into place, then the one next to it, then the next, until the great Chiropractor and Osteopath had slipped them all back into place. I had felt before this time that if I could just stretch, it would help me. Now it seemed that the great hand of God stretched me, and every muscle relaxed, and every nerve became normal. I called for Mother to get my clothes, and said, "I'm getting out of here. The Lord has healed me."
She brought my clothes. Someone came from the kitchen and asked what was going on. They said that out there in the kitchen they had felt wave after wave of glory. I told them that the Lord had come and I was healed. I then wrote a note to my deaf brother and asked him to come and take me to the doctor's office since he wanted to see me, and there was no use for him to make the trip out there.
We went into town and I walked up the stairs and was lying on the couch in the doctor's office when he came in. I shall never forget the look of surprise that came over his face when he saw me. Then he said, "Thank God."
I said, "Doctor, you know what has happened, don't you?" "It is a miracle, indeed," was his answer.
He had fixed the cast so that my toes were out. He took hold of my toes and moved them and asked if it hurt. No, it didn't. He asked me to move my toes and I did. He took hold of the leg that had been broken so badly, lifted it a little, and let it drop.
"Did that hurt?" "No," was the answer I could give him, "our God doeth all things well." I then asked him if I could go home. He answered, "There isn't anything to hinder you, but I'm not going to take that cast off for two weeks." It had already been on for thirteen days.
The folk at Tabor gathered and fasted and prayed, and may I say to the glory of God, that He answered their prayers. While they prayed they also put religion into action by an offering of money and goods. They felt they should send a couple of the elders down to anoint me, but the Lord arrived first. They shared their vegetables and means. When I received that money I did not have a dollar. No one will know how I thought, "Religion in action." I felt I should keep the money to pay on my doctor bill.
The day that the doctor cut the cast off, he patted me on the foot and said, "You must be living awfully good."
I answered, "It's no goodness of mine, but it's the good God I am serving. It is through the goodness of Christ that this has taken place -- it is none of mine. Now, Doctor, if you don't talk too big, I can pay you."
He replied, "The state requirement to set a broken limb is $65. You had four broken bones."
I began to figure -- fifteen dollars for the first X-ray, five dollars each for the other three -- it was running into figures fast. He scratched his head, sat there a moment, and said, "How does $30 sound?"
"The church at Tabor sent me $25. You mark me down for the other five." When I said that, he wouldn't ask but $25. That twenty-five dollars paid off a big debt. God will take the little and make it go a long way.
I said, "Doctor, I'm going to pray that God will bless you fourfold." "Just pray that God will make me worthy of that," was his reply. "I'll do that also."
As he shook hands with me he said, "I want you to come back. I want to see that limb in a few days." He then said something to me that was a bit of encouragement. "I once knew God, but I allowed my student life and my practice to crowd Him out. Wife and I both knew God."
After three weeks I went back as the doctor had asked. This time he said, "Pearl, I went back to meeting yesterday and heard a good message. I'm going to take up my cross and serve God."
Thank God! All praise and all glory belong to Him. "All things work together for good." I just took it for what it said. Having known something of His presence in suffering has made me appreciate my Lord more.