DUST ON THE BIBLE

Christ's Healing Power
By Marie Clowdis-Coon

     It was an unusually balmy, spring-like day for the last week of March 1968. Our family had recently moved into our "new" 100-year-old home in Oakville. Winter had held us captive in the house long enough. Tanya, age seventeen months, Jay, age three and a half, and I had spent all day in the yard. They had played while I raked and removed the debris that had collected during the fall and winter months.
     The arrival of the school bus and our other two children, eight-year-old Cindy and six-and-a-half-year-old Robin, alerted me to the fact that I'd become so absorbed in the yard work that I'd neglected to start dinner on time. Oh well, hot dogs were quick and one of the kids' favorite meals.
     While waiting for the hot dogs to come to a boil, I went into the living room to talk to my husband, Gorden. He had just come home from work at the Farmer's Elevator. In a matter of minutes, our quiet conversation about the day's events was broken by screams from our four children in the kitchen.
     Tanya, hungry from playing outside in the fresh air, had grown impatient and decided to help herself to the hot dogs, which by then had come to a rapid boil. The pan of scalding water had emptied itself on her face, neck and chest.
     Cindy was already pulling off the white sweater Tanya wore when Gorden came through the doorway. He yanked off her corduroy shirt so quickly that buttons flew across the room. Next came the little white tee shirt, also wet and steaming.
     Hearing the commotion, a neighbor from across the street came through our front door as we were wrapping Tanya in a clean sheet. I sat rocking our crying baby back and forth on my lap, trying to soothe away the pain. While assuring me that everything would be all right, the friend removed the curlers that I'd placed in my hair early that morning. Her husband, a county policeman, arrived home as we were going out the door; he whisked us into his car. Within minutes, we were at the hospital.
     The emergency room doctor and nurses seemed cool and brusque. Perhaps the sight of Gorden in his dusty work clothes and me in my soiled jeans, flannel shirt and rumpled hair gave them the wrong impression. The expression of "negligent parents" written on their faces and in their tone of voice made my already unbearable guilt even heavier.
     When I heard the doctor instruct the nurses to admit our crying baby, my heart sank. I had prayed they would treat her and then we'd all be on our way home. The doctor's caustic parting words rang in my ears: ". . . if she lives." There had been no doubt in my mind that it was a serious injury, but the idea that it might be life-threatening never occurred to me until that moment.
     They moved Tanya into a room, and then the charge nurse informed me that I would not be permitted to stay with her. The thought that I was expected to simply walk away from my baby's side, believing she might die during the night, was almost more than I could handle.
     While Gorden returned home to comfort the other children, I stood in Tanya's room, crying and praying that God wouldn't let our precious baby die. As I did so, some men appeared at the doorway.
     Since we had not yet been attending the Oakville Brethren Church regularly, it's not surprising that I barely recognized the men in the doorway as being from the church. They were trying to convince the nurse to let them enter Tanya's room. This nurse, who resembled a Marine Corps drill sergeant, asked if one of these men was my minister. Eagerly, I answered, "Yes!"
     Begrudgingly, she admitted them, adding curtly that they had "only a few minutes!"
     I saw three men enter the dimly lit room and stand across from me beside Tanya's bed. I can't remember what was said, only that they - and I silently with them - prayed that God would heal this child. Then, all too quickly, they were gone.
     My pleas to stay with Tanya were to no avail. A uniformed security guard escorted me to the lobby. The twenty-minute drive through the dark countryside seemed to take an eternity as I traveled home, continuing to plead with God to watch over Tanya and to forgive me for allowing such a terrible thing to happen to her.
     At eight o'clock the next morning, I could hardly believe my eyes as I entered Tanya's room. The third-degree burns on her face were gone! Not one trace of the blazing red skin, so prominent just hours earlier, remained. Only clear, soft, white skin. Her neck and shoulder were the only areas that bore the scars of that boiling water. She was not only alive, but healed.
     It wasn't until after Tanya's release from the hospital that we learned the identity of the men who had prayed over Tanya that first night. It was Deacon Richard Smith and Deacon Jerry Covington.
     "But who was the third man?" I asked.
     "What third man?" they replied.
     "There were three men. I saw them," I said.
     Dick smiled. "Yes, I believe you did."
     Do you suppose? Was it really Him?

Don't be afraid, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you I will help you. I will uphold you with my victorious right hand. Isaiah 41:10

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