| Miracles
Do Happen—A Reporter’s Account by Jamie Buckingham It was ten o’clock Sunday morning in the city of Los Angeles—the day of the miracle service. I was standing on the sidewalk outside the seven thousand seat Shrine Auditorium where Kathryn Kuhlman holds her monthly services. I could hardly believe my eyes. Although the service was not scheduled to begin until 2 P.M., the sidewalks and porches already were jammed with waiting people. Young men with fuzzy hair and uncombed beards rubbed shoulders with dignified matrons who arrived in chauffeur-driven limousines. There were suburban housewives, businessmen, Hollywood personalities, young couples with children, doctors, nurses, and the ever-present sick. Many had flown in from Seattle, Portland, Las Vegas, Houston, Denver. Some, I learned, came every month from Hawaii and British Columbia. Chartered buses from hundreds of miles around were arriving by the minute and after alighting the passengers stood in groups with signs to identify their location — Santa Barbara, San Diego, Sacramento. More than fifty buses arrived before the service started. I wandered from one end of the block to the other shaking my head in disbelief. I was in Los Angeles to observe one of the miracle services which have become a regular part of the Kathryn Kuhlman ministry. In a time when most churches compete with golf courses and lakes for their members’ presence on Sunday morning, and when many others have turned off their lights on Sunday night, Kathryn Kuhlman’s meetings are always so crowded that there is standing room only. I had discovered the secret just a month “before, when I stood on the steps of the old Carnegie Hall in Pittsburgh to attend the Friday morning miracle service at Miss Kuhlman’s home base. There, I had talked to many persons who let nothing keep them from attending the miracle services. They come, the physically healthy, to share in the joy of God’s love and mercy. And, of course, those in physical desperation come in droves to wait and pray for their personal miracles. The crowd in Pittsburgh was much like the crowd in Los Angeles. I saw chartered buses from Ohio and Kentucky, cars from Ontario; pickup trucks from West Virginia were parked beside Cadillacs from Delaware. I talked with a group of theology students from Harvard’s Divinity School in Boston. They had come to observe and scoff, but went away believing. The sick were there in great numbers. One woman, huddled beside the building on a folding chair, told me she had been there since dawn. She had ridden the bus from Indianapolis all night, coming to be healed of stomach cancer. I made my way through the crowd of wheel hairs on the side porch and slipped through the back door of the auditorium. Behind the stage in a small passageway, Kathryn Kuhlman was pacing back and forth, her face uplifted in prayer and her lips moving without audible sound. She was completely oblivious to the others around her as she talked with God. When at last she saw me, we exchanged quick greetings. Shaking my head, I began to remark about the sights I had seen on the front steps. “I saw a child...” She interrupted me with a compassionate, “Please ... I have a service to do.” Her soft blue eyes searched my face for a moment. “No one knows better than I how powerless I am,” she said, her voice now filled with emotion, “how dependent I am on the mercy of the Lord to help these precious people.” But the ability of God is beyond our comprehension, beyond our “strongest faith, beyond our largest prayers. “Come with me,” she said suddenly. Grabbing my hand she led me briskly toward the little door that opened onto the stage. “There! See those three steps. See that black doorknob.” I die a thousand deaths every time I go up those steps, turn that knob, and walk out onto that platform. There are thousands of people out there who have come in their desperation to be healed — to find God. But I cannot give them anything. Only the Holy Spirit can give it. I stand on these steps and you will never know how I feel when I open that door. I know people have come from great distances. “I know this is their last hope. I have no power to heal. All that I can do is to remind them of the bigness of God, the greatness of God, that He is still God Almighty. I am only the vessel that is surrendered. God does the rest.” “Last week ... no, it was two weeks ago, a man came back here before the service. We try “to keep the people out of the wings before the service because they would overwhelm me. But he got back here and asked me to pray for his ear. He had cancer of the ear. I have never heard a man sob ... cry ... like that man. That is all he did. He did not pray. He just sobbed. We prayed a simple prayer and he left.” Her face was beaming as she continued excitedly: “Last week he was back and his ear was as pink and nice as can be. That is the power of God,” she said as she broke into a prayer of thanksgiving. She turned and walked back down that long corridor, holding her hands up and praying for the anointing of God before the service began. I squeezed through a door which carried me from the stage into the huge Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. It was already humming with activity. Some three hundred choir members were in their places rehearsing their numbers with energy and harmony. Music plays a big part in the Kathryn Kuhlman services. Arthur Metcalfe, a distinguished musician with a doctor of philosophy degree from St. Olafs, is the choir director. For many years he directed the Pittsburgh Civic Chorus and the Canterbury Choir before joining the Kuhlman organization. Wisely, he believes that music should reach the heart as well as the mind and offers a masterful blend of gospel music along with Mendelssohn and Bach. Miss Kuhlman’s long-time organist, Charles Beebee, was at the console. I knew that he would undergird the entire service with appropriate music. At one of the grand pianos sat Tom Murray, an intense young musician. I learned that he had quietly volunteered to sing in the choir several months earlier. That was before Dr. Metcalfe discovered that he was one of the most brilliant concert organists in California and the winner of several national awards. When approached about playing one of the pianos, he humbly consented, but refused to be recognized publicly. Even before the doors were opened to the public, the atmosphere in the great auditorium was charged with excitement. The wheelchair sections in the side box seats were nearly filled. (Those in wheelchairs and on stretchers were allowed to come in early through a side door.) Everyone, from stage hands to choir members, seemed to recognize that before the afternoon was over this great auditorium would once again become the scene of miracles. I took a seat on the platform along with several distinguished looking men. Suddenly the doors opened. The people poured in like water through the sluice gates of a great dam. They were actually running down the aisles to get close to the front. The ushers vainly tried to slow them down, but it was useless as the tide of humanity swept in, filling up the ground floor, swirling into the first balcony, mounting to the second and then the third.“Within ten minutes every seat in the vast auditorium was taken. It was hard to believe. Dr. Metcalfe came back onto the stage. The choir exploded into song. “Exploded” is the only word for it as they rang out the sounds of “Pentecostal Fire.” They did not just sing, they overflowed; they erupted in joyous acclamation of sound and harmony. The music pealed until the walls fairly vibrated and my scalp tingled. After several anthems and choruses the choir began a song that has become a trademark among all those who know of Miss Kuhlman’s ministry: “He touched me....” A stocky, middle-aged man with an intense face leaned forward in his wheelchair near the stage and whispered to his wife beside him, “That is her song ... Miss Kuhlman’s. Here she comes!” Suddenly, a slim figure in a green silk dress appeared on the platform. Her long auburn hair glistened under the bright, colored lights. Her smile was captivating, entrancing. Electricity seemed to crackle from her. The congrega“tion burst into thunderous applause, a spontaneous demonstration of their love for her. The ovation ceased abruptly as she led the crowd of standing people in her theme song:
He touched me—Oh, He touched me.
And oh, the joy that floods my soul Something happened and now I know He touched me—and made me whole. We sang it once, twice, and over and over. Those who were unfamiliar with the words or music were soon swept up in the singing. Forgetting that I was there as an objective reporter, I found myself singing with them. A powerful ground swell of praise was rising. Then Miss Kuhlman stopped singing and just stood there before that great throng, her arms outstretched, her face upturned, her eyes shut, her lips moving in prayer as we sang on. Her face seemed to give off rays of light. She appeared lost in her communion with God. She moved forward and in her rich contralto voice started singing a new refrain, “Then sings my soul....” The musicians were attuned to her every nuance and impulse and led us into singing How Great Thou Art. All over the auditorium people were raising their hands as they sang. There was freedom. Freedom to pour out one’s heart to the Creator. Freedom to thank the Saviour. Freedom to receive the Holy Spirit. I was aware that the handsome young Mexican on my left with the rich baritone voice was no longer singing in English. He had shifted into Spanish — worshiping God in his native tongue—and his eyes were sparkling as his voice blended with the thousands of others. Then Miss Kuhlman spoke. She called for a moment of silent prayer. The organ underscored her words with soft music as the chimes were sounded. “There is power in the name of Jesus,” she said softly into the microphone. As she spoke, a deep, holy hush settled over the immense congregation, broken here and there“by soft, muted exclamations of “Dear Jesus,” and “Praise God.” She continued: “We know, Father, that miracles are going to happen in this place today. We feel the blessed presence of the Holy Spirit. We promise to give You all the praise, all the glory, for what is about to happen here. Pour out Your Spirit upon us, for Jesus’ sake....” After the prayer, she became folksy. Extending a friendly greeting to the congregation, she asked, “Where are you from? Shout it out.” A quick poll revealed that nearly every state in the Union was represented as well as Japan, Finland, Holland, Brazil, Jamaica, New Zealand, India, Arabia, Panama, Greece, Germany, France.... “France?” she laughed. “I wish you would go back and bring Mr. DeGaulle with you.” Everybody laughed. “You know,” she continued, “if the United Nations would meet in the name of Jesus like we are doing, there would be no more wars.” The crowd applauded. “That is another thing I discovered about the miracle service. It pulsates with laughter. Kathryn Kuhlman does not believe in a gloomy religion. At times her sense of humor reveals a quiet, wiy wit that brings a ripple of smiles to the surface of the lake of people in front of her. At other times she is comical and jocular, almost uproariously funny. But it is all spontaneous. She never tells jokes. “Say,” she said, “the most wonderful thing has happened.” She paused for effect. “I have just discovered that three young men from the carrier Enterprise have flown up from San Diego just to be in this service. Where are you fellows? Wherever you are, come up here to the platform. We want to honor you.” From three separate points in the massive congregation, three handsome young naval airmen converged on the platform. They were obviously embarrassed by this unexpected recognition and stood with shy smiles while Miss Kuhlman motioned them to come closer to the microphone. “These men are responsible for you being here. If it were not for them, and thousands like them who are willing to risk their lives to defend this great nation of ours, none of us could gather in freedom today. And I want to go on record saying I am proud of our men in the armed forces....” She was interrupted and finally drowned out by the roar of applause from the audience. She walked toward the three men and placed her hands on their heads to pray for them. Immediately, two of her ushers broke from the wings and rushed to where they were standing. They know from past experience that when Miss Kuhlman prays for people in circumstances such as this, the power of God falls in such a mysterious way that those being prayed for simply crumple to the floor. Sure enough, as she began to pray for them, the young men crumpled backward. Caught by the diligent ushers, they were laid gently on the floor. A great gasp went up from the congregation and Kathryn Kuhlman turned and walked back toward the center of the stage, shaking her head and holding her hands in the air. She seemed utterly amazed at the power of God. I was watching the expression on the face of a young ophthalmologist from UCLA, a guest on the platform as an observer. He had told me earlier that he was thrilled by the genuine healings he had witnessed in another meeting, but was still confused by this falling under the power. He glanced at me across the platform and our eyes met. He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders in dismay. (In less than twenty minutes, that same young doctor would be stretched full length on the floor having gone under the power when Miss Kuhlman prayed for him.) Again, Miss Kuhlman addressed the audience. “Let me tell you what happened several weeks ago in Pittsburgh. I wish you could meet my new friend, Gordon Wilson.” He was in the miracle service that day and had driven all the way from a tiny little town eighty miles west of Ottawa in Canada. And not only that, he had brought four women with him, all of them crippled and one of them in a wheel chair. Not only was this man healed of bleeding ulcers, but everyone in that car received a healing blessing—and one of the ladies was the wife of one of the two doctors in that little Canadian village.” There was a stirring in the congregation and I could hear people saying, “Praise God” and “Hallelujah.” “But wait,” Miss Kuhlman continued, her voice more intense but still quiet. “That is not the most amazing thing. The amazing thing is that Mr. Wilson went back to Ontario, chartered a bus and brought the whole bus load of people the next week. And since then it seems like half the population of that precious little town has been to Pittsburgh for a miracle service.” The crowd joined in laughter and applause. “But Pittsburgh is not the only place where people are healed,” she continued and the crowd murmured its approval. “Today, I want you to meet someone very special to me ... just to show you that those who get healed stay healed.” A sweet-faced woman in a dark blue dress walked onto the platform holding aloft a pair of crutches. Her face beamed. “You tell them what happened, honey.” Miss Kuhlman said. “When I came to the service last month, I could not walk without crutches,” she said, her voice clear but trembling with emotion. “I had surgery twelve times on one foot and fifteen times on the other. They had removed the metatarsal heads, the balls of the feet, and the other bones, too. The soles were then rebuilt with flesh taken from my stomach.” “You mean you were walking on your stomach?” Miss Kuhlman asked, laughing. “Well, yes, but not without the crutches. I could hardly bear to touch the floor, the pain was so bad. Now I can do this.” The woman stomped her foot on the floor — hard. The congregation applauded. Miss Kuhlman turned to a distinguished looking man standing on the platform behind her. “Dr. Biery,” she said, “you examined this lady last month during the service. As a medical doctor, what do you say about this?” Dr. Martin L. Biery, a specialist in General Surgery for thirty years, with degrees in medicine from the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, walked to the microphone. “When I examined this lady I found that, just as she said, virtually all the bones in her feet were missing. This made normal walking impossible and there should be great pain and tenderness. But when I examined her after her healing, there was no pain or tenderness at all. If it were simply a remission and not a healing, the pain should have returned by today.” “Show us that you can walk,” Miss Kuhlman instructed. The woman walked back across the platform, deliberately stomping her feet at intervals. “What do you say to that, Dr. Biery?” said Miss Kuhlman. “That,” he replied, “has to come from God.” “Yes, that has to come from God,” Miss Kuhlman said softly. Then she lifted her eyes and prayed, “Dear Jesus, all we can say is thank You — thanks a million.” At this point, the lady who had been healed was weeping. Dr. Biery was weeping. Miss Kuhlman was weeping. And I, too, was wiping my eyes with my handkerchief. The next moment we were laughing as Miss Kuhlman described an incident that took place a short time before in Pittsburgh. “Unknown to me, we had a Catholic priest from New York in our miracle service. Something happened to him during that service — something wonderful. This is how he expressed it in a letter to me:” “Dear Miss Kuhlman, “All praise to the Eternal Father. All praise to Jesus Christ. All praise to the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit has come to me. I wept as I have never wept, and laughed as I have never laughed, and praised as I have never praised, and cried out as I have never cried out—all this in my car this morning on the way home....” “A short time later,” she continued, “he wrote again, inviting me to hold services in his town. He said, ’I am sorry that it is not possible for me to invite you to preach in my church. But if you will come, I will rent the auditorium for you. I will back you to the hilt that others might experience what I have experienced'” Miss Kuhlman added with a touch of jest, “This reminds me of the little Catholic girl who came to the miracle service with her mother and said, ’Oh, Mommy, wouldn’t Miss Kuhlman make a wonderful Father!’” “Then she grew very serious. Her voice was low and husky; she was almost whispering. “There is a beautiful presence of the Holy Spirit here today.” It must have been something like this in the early church when the Holy Spirit began to descend upon those early Christians as they gathered to worship. “The light of God’s love is in this place. But it is dark outside, and it is getting darker.” There is so much hate out there, so much greed out there, so much misunderstanding out there. And the only hope is the love of God. “That is why you are here today — to see the love and the power of God at work in this place. You would not walk across the street to see Kathryn Kuhlman, I know that. I cannot preach. I cannot sing. I can only love you.” Tears were running down her cheeks and most of us were wet-eyed, too. Yet there was no hysteria. Our hearts were being genuinely touched and moved, but the emotion was too “deep for noise. She was whispering now. “I love God with every atom of my being. And I know that in this place today the Holy Spirit is moving gently ... gently....” Every eye was fixed on that lone figure in the center of the stage. Every ear strained to catch the incandescent words. Even the coughing and movement in the seats had stopped. “Over here,” she said suddenly, pointing to a spot under the balcony. “Somewhere over here someone has just received a healing for asthma. I do not know who you are, but you came to this service wheezing with asthma and it has just disappeared. The Spirit bears witness to my spirit that you have just been healed.” The congregation now came alive with an expectant rustling. “Somebody’s ear has just opened. It happened not more than a minute ago.” (Miss Kuhlman cannot explain how she knows the persons and the illnesses of which they are healed. But she does. And the ushers and “workers know that when she reports a healing, there has been a healing.) “I know these things,” she says, “but I do not pretend to understand why or how I know.” There was a great deal of movement in the congregation as people began to rise to their feet to claim healings. “Diabetes is being healed. To my right, in the first balcony, somebody is being healed of diabetes.” Don’t be frightened, that heat in your body right now is supernatural. “And a growth—a tumor—has disappeared from the back of someone’s neck.” A person up there in the second balcony. Feel the back of your neck and you will find that the growth is gone. “An extreme case of sinus is instantly healed. You had some kind of operation on your nose in the last two months, but it did not help. Now that sinus is completely healed.” “There is a heart being healed. A man with a heart that was more than half dead has just “been healed.” “A blind eye is clearing and vision is being restored right now as I speak.” Up there, in the balcony to my left “And there is a man, an elderly man, down here some place,” she gestured to her left, “who is being healed of a painful prostate gland.” That operation will not be necessary, God has taken care of it right now. “Oh, there is so much power here today,” she exclaimed, “it is everywhere. The power of God is everywhere. It is so strong I can hardly keep on my feet.” A large group of people had gathered on both sides of the stage to testify of their healings. An usher announced that the first woman in line was the one with asthma whom Miss Kuhlman had mentioned. Others testified they had been sitting just where Miss Kuhlman indicated and had been healed of the exact disease she described. “What is this? What is this?” she exclaimed “as one of her staff members escorted a young woman in stocking feet to the front of the line. The woman was weeping profusely. The staff member, a tall, dignified woman, stepped to the microphone. “Miss Kuhlman, this woman has been in a wheelchair for two years. She came to the service in a wheelchair, but look at her now.” “In a wheelchair!” Miss Kuhlman exclaimed, having difficulty accepting the enormity of the miracle herself. “This is the first time I have seen her. She was healed and no one knew it but the Holy Spirit. Tell me, honey, where do you go to church?” “I am a Southern Baptist,” the woman choked out between sobs. “A Baptist, and a Southern one at that. If God can heal a Baptist, He can heal anybody.” A wave of soft laughter ran through the congregation. This was another thing I was discovering about those who were healed. There seemed to be no set pattern. And surprisingly enough, most of those healed came from main line church denominations rather than from the Pentecostal branches. And Catholics, Jews, even agnostics, receive the blessings of God along with the fundamental Christians. Miss Kuhlman unhesitatingly points out the prophecy, “...In the last days, saith God, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh...” (Acts 2:17). Miss Kuhlman, still quizzing the young woman who had walked away from her wheelchair, asked, “Is your husband here?” The woman nodded and pointed somewhere in the auditorium. “Well, call him up here,” Miss Kuhlman said, laughing. “Rob—ert!” she wailed into the microphone. A man hurried down the aisle. He took the stage steps three at a time and enveloped his wife in his arms, lifting her completely off the floor as he buried his head in her shoulder. Both were weeping openly, and Miss Kuhlman stepped back as the joyful drama unfolded before our eyes. Dr. Robert Hoyt, a professor of pathology, was seated beside me on the stage. He turned and whispered, “Now do you see why I support this ministry? I would not miss one of these services for anything in the world.” Too emotionally choked to answer, I nodded in agreement. “Bring her wheelchair,” Miss Kuhlman said. With a flash of humor, she made the husband sit in the wheelchair and had the young woman push him off the stage. The congregation roared their approval. A young woman from Arabia was brought to the microphone by an usher. “Miss Kuhlman, this young woman came to America to receive surgery on her eye. She came to the service on the invitation of a friend before entering the hospital tomorrow. Now her vision is perfect.” “Is this correct?” Miss Kuhlman asked the pretty, dark-skinned young lady. “That is right,” the girl replied with a heavy “accent, laboring over her choice of words. “I had blood clot on the optic nerve, but now I see perfectly. I do not understand. What has happened?” Miss Kuhlman asked another physician on the platform, a woman, Dr. Viola Frymann, from La Jolla, California, to examine the woman. Dr. Frymann made a quick examination of the woman’s eye and then stepped back, holding up fingers and asking her to count them. “This woman’s vision is now apparently normal,” Dr. Frymann reported to the congregation. “Under normal circumstances, a blood clot on the optic nerve would not clear.” A middle-aged man from Washington State testified that a back infection had eaten out one of the vertebrae in his spine and he had a disc removed three months before. He said he was in severe pain when the service started but was instantly healed at the very moment Miss Kuhlman said a man with a spinal condition “was being healed. He demonstrated he was now able to bend and stretch in all directions with ease. Dr. Biery commented: “What this man has just experienced is medically impossible. When a disc has been recently removed, any motion causes extreme pain. This must be God.” An elderly man stepped in front of the microphone, obviously trying to contain his emotion. “My throat,” he said, “I have not been able to swallow without extreme pain for thirty years. Now I am healed.” “When did this happen?” Miss Kuhlman asked. “Over an hour ago,” the man confessed. “But I was afraid to say anything for fear the pain would return. But it is all gone and I can talk and swallow without any pain at all.” “What do you do for a living?” Miss Kuhlman asked. “I am retired now,” he said, still trembling with emotion, “but I was a practicing physician for more than forty years.” A young housewife was next in line. She was weeping. “What is it?” asked Miss Kuhlman. “I need to give up smoking,” she sobbed. “Smoking?” Miss Kuhlman said in amazement. “I have said nothing about smoking. I never preach on smoking. Yet you want to give it up. Why?’” “Because I want to be clean.” the woman said. “But I cannot stop.” She fumbled in her small purse and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and laid them on the speaker’s stand. “Do not put those things up there,” Miss Kuhlman said. “Throw them on the floor where they belong. God is going to remove all desire from you right now.” She put both hands on the woman’s head and began to pray. “Dear Jesus, so fill this precious one with Your love and power that she will never need another cigarette....” The woman’s knees buckled and she collapsed to the floor. And so it went on. “This man is a Methodist minister,” Miss Kuhlman announced, indicating a well-dressed man of middle age standing on the platform beside her. “He had the courage to come up here and say, ‘Miss Kuhlman, I do not have the power of the Holy Spirit in my life and ministry. Please pray that I will.’” She began to pray and instantly he collapsed to the floor. “That is the power of God,” Miss Kuhlman said. “I have nothing to do with this whatsoever; this is the power of the Holy Spirit. If there are other ministers here today who want more of the Spirit in their ministries, come forward now.” Immediately, men began moving out of their seats and heading for the platform. Some were in business suits, others wore clerical garb. Many had been sitting in the congregation incognito, afraid to identify themselves as ministers, but now were willing to do so to receive the power of God. Soon the platform was filled with clergymen. There were Episcopalian rectors, Presbyterian pastors, ministers who unashamedly acknowledged their need for a deeper spiritual experience and their hunger for a greater manifestation of God’s power in their own ministry — completely oblivious to the fact that members of their own congregation were out there in the audience. It was a sight and experience never to be forgotten. Miss Kuhlman prayed for each of them. A young woman was next in line and spoke quietly to Miss Kuhlman. “This young lady is a college professor from Texas and she says she wants to be saved ... to be born again,” Miss Kuhlman said to the crowd. “Healing is marvelous, but the greatest miracle is the transformation of a soul from darkness to light. I do not care if I never see another body healed, as long as I know that there are souls being saved. Healing of the body is nothing compared to the healing of the soul.” Miss Kuhlman moved toward the young woman and touched her gently with her hand. “Dear Jesus, forgive her sin and baptize her with the Holy Ghost.” There was an audible gasp from the congregation as the woman’s legs slowly buckled and she fell backward. An usher caught her and gently lowered her to the floor where she lay with arms stretched heavenward and her lips softly uttering a strange, melodic language. “I believe in speaking in tongues when it is like this, don’t you?” Miss Kuhlman asked. The congregation murmured its approval, still awestruck by what was transpiring on the stage. It was almost five o’clock at the Shrine. The service has been in process for more than three hours and I could see that many people were standing in the vestibule and on the front steps, craning their necks to see inside the packed auditorium. The month before, I had learned, more than three thousand had been turned away for lack of seats. I sensed that Miss Kuhlman was deliberately pointing the service towards a climax. We were approaching that part which she considers the most important aspect of her ministry. “I believe that the blood of Jesus Christ is sufficient atonement for sin,” she declared in ringing tones. “The healing of the body, as marvelous as it is, is secondary to the healing of the soul. If you have never been born again, if you have never tasted the joy of salvation, if you have never made a total commitment of your life to God’s Son, Jesus Christ, I want you to do it right now. Jesus said, ‘Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.’” And they came. The organ broke into a refrain as the aisles filled with people. By the score, they streamed down the aisles from every part of the huge auditorium. The elderly, the middle aged, teenagers—all were coming. Some were in tears. Others had shining faces, as though they had already experienced salvation even as they walked down the aisles. Some walked quickly, their jaws set as though afraid that if they hesitated they might change their minds. Others plodded, seemingly weighed down by heavy burdens. They filled the platform and clogged the steps and aisles approaching the stage. They crowded in, trying to get dose enough to Miss Kuhlman that she could put her hands on them and pray. Faces were eager and straining, surging forward, trying to get close enough to be touched in prayer. “We could not possibly pronounce a benediction on a service such as this,” Miss Kuhlman said to those who remained in their seats (and it seemed that at least half of the congregation had come forward and was standing around the stage). “All I can say is as you go, rejoice at the marvelous things God has done in this place today.” The mighty organ boomed, the choir broke into a spirited rendition of He’s the Saviour of My Soul, and Miss Kuhlman turned to walk off stage. She moved among the wheelchairs of those who had not been healed, praying for first one and then another. She laid her hands on the inert bodies that lay upon the stretchers and she prayed for tiny children being held out by the straining arms of anxious parents. The crowd in the great auditorium turned to leave, but theirs was a reluctant departure. Some remained standing in their places, their faces lifted to God, enthralled in prayer. Others, perfect strangers, were exchanging greetings. An old man who had been healed of a spinal deformity was standing in the aisle looking around in awe and wonder. “Isn’t it wonderful!” he said to me as I passed up the aisle. “What do you mean?” I inquired. “The love! You can just feel it in this place, can’t you?” He kept looking around in wonder. And he was right. As someone remarked, “Kathryn Kuhlman is not a faith healer. She is a love healer.” As I wandered out from the great auditorium, still supercharged with the power of God, I kept asking myself, Where have I been all my life? I thought of the years I had spent in churches where people scorned the idea that God is dead—yet acted as if they were at His funeral every Sunday. Dozens of names flashed through my mind—sick friends, ministers, fellow Christians, skeptics, loved ones. How I wished they could have shared this experience with me. My life will never be the same. God Answers Prayers: Chapter 2 |