p. 13 | My Personal Experience in Healing

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 26, 1914

My Personal Experience in Healing

By Mrs. J. M. Erickson

MRS. J. M. ERICKSON

I AM glad to witness to God's healing power. I should be most ungrateful if I failed to do this. At the workers' meeting in Chicago some weeks ago I asked for special prayer that I might be restored to health if it was God's will; and I felt that it was his will, as he had given me the conviction that if I confessed and forsook my sins and asked for prayers, he would hear and answer.

I had every reason to believe that I was afflicted with internal cancer, and that if it was not stayed by God's hand, it would run its fatal course in a short time.

I felt deeply that I had, in a large measure, brought this upon myself by various dietetic errors. I determined to receive deliverance from these wrong habits; for I felt that if I could not obtain the victory, it would be much better for me to lay down my life, but if I could obtain the victory, the Lord would take care of the rest.

I told the workers of my convictions and feelings, and asked them to pray that I might be delivered from Satan's power. We knelt in prayer, and as Elder O. A. Olsen prayed, the anxiety all left me, my mind became perfectly calm, I felt no oppression, but only quietness and peace; and the assurance came to me that this was the healing power of God; and as I grasped that truth, a thrill went through my whole body. I can only compare it to coming in contact with a current of electricity. It tingled out to the very tips of my fingers, and I could only thank and praise the Lord that I was healed. I believed that I was healed and delivered from Satan's power, and that my sins were forgiven.

I am glad to say that God has been gracious to me and has kept me ever since, though I believe I had never encountered such a storm of temptations. Satan assailed me on every point where he knew I had failed. First he tried to make me doubt that I was healed. "O, you just put your hand over the growth and see if you are healed!" he said. "Look and see if that goiter is gone, and feel and see if that hard mass is gone out of your side." "I don't need to," I said; "I know I am healed, because I believe the promise of God."

Then he tried to make me believe I was in pain. "Don't you feel that pain? and don't you see you are just the same?"—"No, I am not. I know I am healed." And finally I began to say, "Get thee behind me, Satan," and then the pain would leave me. I kept this up all the afternoon, and retired in the evening without as much as once putting my hand to my side, as I felt that I must believe God's promise rather than anything I saw or felt.

In the night I suddenly awoke, and my hand went almost involuntarily to my side, when I discovered that the change was so great as to be easily discernible. The skin was soft and pliable, and the tissues beneath were no longer hard and tense, but felt natural, and that hard mass was gone. I could both see and feel that God had healed me, my heart was full of thankfulness, the Lord seemed very real and near to me, and his sweet peace filled my heart.

To think that the great God of heaven and earth would consent to lay his healing hand on my sick and aching side and restore it, is very wonderful to me, so wonderful that I cannot find words to express it.

Two or three days later, as my daughter was fastening my collar, she said, "Why, mamma, this collar is so large you can't wear it." It was one that had been uncomfortably tight. Looking in the glass, I exclaimed, "Why, my goiter is gone!"

My little boy, who was standing near by, remarked, "Why, you didn't ask the Lord to take that away, did you, mamma? He has done more for you than you asked him to, hasn't he?"

Wonderful as this all is to me, the most wonderful part was yet to come. You know that the Lord has promised that when Satan should come in as a flood, he would raise up a standard against him, and this he did for me. When I awoke in the morning, my first thought was, "Shall I now be able to withstand all of Satan's temptations today?" I knew by sad experience how weak I was, and I feared, because I knew the enemy would try harder than ever to overcome me. "Well," I thought, "God healed me yesterday, and he had a purpose in doing it. He kept me yesterday, he will keep me today;" and if I ever prayed in my life, I prayed that morning, not for physical help, as I felt that was not enough, but just to be kept, simply to be kept from falling.

I laid my weaknesses and sins before the Lord and asked him to keep and uphold me that day. Then I went about my work, and as Satan still continued to tempt me to doubt that I was healed, I would begin to sing, "There is power, power, wonder-working power, in the blood of the Lamb," and Satan just couldn't stand that; he had to flee.

I felt as if I had just learned how to be a Christian after trying to be one so long, and indeed I have tried. I believe I can honestly say that, but I have found out that Satan is altogether too wise and too strong for me to fight against, and I have just turned that over to the Lord. I never could imagine that Satan was so wily.

Friday I had a hard day's work to do, and I was a little fearful at one time as to how things might go. It was a sultry day, and the children were fretful; the bread would not rise, and every conceivable hindrance seemed to come up; but every time I cried to the Lord to be kept, I felt his strength upholding me, and I praise the Lord that he kept me; and he has kept me ever since. When Sabbath came, I was thoroughly tired, but happy, O, so happy in Jesus!