The Healing
Campaign

The year was 1954, and I was approximately 10 years old.  My father worked in Covington, Kentucky, at the Triangle Paper Bag Factory.  He would go to work at the first of the week and come home on the weekends to see the family.

Once, during this working situation, my mother and I went to stay in the apartment my father had rented for himself while he was staying there to work.  I remember it well.  The apartment had odd sorts of door, which hid behind the wall when opened.  I remember the light switches were buttons; one was white, the other black.  The white one on the top turned the light on; the black one on the bottom turned the light off.  I used them a few times until I adjusted to their novelty.  It was winter time, I remember, but the apartment was warm. 

My mother, always the friendly one, made conversation with the apartment neighbors from day to day.  One of the ladies who lived in a close apartment became nicely acquainted with my mother, and they talked a lot.

One day this lady informed my mother that a preacher was coming to the Cincinnati area and that he may be able to heal her son, that being myself.  I did not know of this conversation until I was informed that I was to go with these ladies to a special church service.  I had never been to a church service in a large city, so I was quite anxious to go.

I remember standing at the bus stop waiting for our scheduled bus to arrive.  The temperature must have been somewhere around the zero mark, and the wind must have been blowing about 20-30 miles per hour.  I simply remember the women standing around me to keep the wind from cutting me to pieces.  I welcomed the shelter, but I remember being very, very cold just the same with my feet settled firmly in the snow.

I do not remember the bus ride, but I remember entering the large church building and all the people who had assembled for this special service.  We were escorted to the front of the church building where several pews had been reserved for those who wanted to be healed.  We sat among them.

The first preacher began talking and introduced the special visiting speaker who was to heal the sick.  The visiting preacher was a large man, not obese, but tall and largely built. He preached a little; then he began to organize a line from the people who wanted to be healed.  I was in that line, and I was slowly approaching the platform where this giant of a man stood, and one by one he prayed that God would heal them.  I did not notice whether any seemed to be healed or not.  I was concentrating on my own turn with the man to see whether he would actually heal me.

When the time came for the man to deal with me, I stood with anxiety and a little fear at the size of the man and the almost intimidating look he gave me as I stood barely four feet tall, and he must have stood over six feet tall. 

The preacher reached out his hand, a hand which seemed to me to span my entire head with ease, and placed this large hand on my head.  He looked upward, as if to look to heaven, and said, "God, I command you to heal this boy!"

Now, I was only ten years old, and I was not the smartest farm boy in a country mile, but one thing I did know:  no one commands God to do anything.  At that moment I lost any faith that I ever had that this man could heal me or anyone else.  I do not remember other things he may have said to me, because this one expression so impacted me that I could not think of anything else. 

Finally, he said that my mother and I must go home and get more faith in order for me to be healed.  Certainly I had lost my faith, but not in God or his Son, but in the man who a few moments before had my complete attention and submission.

Let it be known that my mother and I both went home, and I was not healed; and we have not talked about it since.  We both knew the worth of a man's claiming and proclaiming to be able to heal the sick and at the same time does not have the Christian understanding that God is All-sovereign and cannot be bullied into healing people.  He will not surrender his glory to another at any time.