By the time I was cognizant of things, my paternal grandmother had been striken with Parkinson’s Disease and was far from the spiritual and intellectual giant she had been for most of her life. That, coupled with the fact that she and my grandfather lived in southern Florida – thousands of miles from anywhere we lived during my lifetime which made visiting sporadic and infrequent, robbed me of experiencing this remarkable woman.
But through my father and the writings I have been privileged to obtain recently, I have met my grandmother in a way never possible during her life and find that I now have yet another reason to run the race so I may one day met her face to face in eternity.
On these pages, I will share this remarkable woman with you. May you be as blessed by these words as I have been.
God’s Faithfulness
Many times, before I found Christ as my personal Saviour, there was a hunger in my soul for something DEFINITE in the way of a Christian experience. Now and then I heard people of other denominations testify to being “saved, ” and wondered just what it implied. A former college roommate began writing me glowing letters which told of her new-found experience in Jesus, but I answered her by saying that I felt she had fallen into fanaticism.
My husband was manager of a chain of commissaries, while I taught school before the birth of my two sons, David, and A. William Erickson, Jr. News travels quickly in a little mining town, and at about the time the boys were eight and ten years of age, I heard that the Charles Sigworth family had become converted, and had also taken this “fanatical way. ” Mrs. Sigworth had a testimony which my carnal heart resented. When she would visit one of my neighbors, witnessing to Christ’s redeeming grace, I immediately warned them not to take her seriously.
I became very ill, went into the hospital for major surgery, but due to a cold, was temporarily released. One of the first to call upon me was Mrs. Sigworth. She assured me she had been praying for me, but I felt so bitter toward her I could scarcely wait for her to leave.
My health failed to improve, and I became imbued with a morbid fear of that operation- – somehow realizing that if death should come, I was unprepared. David, the elder of my two children, developed rheumatic fever with a serious heart condition which kept him bedridden for months at a time. Then my younger son, Bill, became ill with the flu. My husband had gradually become a chronic alcoholic, and night after night we were left alone until almost morning.
Depression and utter hopelessness encompassed my soul with Satanic power. I awakened each dawn hating the song of the birds–sobbing my heart out at even the thought of another day.
One morning, in desperation, I seized my Bible, and ran down to the kitchen. There alone, I fell on my knees by a chair, and flung open God’s Word. “Why, Lord,” I cried, “have I prayed (occasionally) all my life, and have been faithful to the church, and yet I don’t know the meaning of salvation?”
A scripture seemed to leap suddenly from a page and pierce my very soul: “Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: BUT HE THAT DOETH THE WILL OF MY FATHER WHICH IS IN HEAVEN.” (Matthew 7:21) ….. The will of my Father!
I saw my life in retrospect. When had I ever really sought to know what the WILL of my Father was for my life? Had I ever consulted Him about a single thing I had ever undertaken? Had I ever before realized that He had a will as to my every choice–my friend, my pleasures, my dress, yes, even my very conversation? No, I most certainly never had. My prayers had mostly been in the form of an “escape.” I had tried to “use God” without realizing that He also had a right to “use me” according to His will!
A door swung open with the truth of God! The Presence of the Lord was suddenly, and for the first time in my life, REAL! I cried, this time, not tears of self-pity, but tears of repentance. I asked Jesus to forgive my having literally shut Him out of my heart and life. I asked Him to take me, and reveal His will to my soul…and He did…right away! He said, “Call Mrs. Sigworth.”
I am ashamed to confess that twice I said, “No, I dislike her,” but each time I heard, “he that DOETH THE WILL OF MY FATHER,” and finally went to the phone. She answered me very graciously and told me to come down. Only one house separated us, and I almost ran to her door. I opened it without knocking, and she opened her arms, and her heart!
In the days that were to follow Sister Sigworth became my mother in Israel. She acquainted me with Jesus by the Spirit that dwelt in her. She taught me that the Bible is the most practical and applicable instrument in all the world for the needs of both soul and body. She taught me how to pray. Her patience–her infinite, loving patience, I shall never forget. Often, without realizing it, I leaned more on her than on the Lord. She never criticized a single thing about my personal habits that were out of line with the Word of God. She simply lifted up Jesus, and in lifting Him up, lifted me up.
A year passed–a year in which God, for Jesus’ sake, completely healed my body. It was a year in which many apologies and restitutions were made. And then we made a move which was to take me thousands of miles away from my spiritual mother.
I had not aligned myself with a Holiness church, nor had I been sanctified, and I regret to say that, as time passed, I backslid completely. That period is so filled with sad memories that I shall pass over it quickly. I will say that as a backslider, I was the most miserable person on earth. I am sure that backsliders are hardly aware of their peril. They just drift along, sinning and becoming more and more callous, until the memory of the time they were enlightened becomes like a vague and questionable dream.
But thank God for the faithfulness of the Holy Spirit! He is not willing that anyone should perish–and praise His Name, that included me!
One day I found myself in over my depth. In great agony of soul, I cried, “Oh Lord, send someone to help me who knows the Way; someone who is stronger in character than I. “I opened the door of my bedroom, and down on the stairway landing stood a little sanctified woman who had tried repeatedly to have me attend services at the Church of the Nazarene. She had long carried a burden for my soul, and how I thank the Lord for her faithfulness to that burden. She came up, prayed with me, and invited me out to a revival meeting to be held that evening.
Needless to say, I was present at that meeting. I could scarcely wait for the pastor to finish his sermon to get to that altar. The tears I shed would have washed a city square. But it wasn’t the tears that saved me; it wasn’t even the prayer of my contrite heart, but simply the unmerited Blood of Christ applied to my needy soul! A washtub of glory was poured over me. I testified to having been reclaimed …. and then the battle was on!
For seven months I prayed in the DARK! There was no manifestation of the Presence of the Lord. Again and again Satan tempted me to doubt that I had been reclaimed, but one morning I awoke, and as was my custom, fell to my knees in prayer. I promised, “Lord, I will serve Thee, and be faithful to Your Word ’til death, but I will NEVER TURN BACK. I will follow You, though I never again feel or see the One I am following! “
Friends, God honored the sincerity of that prayer. He had tested my determination to go through with Him. He had not found me “wanting, ” and bless His Name forever, He came in such a marvelous, glorious way that I shouted like an Indian! In a few weeks my little next door neighbor was saved and helping me shout the victory. (Seventeen years have passed, and bless her heart, she is still shouting!)
The several years of struggle with the “old man” of my sin would make a story in itself. Like the great apostle I would have to constantly confess, “When I would do good, evil is present with me.” Romans 7:21.
I praise God for the “light” on sanctification. Sister Sigworth first introduced me to this vital truth of God. She explained in simple terms that the disciples never knew real personal victory in their hearts and lives, though they had known and followed Jesus, until their personal Pentecost. Then it was not Christ WITH them, but Christ IN them!
Believing in a truth of God is one thing; accepting it another. It is easier to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Saviour as compared to accepting Him as Master! Like every Christian, I resented the radicalness of holiness. Scriptures that comforted me, I read. Those that pierced me through with conviction, I carefully avoided.
Again I praise God for the faithfulness of the Holy Spirit. One day I died! I died to my right to my own choices forever. I died to the opinions of the world, and later died even to the opinions of holiness people. I presented myself, as God had commanded, “a living sacrifice .. unto God” which He said was “my reasonable service.” Romans 12:1. I not only put myself and all I possessed on the altar, but my husband and two boys, and asked God to work out His will in their individual lives. He abides! He accepted my “little all” and has deigned to dwell in my unworthy heart for over seventeen years!
What did sanctification do for me? This blessing gave me a peace and joy, and a victory I never dreamed possible over all sin. It removed even the “bent to sinning.” It gave me an access to the Throne in prayer, and a liberty in praying I never knew was possible. Praise the Lord for full and free salvation!
After my complete commitment, the Spirit of God began to deal with my two little sons, now twelve and fourteen. Their first act, without any prompting on my part, was to build an altar in our attic the day we moved into our present home. There, daily, we had devotions together. There we settled the controversies which sometimes arose. There, all alone–at different times, both boys felt God’s call to preach the gospel.
But in their last years in High School both boys fell from grace, and went back to the beggarly things of the world from which they had been delivered. I never knew which one of the three–they or their Dad–would make it home first, thoroughly inebriated!
For three years David was in the war zone in Korean waters. How I bombarded heaven for the overshadowing Presence and protection of God. He answered and brought him home safely. Then for eight more months I beseeched the Lord to reclaim him.
One day he suddenly announced that, though he was still backslidden, he was going to attend Trevecca Nazarene College in Nashville, Tennessee. My heart leaped with joy! Again God’s faithfulness was realized. And several days after his arrival at school, he wrote a convincing testimony of finding Jesus precious to his heart once more. In the ensuing months God sanctified him, and for seven years, as an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene, he has pastored and evangelized across the country for Jesus Christ! (The only heart condition he has now is “heart holiness”!)
Seven years ago, while enroute to Europe as a seagoing Marine, Bill was gloriously reclaimed, and was later sanctified at Trevecca Nazarene College. He, too, is an elder in the Church of the Nazarene and has labored in the field of evangelism for over five years winning many souls to Christ!
Last year, two weeks before Christmas, my husband was gloriously saved and is now a member of the Church of the Nazarene!
The first message sent over the original telegraph was “What hath God wrought? “, and I would reiterate this question in respect to my personal experience in the realm of the Spirit. Is there any limit to His power through prayer and faith?
I would be presumptuous and ungrateful to intimate that these miracles were all the result of my own prayers. If two sanctified women had not prayed for my soul, I would not be walking in the “paths of righteousness” today. If prayer warriors everywhere had not prayed, my sons and my husband would be living lives of sin instead of being filled with the Spirit of Christ and bearing fruit for the Kingdom of God.
I rejoice in my oneness with a living Christ and the power of His Blood that saves from sin, and keeps my feet from falling. I love Him supremely!
January, 1961
