Linda was a cripple. She had once been as happy and as active as others, but when I first met her she was lying in bed, and she knew that she would never walk again.
She told me that she had fallen down a flight of stairs three years before, and was so badly hurt that she would never be better. “But,” she said, “I am accustomed to it now, and I don’t mind it nearly so much. At first I could not bear to be in bed and see the bright sunshine, and hear the birds sing. Now, thank God, I am content.”
“Do you love the Lord then?” I asked.
“Yes, Miss, indeed I do.”
“I am so glad of that, for it must make a wonderful difference to you when you are alone. And are you happy then, and ready to go when He sees it right to take you?”
She looked at me for a moment and then replied, “Oh, no, Miss, I can’t say that.”
“Why is that? If you love Him, can you not trust Him? Has He not saved you? Can you not say that you are saved?”
She stopped for a moment, and then said, “Oh, Miss, it would be too great presumption for me to say that.”
Silently I asked the Lord to give me the right word, then asked her, “Do you think He is willing to save you?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Is He able?”
“Oh, yes!”
“Then why was He nailed to the cross, why did. He hang there for those dreadful hours, and why did God hide His face from Him? Because He was bearing our sins. He was bearing the judgment that we might never have to bear it, and now He is able and willing, and ready to save all that come to God by Him. Yes, ‘the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all,’ and His own word to us is, ‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.’”
“Now,” I added, “I should think that the presumption is, not in believing His word, but in doubting it. You believe Jesus died on the cross for us?”
“Yes.”
“That He bore all our sins there?” “Yes.”
“That He bore yours as well as mine?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, the Lord says you are saved, you have eternal life.”
She seemed much surprised, but could not quite grasp it. I found for her some scriptures in her own Bible to prove what I had told her, and then left her.
Several days passed before I could go again. She welcomed me warmly, and said, “Oh, Miss, I am so glad you have come. I did so want to see you. I have thought over all you told me, and read the verses again and again.”
“And are you afraid to say now that the Lord has saved you? Can you fully trust Him now?”
She looked at me with a bright face, her eyes beaming, and the color flushing her poor wasted cheeks, “Oh, yes, Miss, I see it now.”
I visited her often afterward, before I left the place, and had happy times with her talking about our precious Saviour.
Do you, dear reader, have the joy of knowing you are His own—saved, and possessing eternal life?
ML 11/28/1954