By Jamie Buckingham
(From the book DAUGHTER OF DESTINY, pp 105 – )
However, before she was to move south to the big city, there were still hurdles to jump in Franklin, and miracles to experience. On several occasions Kathryn had preached on “healing.” And things happened. She always closed her services with altar calls, inviting people to be “born again.” Invariably the altar around the front of the building would be filled with kneeling persons, crowding onto the platform and down the aisles. The response was just as great when she had a ‘healing line.” Taking her cue from the popular ‘faith healers” who were moving about the country, she would ask all the sick to come forward, after which she would lay her hands on their heads and ask God to heal them. The results were not spectacular, but there were results. A few people were healed. And no one was more surprised, or perplexed, than Kathryn herself. She was determined to find out more about this physical manifestation of God.
“I knew in my own heart that there was healing,” she said. “I had seen the evidence from those who had been healed. It was real, and it was genuine, but what was the key?”
Was it faith? If it was, what was faith? Was it something that one could manufacture, or work up in oneself? Was it something that could be obtained through one’s own goodness or moral values? Was it something that could be procured in exchange for serving the Lord or through benevolence? And in whom did the faith reside? The person who was sick? The one who was conducting the healing meeting? In the crowd of people surrounding them? Or a combination of all three? Surely it was not left to the capriciousness of chance. If Jesus healed all those who were brought to Him as the bible said, and if he commanded His disciples to do even greater things than He did, then why weren’t there more healings?
When Kathryn saw an advertisement that a noted “healing evangelist” was scheduled to hold a tent meeting in Erie, she decided to go. Although Kathryn had strong reservations about the sensationalism that generally characterized such meetings, she knew she would never be satisfied until she attended a service. Perhaps, just perhaps, they had found the secret to releasing God’s healing power to the sick and dying.
It was a difficult experience for Kathryn. One of the most difficult of her life. She drove to Erie alone, determined to remain incognito. The giant tent was located to the south edge of the city. The signs, as she entered the parking lot read, “MIRACLE REVIVAL. SIGHT FOR THE BLIND! HEARING FOR THE DEAF! POWER TO GET WEALTH!”
Taking a seat on the back row, she waited. When the evangelist came on the platform, he came as though shot from a cannon. At one point he got up and walked on the back of the long bench behind the pulpit. At another time, he leap-frogged over the pulpit itself. The audience was worked into a frenzy, screaming, wailing, almost beyond control. Kathryn later described it as a “nightmare come to life.”
During the service, he auctioned off pieces of his old revival tent to the highest bidders, which he promised would bring health and prosperity to those who wore them on their bodies or slept with them under their pillows. As the meeting grew more intense the preacher began to scream, saying he felt a “spell coming on,” which he indicated was a “Holy Ghost unction” enabling him to lay hands on the sick and they would be healed. People in the congregation crowded into the aisles, swaying back and forth.
When the meeting was at the peak of frenzy, a healing line was formed. This line belied the seemingly spontaneous nature of the meeting, for each person who wanted to be in it had been assigned a number at the gate. Thus Kathryn noted with dismay, people had to wait, sometimes for days, to have their number come up. After all, the evangelist could only pray individually with so many people in one evening. The people lined up by the scores. One by one the evangelist went down the line, checking cards and slapping people on the head and commanding them to “BE HEALED.” Many of them keeled to the floor. Others screamed and shook. But Kathryn could not help but notice that the more seriously ill patients were steered out of the healing line to an “invalids’ tent,” away from the prying eyes of the public.
While some of the people did seem to be genuinely helped—perhaps even healed—the vast majority of those who had broken their crutches had to be helped out of the tent by sympathetic loved ones—still unable to walk. To those, the preacher proclaimed that their faith was not strong enough, yet; that they should come back the next night for more of the same.
In talking about that night, Kathryn said, “I began to weep. I could not stop. Those looks of despair and disappointment on the faces I had seen, when told that only their lack of faith was keeping them from God, were to haunt me for weeks. Was this the God of all mercy and great compassion? I left the tent, and with hot tears streaming down my face, I looked up and cried, “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him.”