“GOD HAD, during this time of seeking, led me past the point of seeking healing only. I saw I needed the Healer, Christ Himself, His Life, His Fullness, in greater measure. But for many weeks after this one miracle of healing, I apparently stood quite still. At this time God led me to the company of others who believed in God as Healer of the body, that I might have a little teaching.”
This was “the company” of people in Chicago, already referred to. Up to now she had not considered going there though she had been in regular correspondence with them. “In the first place, humanly speaking, it was impossible for me to go. I thought if I could not get my healing at home, I could not have it at all. I knew, of course, if my faith were strong enough and my life right, I need have no one pray for me. I had not the means to go to Zion Home, and there were several obstacles which seemed insurmountable. Also, I really wished my healing at home, as I thought that would do away with all theories of hypnotism, etc.
“God knew so much better than we did, and a chance remark of Mrs. Penley’s, ‘If God wants you to go to Zion Home, He can take you there, no matter if it is impossible,’ set us on a new line of thought. We saw that we were again taking matters into our hands; that we ought merely to ask God to do it in His way, not ours; that if He wished to have me go to Zion Home, His way was surely best. I saw I ought to have no choice in the matter, provided God’s will were done. We took it to God, asking Him to do His will.
“Within three days of our first prayer in this way, every one of the ‘insurmountable obstacles’ were removed without the slightest effort on our part. The way opened distinctly for me to go to Zion Home, and the guiding hand of God was manifest.
Nettie’s husband, Leslie W. Graham, in whose home Martha Wing lived, was the railroad station agent in Davenport. A kind and thoughtful man, he had welcomed Mattie into his home, and throughout her illness had cared for her as though she were his own sister. Now he made the necessary travel arrangements and took her to Chicago himself, on Saturday, April 15, 1899.
“I looked for an immediate healing. I was conscious of a clear, physical strengthening the first time I was prayed with.” Writing to Nettie later in that same week she said, “A power went over me. It was a sensation a little like I had the day that my side was instantly healed of the soreness and again when you and I were praying together, only this time it seemed to go nearly through my whole body, and was stronger. Well, now I think that was a beginning of a healing that I lost because I didn’t accept it as such. I had some pain afterward, slightly, and I waited — and doubted.
That blessing came on Sunday. The next day, Monday, Miss Wing attended the regular divine healing service for the guests in the Home and was prayed for by one of the ministers. “I had no sign,” she wrote Nettie, “but all day Monday I felt well, after having been on a dead go all day Saturday and Sunday. But down in the parlor a lady asked me how I felt, and I said, ‘Very well,’ but added that I was apt to have days of feeling good, and it might be only a ‘wind-up’. I went upstairs in a few minutes, and before I had left the elevator I felt so tired I could hardly get to my room. I felt real bad all night — and I just got blue.
Tuesday Miss Wing attended another divine healing service, this one conducted by Dr. Dowie himself. Still she was not helped, and as a result suffered discouragement, followed quickly by condemnation.
Referring to the thing which God had shown her to confess during the previous winter and over which she had such a struggle then, she wrote her sister:
“Do you remember the fight I had last winter with myself? And the misery I went through trying to do right in some matters? Well, all that came back to me. I wasn’t sure I had done all I ought to do. I began to be afraid I was not ready for my healing.”
Wednesday she wrote Nettie, ”I thought when I came I was pretty well prepared for the blessing, but I begin to find I need lots of cleaning out yet. Don’t you worry a bit. God is going to heal me. I am sure of that. And I am glad not to get healing until I am all right spiritually.”
That same morning she attended another service for the sick in the healing room. Still she received no physical help. Now her discouragement and condemnation deepened. Fortunately, in the afternoon she met one of the ministers in the hail and spoke to him, saying she “had run up against a ‘stone wall.’”
“He was in a rush, but when he saw I was in such a state of mind, he took me into a room, and we had about five minutes’ talk, and he made everything clear to me. I told him plainly about everything and that I thought I had everything settled before I came to Zion Home, that I had given up everything that stood between me and God, that I thought I had confessed all that was necessary, had made all right that I could, and then told him that I had begun to feel again as if I were down just where I was three months ago.
“He asked me a few questions, and when I told him about that instant healing of my side three or four weeks ago, he said, ‘Well, now, how foolish you are! You fought out your fight last winter and made your decision. God put His stamp of approval upon you plainly by that partial healing. You were in doubt if He were hearing, and He gave you the healing of one distressing symptom to show you His approval and to strengthen your faith. Now you have gone back on God’s promise to you. He told you you were forgiven. Now accept it. The devil will get hold of you every time you give him such a chance. Just know you are given to God.”’
“I will,” Miss Wing replied, her questions answered, so that she had no more qualms about this matter. Her only regret now was, as she said, “I have practically lost the days I have been here, only, of course, the teaching is not lost. I learn more and more every day.”
It was during one of the services which Miss Wing attended her first week that she heard for the first time a prayer which even years later she described as “a good prayer to pray through all the ages of eternity.” It was the prayer of consecration which Dr. Dowie always asked the congregation to stand and repeat after him, clause by clause, following his sermon: “Take me as I am and make me what I ought to be in spirit, soul, and body, no matter what it costs.”
Wednesday night, a baptismal service was held in the Tabernacle, and Miss Wing availed herself of the opportunity to follow her Lord in baptism. Some years previously, from her own investigation of the Word of God, having once had her attention called to it, she had become convinced beyond any doubt that she had never been baptized. “I said then that if I ever found a church which taught and practiced true baptism, and was in other respects equal to the Methodist Church (at that time my eyes were too blinded to see clearly how far away from the early teaching and practice it had fallen), I would not hesitate to enter the truer church.” So it was that she took this step at this time.
The following morning she attended the divine healing service conducted by still another minister or elder, as the ministers were called, whom she had not heard before. “Just as he was closing he said we should not be anxious for our healing, because we should give ourselves up to God, spirit, soul, and body, and not assume the responsibility. Give ourselves to God unconditionally, and say, ‘God, I am Thine. Use me where it is best. I am not my own at all.’ It is for God’s glory for us to be healed. We are of more use to Him well, and it is His will to heal us, but that is not our business. When we are God’s, when we are passive in His hands, then He can do His work with us. We know it is His will to heal us, and when we have completely surrendered, the healing will be given us, with the rest. As he said, it is a very little thing for God to heal us; that is only a small part of the plan of salvation for us.”
This was the spiritual light and help God was endeavoring to establish in Miss Wing’s soul, but physically she was no better, and her week was almost over.
“I supposed that I could remain at the Home but one week, and it seemed to me the worst thing that could happen would be to go home unhealed. It seems strange that I should have trusted God so little, after having been led so far. It seems to me that I could surely have left it all with God. Instead, I lost time and blessing through impatience. I had to be given the lesson over and over again, of letting God plan things, before I could learn it.” Now the Lord made it possible for her to stay on at the Home, clearly indicating this was His will.
“For more than a week I stumbled along, more and more confused…. In my intensity I was running from one to the other seeking help, one day hopeful, the next despondent. Very earnest for a few days, then a period of discouragement, anxiety, and even coldness. My soul, ‘chattering like a crane,’ continually cried out, ‘Lord, why do You not reveal Yourself? Why do You not come to me? Why? Why? Why?’ Then I realized that I was going back on all my hard-learned lessons. I saw others about me healed, while I gained nothing. I knew God was no respecter of persons. The healing was for me. Evidently there was something yet lacking in myself.
“One afternoon, while in this state of mind, I was led to a good brother who asked me to read . . . Exodus [33:21, 22]. ‘Sister,’ he said, ‘what do you think Moses did when God showed him the rock?’
“‘He went to it and stood upon it,’ I said.
“‘And what then?’
“I considered. ‘Why, I suppose he waited for the glory.’
‘What else?
“I thought it over. ‘I don’t think he did anything else.’
“‘Nothing else?’
“‘No, nothing else,’ I insisted, assurance increasing the more I considered it.
“‘But suppose God didn’t pass by at once?
“‘All Moses could do was to wait until He did pass by.
“‘And you don’t think Moses got impatient and anxious and feared lest the Lord might forget His promise, and so slipped off the rock and ran up the road every once in awhile to see if the glory was in sight?’
“0, it didn’t need any explanation to drive home the point, although he gave it. — ‘Sister,’ he said, ‘God has shown you in His Word the Rock, Christ Jesus. His promises are yea and amen in Christ Jesus. By His (Jesus’) stripes are we healed. He took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses. By your own statement you have absolute conviction as to God’s will in this matter. His Word is quite plain.You have taken Jesus the Christ as your Saviour and Healer. In other words, God has shown you the Rock, and you have come to stand upon it. But have you stayed upon it?’
“‘Alas no,’ I cried, as I saw myself. ‘I haven’t. I have doubted and feared and questioned. And when the glory has been delayed I have gone up the road — in worry and anxiety of soul — looking for it. By the grace of God I will take Him at His Word and stand steady.’
“From the first, the intimacy with God in Zion [had] filled me with wonder and longing. I had truly given myself to God. I know that, from the moment of acceptance of redemption for the body, my one object was not a selfish wish for healing for my own pleasure, but a desire to be enabled to serve God better. I intended to use the health He was going to give me for Him, and aside from this I was really not anxious to live. Life in my sickness had become a great burden to me, and I was not afraid to die. But when I began to love God, I wished to live for Him. Yet I know now that my healing all through had been a sort of primary object, a thing to be sought separately.
“Much in the same way, years before, I sought for a ‘genuine spiritual’ experience, as my privilege through the acceptance of the Atonement, forgetting that Jesus Himself was the Atonement, and what I needed was Jesus Himself in my heart. So I was seeking healing as a separate spiritual experience. Gradually my need dawned upon me. I saw that God was more real to many of those about me than He was to me; that Jesus was more real; that the Holy Spirit was real. I began to wish for what I saw they had. I found I was too anxious for healing. I came to where I saw I must simply be true and obedient, waiting in faith upon God.”
Writing to her mother on April 26, a week and a half after she had come to Chicago, Martha Wing said: “I did not suppose I would stay so long as I have stayed, but I have had a good deal of experience, and five hundred, five thousand dollars would not buy what I have received here. Dr. L - - said last night we would not reach the mountain top without going through the valley, and we could only appreciate the light at the summit by passing through the shadow. I am catching a glimpse of the light at the summit, and I am glad for the valley. I came here seeking healing, but I am seeking the Healer — and will find Him, and as a lady just said to me, when He is found, the physical healing is only a small part of the experience. It is nothing. That is the way I wish to feel.
“My anxiety to be healed before I left Zion Home has stood in my way of receiving blessing. I can see that now. I was so afraid, after I got so upset last week, of not receiving healing and going home and disappointing you all, and using your money up for apparently no purpose, that I thought too much of getting my healing. It stood in the way of a spiritual blessing. But I will find the Healer here, and the healing will come, here or there. I am God’s, and the moment I lie absolutely passive in His hands, He can work His will in me. I have not been passive. I have been worrying and reaching and seeking, but of course I am finding because ‘He that seeketh — findeth.’
“Now I asked God to show me myself, and He did so last winter to a great extent. I have been asking Him to keep on enlightening, pruning, cleansing until the work was complete. I thank Him that He did not permit me to remain in ignorance and receive a healing that I might through ignorance lose, for that occurs over and over. People get the healing through faith sometimes instantaneously without previous teaching, and not understanding plainly God’s will, not ‘knowing’ God, they go no further, and lose their health again after, usually, quite awhile, and when they do, they cannot grasp it all so quickly again....
“Don’t allow yourself to be disappointed at the way things so far have turned out. I am very sorry that I was a little at first — but I see things differently now. I need just the discipline that I have received, and I want just as much of it as I ought to have. Life does not mean what it used to mean to me.
“John 14:21 helped me much at this time,” continuing from Martha Wing’s published testimony. “I claimed the promise of the manifestation of Jesus Himself to me, and seeing more and more that divine healing was a part of the redemption, I knew that with the coming of Jesus into my life there would come with Him all the riches of His grace. I stopped seeking for any especial thing or experience, and prayed that I might know Jesus. As I prayed, the desire to know Him for Himself grew stronger. I got to where I felt that if I could have Jesus in my life, the other things did not matter in the least. I did not care whether I was healed at Zion Home or not, provided it was according to His will.
“And as He led me into that rest in Him which makes anxiety impossible, so that I almost forgot my body in the joy of a closer acquaintance, I awakened to the fact that my health and strength were coming rapidly. One ailment after another disappeared, one or two instantly, so that I knew of the change at the moment. Others passed away so quietly that I became conscious of my healing by the gradual but complete departure of pain while my body grew stronger.
“God is able to do abundantly more than we ask or think. He not only kept me at Zion until I was healed, but enabled me to remain under its teachings several weeks longer, as I remained at the home of Mrs. Congdon as a guest.”
Through the kindness of Mrs. Congdon, Miss Wing stayed on in Chicago for two months. Toward the last of her stay she was employed at a bank “for about a fortnight, working very steadily and thoroughly testing my new strength. To me one of the most wonderful parts of my experience came directly after my healing. My muscles were, of course, new and undeveloped, yet I felt no fatigue upon exercising. Instead, a singular lightness and strength sustained me until the natural strength, through development of muscle, had been gained.”
On June 29 Martha Wing returned to Davenport, Iowa, a perfectly well woman. She had stood “upon the Rock,” and “the glory” had indeed passed by, making her every whit whole. Her experience is summarized in the following poem which she wrote at this time:
Oh, my heart was heavy laden,
Oh, my tears would ever flow,
And I cried to God to save me
From my weight of pain and woe,
Cried that in my darkened spirit
All His glorious light might shine
Till I felt His blessed presence,
And I knew the Saviour mine.
His voice answered, “Here beside Me
Is a place:
Stand upon a Rock I’ll show you
By My grace;
All My glory shall pass by you
As you stand;
In a cleft I’ll place and hide you
By My hand.”
Could I doubt the promise given
To His weary, wand’ring child?
Down I laid my heavy burden;
Down I laid my heart defiled.
Though I caught no glimpse of glory,
Though my day was cold and dim,
Sinful self I yielded wholly,
And I answer made to Him,
“On the solid Rock Christ Jesus
I will stand,
‘Til Thy glory passes by me,
And Thy Hand
Puts me in the cleft and covers
All my soul:
‘Til I feel Thy blessed Presence
And am whole.”
There upon the Rock Christ Jesus
Stood I waiting patiently
‘Til the glory dawned upon me
There to shine thenceforth for me.
In the cleft His loved Hand placed me,
There my soul shall safely hide,
In the secret place He showed me
Of His Presence, I’ll abide.
In the clefted Rock Christ Jesus,
Safe at last;
All my future is my Saviour’s,
All my past.
Here I have no doubt to touch me,
Fear no fall.
Life and death to me are nothing;
Christ is all.
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Martha Wing Robinson (1874 - 1936)
Martha held meetings which touched people to return to the work of the service of God. The Robinsons opened a "Faith Home" where people would come for teaching and prayer. Like George Muller they depended on God to provide what was needed for expenses. Thousands came through her home and healings were a regular occurrence. Her husband died in April of 1916, but Martha continued in her ministry. She had a very sharp gift of discernment and regularly told people the secrets of their hearts. She often had directive prophetic words for those under her care. Many young people came to the home for training and went into the mission fields and evangelistic endeavours.Martha Wing Robinson died June 26, 1936. Shortly before she died she stated her life's message "Nothing matters but Christ Jesus." Her whole life was spent in the service of God and for the Glory of His Son Jesus. She had seen many healed, saved, delivered, empowered and sent out. She was truly a mother in Israel. In 1962 Gordon P. Gardiner wrote a book about her life called "Radiant Glory" because that is how she lived her life.