THE POWER OF GOD IN A REDEEMED LIFE
And My Cancer Experience
By Pearl P. Poe
DEDICATION
Lovingly dedicated to my precious mother, who has prayed for me so faithfully, and to my dear children whom I want to meet in heaven.
INTRODUCTION
Many of my friends have requested me to put into print some of God's dealings with me. I am doing so only that such incidents might be to the glory of God and to encourage some souls to go through with Jesus.
CHAPTER ONE
When I was but a lad of eight years, my father had a long siege of sickness -- typhoid fever -- and passed away in October. The morning before he passed away in the evening, he called us to his bedside. First, my mother; then, one by one each of us children: my older brother, the second brother, my oldest sister, then myself. When I came to the bedside of my dying father, I thought my heart would break. He put his hand on my head and said, "Dear Lord Jesus, Put Your hand on my boy." Then he asked me to be kind and to help mother, and to never use liquor nor gamble, but to be a good boy and to meet him in heaven. I told him I would try. He talked to my two younger brothers, then placed his hands on my baby sister who was soon to meet him.
I spent much of that day sitting on a stairstep at the foot of the bed. My father was a kind, loving father. Often through the day he would say, "Farewell." That evening, a number of our relatives gathered in; among them were his father and mother and his brother and wife, Aunt Elizabeth. My father and my aunt were good singers. Father asked my aunt to sing, and she began, "Meet Me at the Cross Roads, Angels, Meet Me There." My father said, "They are already here." There came a beautiful expression on his countenance. My aunt could not sing for weeping, and father began to sing, "O Happy Day When Jesus Washed My Sins Away." When he finished, he said, "Jesus is the Lily of the Valley and fairer than ten thousand to my soul. Strive to enter in at the straight gate, for many shall strive but few shall enter," and he left us to be with the redeemed.
There were sad days ahead. We children were young. My brother next older than I was sick most of the winter with pneumonia and the grip. My older sister had typhoid fever when my father did. It left her bedfast with inflammatory rheumatism. My oldest brother quit school to work at home. Part of the time I helped him work in the timber to make props for the coal mines.
We were very poor and had a mortgage on our little farm, besides a large doctor bill and funeral expenses to be paid.
I went to school only part of the time. We had three three-month terms with a two-week vacation between fall and winter, and winter and spring terms.
One bitter cold morning I went to school. At noon it was 20 degrees below zero and getting colder. A blizzard came up in the afternoon. With the snow that was on the ground blowing and more snow falling, it was soon a blinding storm. In those days, big boys attended the winter term. They were all farmers. The parents had come from over the ocean as well as some of these boys. I was the only child in the school that was not of their nationality.
Those big boys thought it would be a big trick to hide my cap and mittens and neck scarf that day. Soon their fathers began coming to the schoolhouse with sleds and sleighs to get the children and the teacher. School was dismissed. I had no father to come for me. Big brother was away working.
The other children all ran out and were on their way home. I could not find my cap and mittens and scarf. The teacher told me I should have put them up. I told her kindly that had, but that someone had hidden them. She took hold of me, shook me, and led me to the door and closed and locked it. I had one and one-half miles to go facing a northwest blizzard -- no cap, no mittens, and no scarf. The snow was piling in drifts. My little coat had no high collar, and the sleeves were too short. My mother had made it for me the winter before. I soon felt my face and neck and ears were freezing. I rubbed them with my freezing hands to try to get them warm. Wading through deep drifts made it slow going. I thought I would freeze to death.
As I thought of the awful thing those boys had done, I felt hatred and anger stirring in my heart. I felt revengeful and my anger increased. I struck my freezing fist in the palm of the other hand a few times, which caused circulation of the blood. I would hold my hands over my ears and face. Finally, I became very weary, but I knew that if I stopped, I would freeze. So I fought the angry wind and blinding snow and drifts until I reached home with face, ears, and hands all frosted.
I did not go back to school until the spring term. The big boys were then at home helping on the farm. I had hatred in my heart and a deep desire to get even. Oh, what a sin, and I just a little boy. I began to do things to get even and would fight the boys of my age and older. My younger brother was now in school and we would team up. How true to the Word! Man perisheth not alone in his sin -- always affecting someone else. I was punished in school for the things I did, but it only seemed to agitate the evil hatred.
One night it came a hard rain, but by morning the sky was clear and the day was beautiful. As my brother and I were going to school, we passed a home where there were twelve children in the family. The girls had gone on. Tommy was my age. He came out to go with us to school. He wore a white waist with a wide collar, knee trousers, and a little cap. He looked so neat.
When we came near a wagon that crossed the creek which was swollen from the rain, I said, "Tommy, you can't walk that banister like I can," and I looked at my brother. He knew I was up to something. I climbed up on the banister and started across. When in the middle, I pretended to have lost my balance, and jumped to the floor of the bridge. Then came Tommy, walking the banister. Just as he came even with me, I pushed him into the creek, which was swollen from the rain. I said, "Tommy," I hurriedly found a limb from a tree that had lodged against the bridge and reached it to him. We had a hard time pulling him out. How ashamed I am as I think of it now. Tommy was covered with mud, and had lost his cap in the creek. He went back home, crying.
That day at school, I got even with another boy and for punishment I had to stay an hour after school. On my way home, I had to pass Tommy's house. A long shed and large barn stood near the road.
Just as I was coming alongside the barn, Tommy's mother stepped out in front of me with one hand behind her. I thought she had a club and was going to punish me, and I knew I needed it.
She asked me what Tommy had done to me to cause me to do as I had done. I told her, "Nothing," and was backing up in my steps, watching the chance to pass her. But since the road was narrow, she could easily keep it blocked. Just as I was going to make a run to pass her, she drew her hand from behind her. She did not have a club, but a big piece of apple pie. She offered it to me, but I began to cry. I told her I could not eat it; that I did not want it. She had touched my heart; it was broken. I was no longer afraid of her.
She hugged me and placed a kiss on my forehead. I asked her to forgive me. She then said, "I know why you did it. Those mean boys hid your cap and mittens and scarf, and you were trying to get even." She was right, and dealt with me with wisdom from God. I loved her. She had returned good for evil. I left her to go home, a different boy.
On my way home, by the roadside, there were four weeping willows with branches reaching the ground. I crawled under one of them and wept for a long time. I often say that we wept together, and I seldom see a weeping willow that it does not remind me of that evening in my boyhood. After weeping for some time there, I went on home, still sobbing.
It was my job to milk the cows. It was late -- getting dusk. I did not know that good woman was following me, but as I went to the back of our house, she went to the front. I picked up the milk pails and went to the cow lot. While I was milking, she told my mother all I had done and what she did, and how broken up I was, and asked mother not to say anything to me. When I came in with the pails of milk, she had gone home.
Mother placed some supper on the kitchen table for me, and asked me to eat, but I told her that I didn't want any supper. I went on to bed with my mind made up that I would never hold a grudge. From then on, I loved those people.
After I became a young man, I gave my heart to God. He called me to preach and I answered His call. After I had been preaching for twelve years, mother and I were talking one day. I mentioned the night I came home and did not eat, and told her why. She told me that she could hear me sobbing in the night, but that that good woman had followed me home and told her all about it. I am now a servant of Jesus and an evangelist, but I, no doubt, would be in hell if that woman had not dealt wisely with me.
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