Agnes Sanford

Agnes Sanford, daughter of a Presbyterian missionary in China, and the wife of an Episcopal rector, first book, The Healing Light, established her as a leading lay healer and minister within the Christian church. Since its original 1947 publication, The Healing Light has sold over half a million copies. Agnes Sanford herself suffered from severe, recurrent depressions for many, many years. In her autobiography, Mrs. Sanford said that she finally began to break out of her chronic depression after a Protestant clergyman laid his hands on her head and prayed for her. For the next year, she wrote, she went about her work repeating to herself, hourly and daily, the same prayer: "Lord have mercy on me, and fill me with Your Holy Spirit." Little by little, over a period of time, the depressions vanished, and she was finally free of them. It was not until years later, when she met an Orthodox priest and told him of her experience, that Mrs. Sanford learned that she had been reciting, unknowingly, the ancient Jesus Prayer of the Orthodox Church: "Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner," a prayer which monks, nuns and the Orthodox faithful had been reciting for centuries. Short, plump, breezy, and matter-of-fact, Mrs. Sanford taught that the principles of prayer and healing are universal--that is, they are included in all religions, yet transcend all religions. She said Jesus stood in church services all over Christendom with his hands tied behind his back because neither ministers nor people expected him to do anything. She said people who prayed had to expect miracles. That required them to pray down the voice of doubt within them based on old hurts, griefs, and failures. "There is more in the Bible than mere information. A spiritual energy we call faith, seems to connect with the very book itself." Agnes Sanford began a healing ministry in the '40s; received Pentecostal experience in '53/54. Together with her husband, and alone after his death, she spoke to and taught groups all over the country about the power of prayer. The Sanfords were primary agents for spiritual renewal in clergy of the mainline denominations. She died in February 1982 after 35 years of ministry.