By Ada Balderstone.
Published in Confidence, October-December 1920.

Last November, while nursing a dear sister in the Lord, I fell from the top to the bottom of the stairs. When I got to the bottom I banged the top of my head into the wall. I felt a queer sensation in my neck and shoulder, and my arms went quite dead. I thought, “There, I have killed myself and broken my arms.” A deadly faintness was creeping over me, when something impressed me to look at my arms. I lifted my head to look, and suddenly the life came back into them, but the awful prickling sensation was terrible, and I could not bear them touching for weeks. The doctor wanted to take me to the infirmary, but I said “No,” so they made me a bed in the same room as the other sick one.

The doctor gave very little hopes of me, and said if I lived I should have to lie on my back for 18 months at least, and he did not think I should ever be able to move my head about as usual. Twice in a fortnight I was at the very gates of death. The first night I was so ill I thought I was going to live with Jesus, but I had a lovely vision of Him and He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for My glory, and that My name might be glorified throughout all the country.” The second time I nearly passed away my dear husband gave himself to the Lord. The doctor said I had fractured and dislocated the spine, and when I lifted my head up the bone had slipped partly on again and liberated the spinal cord; but I felt it was the Lord doing His own work.

For 15 weeks I lay on my back without being able to move, then the Lord permitted my nurse to leave me. A dear friend took me to her home, a Pentecostal Divine Healing Home, and I was there only a few days when we were at prayer one morning. I was sitting up in a chair, my daughter was sitting at my knee, when all at once it seemed as though someone lifted me up and put me on my feet in the center of the room, and from that day I could walk from one room to the other, but with great pain in my back, and I could only move my head a little. It hurt me very much to try to lift up my head.

Bradford. On Saturday, April 3rd, I said to my husband, “I should like to go to Bradford Convention,” and he said, “I shall not take you; people would think I was mad to take a woman in your condition.” However, I prayed to God to take all opposition out of him, and on Monday morning he seemed as eager as I was, and I said, “I believe that is where I have to go to get healed, so that God may be glorified.” So my husband got a cab to the station, also when we arrived at Bradford to take us to the Presbyterian Church, Infirmary Street.

Bro. Wigglesworth took us into a smail room. My husband then went downstairs to have some refreshment, and Bro. Wigglesworth and two sisters came to me. Bro. Wigglesworth anointed me with oil in the name of the Lord, and in five minutes I could walk about the room and move my head any way. (I felt the bone slip into place.) I climbed to a bedroom four stories high to sleep, and walked over two miles next day, and have not had any pain in my back, neck or arms since. Praise the Lord! Nothing is too hard for Him.

I may say the doctor has often said he could not understand how it was I did not die. He said, “From what you had done to yourself, by all the natural laws of medicine you ought to be a dead woman.” He has repeated many times, “It is marvelous; I cannot understand it.” But God understands. I do not think that I ever murmured at the suffering after He said it would glorify Him. It is glorious to know He is with us in pain helping us to bear it. I do praise Him for keeping me patient through it all.

I sincerely hope this testimony will be the means of helping others to trust the Lord with their bodies, as He bore our sicknesses as well as our sins on Calvary, and is all-sufficient for spirit, soul, and body.

Anyone wishing to write to me may have the names of several people who heard what the doctor said, and saw me throughout all the illness. I may also say I was healed of cancer in the body 4 years last November. I had not very long to live when Bro. Wigglesworth came over to Doncaster and laid hands on me, and I was instantly healed, and have had no more pain nor hemorrhage since. Wonderful Jesus! Five months after I received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with the Sign of Tongues. And all my desire is that He will use me for His glory, as I am a living testimony of His wonderful power.

Labels: 1920, Confidence, Others' testimonies