TH E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
288
By WILHELMINA ANNAS As told to Anne Hazelton
PART II
A Nurse's Experience . . .
T HE FAINT breeze that stirred the freshly ironed curtains at the kitchen window was heavy blossoms and the wild flowers of our Sierra Madre mountains. I breathed deeply of, its familiar perfume. Yet it was no more pleasing to me than was the fresh clean smell of the soapsuds my hands were even then immersed in. Next to nursing the sick, I loved to clean things, to bring shining order out of confusion. I liked the sound of the word, cleanliness. I had even mem orized Scripture references on the sub ject. “ ‘Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. . . . Create in me a clean heart... The blood of Jesus Christ his Son deanseth us from all sin . . . ’ ” I paused at that verse. The mention of the blood of Christ took my thoughts back to my recent conversation with The-Man-Who-Came-to-the-Back-Door, as I had named him. As a nurse, I had had many opportunities to speak to those who were brought face to face with eternal issues in their illnesses. I thought of some of them, now, of Dr. Mainwaring of Sierra Madre, of Mrs. Carr in Long Beach, and of young Thompson Hare. I was deeply thankful that I had been the instrument God had used to bring them to put their
she talked to me. But I did not listen. I was Wild and ran away to sea. I led a rough life, and you see what I have come to.” “It isn’t too late,” I urged softly. “The Lord Jesus loves you. If you will come to Him, you w ill be saved. Your mother told you the way, and now God is speaking to you again. W ill you read this tract c a r e f u l l y and con sider it?” “ Indeed I will,” he assured me ear nestly. I remembered, now, that I had stood for a moment watching him walk away and had asked God’s bless ing on the tract as he read i t Then I had forgotten him. I did not expect to see him again. To my amazement, he had come back a few days later. I was on the back porch when he saw me. Pointing his finger at me he had shouted, even before he reached the yard, “You’re the one who told me about the blood of Jesus. I believe it, and I’m saved through His blood.” His face was filled with joy, lighted by an inner light, that left no doubt of his surrender. I had not seen him again, but I had been glad many times that I had not been deaf to the Spirit’s leading in giving him that tract... My reverie was broken by the sound of a car stopping in front of the house. It brought me back to my present sur roundings rather suddenly. My hands
trust in Him. I had been ready for those opportunities to witness, always praying the Lord would give me spiritual discernment to know the right way to approach each one. Yet I had not recognized a spiritually hungry soul in the man that had come early one morning asking to sharpen scissors or knives. Door-to-door arti sans had disappointed me in the past and as I was particularly busy that day, I had been on the point of refus ing when I had looked into his tired face and relented. I was handing him his money in payment for his work on my lawn- mower and knives, when the thought came, “ This man may be needing a message from the Lord. Why not give him a tract?” But the only one I could find, search as I would, was entitled “The Blood.” I did hot think he would understand that but my supply of tracts had run out Praying that I could hold his interest long enough to explain the tract, I handed it to him and began to show him God’s plan of salvation, briefly outlining God’s redemption as given in the Old and New Testaments. I had been telling him how the Lord Jesus Christ had shed His blood on the cross for him, when he interrupted me. ‘.‘You remind me of my mother,” he said huskily. “ She was a good Chris tian mother and that is Just the way
with the blended fragrance of citrus
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