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April 1943
' A MOTHER’S TESTIMONY Another star has turned to gold, a son given in the service of his country. . . . I do not try to UNDERSTAND why my Lord has permitted this, nor do I ask why. To do that would be to question His love and His wisdom. My trust is FULLY in Him. There are tears, but I can truly say, “Jesus doeth all things well.”
. . . Doeth All Things W e i r By MRS. HUGH B. EVANS, JR.
this hour, fo r several days preceding this, I had been especially burdened to pray that the Lord would fully pos sess my boy, using him to leave an imprint of C h r i s t on his students’ lives. God had answered my prayer— not in the way I meant it—but in His way which is best. He makes no mis takes. And I knew, suddenly, that since God in His love and wisdom had taken Hugh to thb place of complete, safety and happiness, I could say, “Amen, Jesus.” “What about the student pilot?” I asked later. ' “He was badly »hurt,” I was told, “ but he is expected to recover.” I remember sighing gratefully, for I knew that when he was called sud denly into the presence of the Lord, my boy had been ready, trusting in Christ. Was this true of the other boy? I did not know. God's Answer to Prayer Mother and I left immediately for Tucson, and there the Lord let .me see how fully He had answered my prayer for Hugh. I did not see the earthly shell that was Hugh for he had been killed instantly, his body crushed. I chose to remember him as I had last seen him, the quick smile that lighted his face when something delighted him and his joy in life and service. 'That this had left its imprint on the lives of others, even as I had prayed, was soon evident. I was told that the whole of Tucson was touched by Hugh’s going. One said, “How did this boy have so many friends?” Many hearts were touched in a special way
when God took Hugh to Himself. Some were made to realize their need of a Saviour, and others, the need of walk ing closer to Hiqi. Bit by bit the Lord was showing me how He had used my boy. On Sunday afternoon, I went out to the hospital to see Charles, the stu dent who was with Hiigh at the time of the accident. He was still suffering from shock and concussion, so I was, permitted to stay only a few minutes. He seemed greatly touched and grate ful when I gave him the Gideon Tes tament that had been Hugh’s. I asked him whether he would like me to write to his mother, and he said, “Oh, yes!” . I have since heard from that mother, a sweet Christian woman, and she has told me how the Lord has been under taking in their home, and in her son’s life, in these recent eventful days. I read her Tetter through tears of gratl-, tude, for I saw in it a part of God’s answer to the prayer He had put in my heart. A little over a month after the acci dent, I stopped again in Tucson on my way to Alabama, and was able to get four of Hugh’s students for dinner. I found them to be sweet Southern boys. I loved them for their own sakes, and for Hugh’s. They told me of their memories of Hugh, how on Thanks giving he had taken them to a foot ball game and then to dinner in town. It had meant so much to the boys to get away from camp for a time. Rut that which gave me the deepest joy was to find that all four of the stu- [ Continued on Page 159]
shadows were dispelled and I walked along the path between the strong live-oak trees that I loved, on out to meet Hugh. I saw at once that it was not Hugh’s car that had stopped, but that of some friends of oUrs. A stranger was with them. When they had introduced him, he turned to me and said that he was from the San Diego division o f the Ryan School of Aeronautics, but that fact caused me no alarm. When he asked whether I had a son who was an instructor for Ryan’s in Tucson, I answered, “ Yes," still without apprehension. He then told me there had been a bad acci dent that afternoon. “ How seriously was Hugh hurt?” I asked quickly. “ I’m sorry,” he said quietly, “ for your son the accident was fatal.” The news was such a shock that I did not grasp it all at once. Had Hugh been a student pilot I might have been more apprehensive over his fly ing, but he was thoroughly at home in the air. Had he been in a combat zone, meeting hourly danger in enemy territory, I might have waited with my heart steeled for some such hour. But for this I had not been prepared. When I began to realize that he was gone, actually gone, I was crush ed. But even with that realization, the tender compassion of my heav enly Father encompassed me, and I felt “ underneath . . . the everlasting arms.” I cannot describe it, but it was precious. Tears came to relieve the heart, but with them there was His peace, for had I not been committing .Hugh to His keeping? Then I knew that God had been preparing me for
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