Edna Crawford

I am grateful for the love of God that ever won my heart when I was just a small child. It is true that I was sent to Sunday school and church very faithfully, and I loved the Name of Jesus and His house of worship, but my young heart was sad and sorrowful because of conditions in our home. No Christian life was exemplified there. Instead, quarreling and disunity prevailed in that home until it finally went through the divorce court.

The blessed hand of God led me to a camp meeting one hot July day. I shall never forget it. The Word of God was going forth, and God spoke to my heart, though I was just a child. I did not know how to pray from my heart, but someone said, “Ask God to be merciful to you, a sinner.” I prayed that very prayer; I uttered those words from the depths of a broken and contrite heart, and that prayer reached Heaven. The awful unrest and heaviness left my heart, and God gave me a joy and a peace and a victory that I never knew I could experience in this world.

God kept me in my home where I was severely persecuted. I was beaten many a time without cause, in anger and blasphemy. There was no kindness shown me, but from morning till night there was abuse—all because I loved the Gospel of Jesus. For some time I was not allowed to go to the meetings where God’s people were. My only comfort was to select promises from God’s Word and to pray. I had a little booklet made out of scraps of paper. In those pages, I had a promise written for each letter of the alphabet except X and Z. I cherished that little book. One day my mother took it away and held it over the open fire as though she were going to burn it. This just about broke my heart, but the Lord did not let her burn it. I was even taken before the juvenile court with no other charge than that I wanted to serve God. I found that God’s grace was my daily strength, and that Jesus can solve every problem. I had found a Friend who stood by me in joy and sorrow, and that Friend was Jesus.

After a business course at the Behnke-Walker Business College, my first job was at Honeyman’s Hardware. I kept books and wrote letters.

I praise God for how He opened the way so I could give my life in His service. That was the desire of my heart. For many years I have worked in the Apostolic Faith Church headquarters office and helped with the correspondence. When I was about twenty years old, Sister Florence Crawford asked me to come and work there. My employer wasn’t too happy about my quitting after teaching me all about the business. He asked if I was getting married and I said, “No.” He asked if I wanted more money and I said, “No.” I was getting what was considered a wonderful wage at the time.

I started to work at a house on Wheeler Street, near Broadway. Sister Clara Lum lived downstairs and the office was upstairs. Sisters Alice Perry and Nellie Smith also worked there. There was no furnace in the house, but we had a small potbellied stove and we would have to make a fire in cold weather. The stove burned coal and wood, and we would be cold on one side and hot on the other.

I studied music and for years played the trombone in the church orchestra. Later I became the pianist. After my marriage to Brother Ray Crawford in 1942, I often traveled on trans-continental evangelistic trips and on voyages into Alaskan waters on the missionary vessel the Lower Light, serving as piano accompanist for the Lower Light Male Quartet and doing secretarial work for Brother Ray.

I thank God for His healing power. Through an auto accident, I was internally injured and I suffered for eight years. But I could look to God and know that He had permitted it in order to work out something in my life. I had no thought but to trust His hand, the hand that was wounded for me. One day after walking about four miles, something I had not been able to do, I realized I was healed. I looked up to God saying, “I am healed. I praise You for the healing virtue of the Son of God, for the Friend who never fails.” How I praise Him that we can trust Him to the last mile of the way!

It has paid a thousand fold in this world to live for Jesus, and then I have that blessed hope of seeing His face someday soon—what a glorious moment that will be!