Lena Wallace

I’m so thankful that the Lord saved me when I was just a little girl, but my blessings began long before that. My dad was a prosperous wheat farmer in Kansas, and my parents were very active in Granddad’s church. It seemed like everything was going all right, but they knew they were not saved. My mother often said how she longed to move to Oregon. They didn’t know much about it, but it was the hand of God. They put the property up for sale, and Dad used to tell us how he was amazed—the prices he got were double to what they should have been. But it was all because God was leading them.

God led our little family from the State of Kansas, which was a miracle. Often we would rehearse that, and it was through a series of miracles that we were brought under the sound of the true Gospel. We moved to the small town of Dallas, Oregon, and a little old saint of God, who lived just a block away from where we settled, noticed we were a new little family in the neighborhood and she began to pray for us. She invited us to a cottage meeting. There my mother was saved, and such miracles happened. Dad was quite a fighter against the Gospel, but God performed miracles for him and convinced him it was the truth.

I can remember my mother saying how that after she had been saved she was still so hungry for the Lord, and she would tell how she was so marvelously sanctified. That is the kind of heritage I had.

My parents had been led by the Lord and found the truth of the Gospel, so it was instilled in our young hearts. We had an old-fashioned, happy, peaceful, Christian home with lots of love. There were five girls and one little boy and my mother and father. In the morning we worshipped God together, and in the evening, too. A half or three quarters of an hour before bedtime we would be called into the house, and Father or Mother would read something from the Bible and then we would all kneel down and pray together.

God dealt with my heart very early in life, and I felt strongly the need of asking God to forgive me so that I would have peace in my heart. One day I went to our playroom alone, and prayed, and God saved me and made a real change in my heart. I’m so thankful that in my young years I gave my heart to God. It was so wonderful that as a child I felt the call of God, and He gave me those wonderful deeper experiences in my youth, and it has kept me through the years. I thank God for the many times I have proved Him in my own life from that time on.

I am grateful for Godly parents who prayed that their children might be saved, and how it paid off!

There was a piano in the parlor, and we all played a little as we grew up, but I especially loved music very much. I started out by playing the music I heard, which was mostly hymns. I begged for lessons, so my parents let me take from a neighbor girl. For years when I was at home, after the dishes were done in the evening, I would go to the parlor and close the door, and sit at the piano in the dark or with my eyes closed and play hymns, meditate on the words, and the tears would roll from my eyes. I would go to the window and look up to the stars, and I couldn’t have been nearer to Heaven.  

Each day when I would come home from school I would go to our playroom and read from the Bible and pray. When I would be out playing with the children in the neighborhood, and that longing and hunger for the Lord would come to my heart, I would slip away to pray. In this way I kept close to God, and when I did grieve Him in any way, I immediately made it right.          

A few days ago I drove by our old home place, where God saved me when just a child in our little playroom. I can take you to the very spot, also to many places where God would come down and reveal Himself to me. As a child I would have many fears, and would wake my mother at night. Together we would pray and God would lift the burden and I would know I was in touch with Heaven. I’m thankful the Lord inclined my heart to seek Him. I am grateful for Godly parents who prayed that their children might be saved, and how it paid off! There is nothing so important to me as to know I’m ready to meet God.

For many years I have had the privilege of giving my talent to God in the service of music. I ask the Lord continually to bless my effort – every note I play, that it might be a blessing to souls for eternity. I have never regretted one moment that I have been a Christian. I love the service of the Lord. He has done such wonderful things for me. He has kept me living a Christian life from childhood, through my school days and on throughout the years. I have proved Him in hard places, and I know He can keep a young person living true to Him.      

The Lord’s service has been my joy and delight, and nothing can take the place of it. As we see the storm clouds gathering throughout the world, I can say that I know my anchor holds. I want to be faithful in the service of my Lord to the end of this Christian race.