Lillian Johnson

As a young woman, I was perplexed. Something deep in my heart cried out to be a real Christian, but I had no idea how this could be brought about.

My Sunday school teacher could not understand my tears, because she thought I was a good girl. My mother could not help me. She had been born again when she was sixteen, but did not know what to call it. She wanted her children to become Christians, so she read her Bible to us and held family devotions.

Before we were married, my husband-to-be and I decided we wanted to move from Litchfield, Minnesota, to a new area. Atlas in hand, we selected Oregon as our state, and the small town of Springfield seemed to stand out like a neon sign. That is where we went after our wedding.

At the same time that we were deciding where to live, a woman living in Eugene, Oregon, who attended the Apostolic Faith Church was praying. She was asking God to show her if she should go to work on a ranch where her unsaved husband was working. The Lord revealed to her that if she would work at that ranch, He would give her three souls for the Lord.        

We arrived, in Springfield, tired and somewhat apprehensive. We stayed in a hotel while my husband inquired about work. The owner of a ranch said he needed a teamster. As this was my husband’s only occupation, he applied. The owner hired him.

He had not worked there very long before the owner told him to be wary of the lady cook. He said that she had talked to a woman who then went to the Apostolic Faith Church in Portland, Oregon and got saved and sanctified, which resulted in her being reunited with her husband. He thought she had gone crazy.

I went to work in the kitchen, at the ranch, and the cook began to talk to me about the Gospel. She gave me an Apostolic Faith paper. To me, she was the most wonderful person I had ever met; always happy.

One day she asked me if I had been born again before being baptized in water. I answered, “I guess so.” She said, “If you were born again, you would know so.” That was all she said, but it really put me under conviction. I said to my husband, “Just think! Right now, we belong to a church and we commit sin. But we can live without sin and know we are real Christians.” About that time the thought came to me, ‘You may be going too deep here,’ but something else said to me, ‘You can know.’ I decided that if this was possible, I was going to try.

Conviction hit me harder than ever. I could hardly eat or sleep.

I read the Word of God as never before and found the Scripture which says, “Ye must be born again” in John 3:7. Conviction hit me harder than ever. I could hardly eat or sleep. It seemed that I had no faith, though. One evening the cook said, “The only thing left for you to do is to pray that God will give you the faith to believe.”

I overslept the next morning. I was tired and worn out. I could hear the cook getting breakfast for the men and I hurried to help her. She asked me if I was saved yet. I told her, “No, I believe my sins are forgiven, but I do not believe that I am saved.” She told me to go get my Bible. Then she started to read Psalm 19, even though the men were coming for their breakfast.

After we finished our work, we went for a walk and I poured my heart out to her. She assured me that God would forgive anything. Back at the house, she sat down in a rocking chair and I went to my room to read my Bible. I could not understand what I read. I took my Bible to her and again she began to read Psalm 19. When she came to verse 7, “The Law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul,” God gave me the witness. I exclaimed, “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” I was so happy! I now believed. I was saved! How we rejoiced!

The cook then began to work on my husband. She would ask, “When are you going to be my brother in the Lord?” He would reply, “When I get to camp meeting.”

Up to this time we had never attended an Apostolic Faith service, but we began to make plans to move to Portland to attend the camp meeting. We had always lived on a farm, and so to move to the city was a big step. We were concerned as to whether my husband could get work. The cook reassured us with what David said in Psalm 37:25, “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.” We knew we could depend on what the Word of God said.

A week before the camp meeting opened, we moved to Portland. One day, while on the streetcar, we met a Christian man. The cook asked him if he knew of any available jobs. He said that a man was quitting where he worked, and my husband should go to work with him in the morning to apply for the job. Early the next day my husband joined him and was hired.

We attended the first Sunday of camp meeting, and I thought it was wonderful. We had never heard anything like it. I prayed, but my husband did not. I asked him why he didn’t go forward to pray and get saved. By then I really had faith for salvation. He wanted to know, “How do you get saved?” I told him to pray and believe. In the afternoon he lost no time getting to the altar and he was wonderfully saved. We both received our sanctification and the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire at our first camp meeting.

Fifty years later, Jesus is much nearer to us than He was then. We have reared a big family while trusting God, and we have witnessed His hand at work for us in many phases of life. Jesus has never failed us.