Sally Barrett

My husband’s mother was a wonderful Christian, a real saint of God. One day she and a group of other mothers gathered to pray for their wayward children to be saved at any cost. Those prayers were answered in a dramatic way. The Lord permitted a near tragedy in our home. It was summertime, just before the camp meeting. I had invited many relatives to our home for a family get-together. While we were picnicking and visiting, I suddenly heard the grinding and screeching of train brakes coming from the railroad tracks at the back of our yard. As the train came to a halt, we realized our one-year-old baby, Richie, was missing.

What anguish gripped us! When we rushed to the tracks, the shaken conductor told us he had seen the baby on the rails, and there was no way he could have stopped the train in time to avoid hitting him. But there was Richie sitting unharmed beside the tracks! The conductor couldn’t believe that he was safe.

Oh, how God talked to me through that incident! I questioned the Lord, “Why?” I even asked, “Do You want me to attend that old-fashioned church?” I meant the church where my husband’s parents went. I had despised it all my married life because of its high standard. I wondered if that was what God was asking of me, but then I reasoned that God doesn’t talk to people like that. I decided these thoughts were just a result of my emotional upset over the incident.

A few short weeks later, sorrow came to our home. My mother-in-law who had told me about her God, and had prayed for me, went to be with the Lord. We had nothing to console us, no strong arm to lean on. Through the pain of that loss, my husband was saved.

His father invited him to church one night, and out of respect he went. When he came home, his face was shining. Kneeling by my side where I sat on the davenport, he told me with tears running down his cheeks, “I am saved.” I knew in my heart it was true, although I had never experienced anything like it for myself. I had joined the neighborhood church and accepted Christ. I even taught Sunday school and tried to do my best to live a good life. But that night as I looked at him, I realized I had never had the peace that shone on his face. In my stubborn way, however, I told him, “You go your way and I’ll go mine.”

God did not leave me in that condition. He began to show me what was in my heart—bitterness, pride, self-righteousness, and the criticism against the Apostolic Faith Church and its people. A few nights later, while my husband was again at church, I was out in the rose garden pruning off the old dead roses. As I cut away the drooping blossoms and the dead leaves and branches, I felt I was snipping things out of my life. I told the Lord, “I don’t want this in my life anymore. Lord, take that out. If You will make me a Christian like my husband, I won’t do this anymore.” Out there in that rose garden, I wasn’t really pruning; I was praying.

As the train came to a halt, we realized our one-year-old baby, Richie, was missing.

A week later, I went to church with my husband, ready to turn my life over to God. When the Lord let me see myself as I really was, that all my self-righteousness was as filthy rags in His sight, I felt like filthy rags. I saw that all the criticism and hatred was sin, and I wondered how God could love me. But He did! As I prayed with repentance that night, God put such wonderful peace and joy in my heart! In a moment of time He took away the condemnation and the love for the things I thought I couldn’t get along without. My heart and life were filled with something far deeper and sweeter than anything I had known before.

Through the years since that time, God has shown me that He can use all the happenings of our life for our good if we will let Him. We can look back and see God’s way and His plan for us even in tragedy. God permitted us to have a beautiful home, a happy family, a good business, and we were satisfied. Then through a tragedy God showed us that all our plans and ambitions could be wiped out in a moment of time. The value of the things we had held so dear faded away, and the only thing that mattered was to be in His will.

It happened on a beautiful August day, the last part of our vacation. My husband and I were relaxing on the sand, enjoying the sunshine. Rob, our oldest, was playing in the water with Pammy, who was one month shy of her sixteenth birthday, and ten-year-old Richie. We glanced up from time to time as they splashed and ran about in the water close to the shoreline, jumping the waves that rolled over the sand.

A sudden shout startled us from our relaxation. Richie came running to us sobbing, “Rob and Pammy are in the water. They can’t get out!” I’ll never forget the dagger of fear that struck my heart as I thought, “This cannot be happening!”

It was only God who sustained me through the next hours. The lifeguards went out into the current that had pulled our children under, and after a time, they brought our daughter to the shore. As they worked over her on the sand, my heart cried out, “Lord, You know the desire of my heart.” I wanted my Pammy back alive and well, and yet even in that moment, I felt that she was His child.  

Our oldest son was taken from the water, limp. He needed help, too. He had swallowed much sand and water in his attempt to save his sister. An ambulance had been called and Rob and Pammy were rushed to the nearest hospital. As I rode in the ambulance with them, I remember touching Pammy and realizing that she was not here on this earth with us any longer.

The ride back to our home in Portland without Pammy was the hardest thing I have ever had to face in my life. Memories came back to me, one after another. She had experienced most of the problems that teenagers do when they have not yet given their heart to the Lord, but things had been so different the past few weeks! She had prayed through during the camp meeting that had just concluded, and I had been looking forward to the good times we would have together now that she was saved.

Our second son, Del, came from Portland as soon as he heard the news, and rode back with us. He said something I will never forget, “Mom, the Comforter has been given to us.” It was true. God did help us. In all our grief, the Lord put a wondrous peace down in our hearts. Not once did a thought of questioning God come to us—only thankfulness that she had been ready to go.

Through the months following Pammy’s death, we were thankful for the missionary outlet we had in bringing the foreign crewmen from the Portland harbor into our home and to church. It gave us many opportunities to tell others of our hope in Christ.

Six years after our daughter’s death, we made our first missionary trip to Korea. Through the contacts we had made with the Korean crewmen, we found many open doors there. Upon returning from that trip, we sold our home, transferred our business to our son, and moved to Korea where we served the Lord for twenty years.

Many times when I was apart from my family, far from friends and home, the words of a song that came to me when Pammy was taken, have rung in my soul. As I knelt by my bed that night, the words flowed through my heart, “My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine.” Whether through grief or joy, the thought that Jesus is mine, has sustained me.