Sandy Beasley

From 1910 to 1911, I was working in a logging camp in Washington. While there, someone came by and handed me an Apostolic Faith paper. I read a little of it, and such fear and conviction came over me that I gave it back without reading anymore. From then on, God put a hunger in my heart to be a Christian.

I received a Sunday school quarterly and read one lesson in it each night until I had read them all. Then I got a New Testament and read it through to Revelation. Such conviction settled on me! I could not understand what I was reading, so I decided to put it down until after I was saved.

Months went by, and I was again working in the same logging camp. God sent a revival of old-time conviction to the places around it. On a Friday night, some of us walked six miles to town to attend a little church, because our hearts were hungry for God. That night, as I sat in the meeting, I wanted peace with God more than anything else in all the world. I wept all through the meeting. At the close, I told the Lord I would do His will, give up the pride in my heart, and surrender my life to Him. The peace of God filled my hungry soul. I was one of five loggers who gave their hearts to the Lord that night. As I walked back to the camp, I could feel victory in my heart. I had found rest for my soul. After that, when I awoke each morning, I would thank God for another day to live for Him. I never went back to the old life; I did not get angry, curse, or get drunk anymore.

I quit logging and stayed in the little town where I got saved. My brother came from back East to stay with me in a shack. One night as we read the Bible and then got on our knees and prayed, a change took place in his heart. I saw the evidence of it on his face. He had found peace with God, too.

Later, he went to Seattle to find work and came across the overseer of the Apostolic Faith. He brought back an Apostolic Faith paper (number seventeen) and gave it to me. I read it over and over and wept as I read it. I believed every word in it, because it was all in the Bible, and the Word of God was in my heart. A hunger came into my heart to be under the leadership of the Apostolic Faith. Also, my soul hungered for sanctification. I sought for it, and one Sunday, as I prayed in my little side room in a bunkhouse where I was working, God sanctified my soul. It seemed the Spirit of God formed the words of prayer for me. I could hear myself pray for a clean heart–that was the burden of my heart as I prayed. Then I said, “I believe you are doing it now, Lord.” Then the Spirit in me changed to praising God for a clean heart. The Spirit had made intercession for me in prayer. God gave me the witness when the work was done.

I wanted the baptism of the Holy Ghost, but I did not seek for it as I should have. God would have given it to me then if I had contended for it. I went on for years, against my welfare and my usefulness in the Gospel. But the time came when I got so hungry for my baptism that I did not want to live without it. God burdened the hearts of the faithful workers that prayed with me and for me until one of them wanted me to receive it as much as I wanted it myself. God, in His great love, came down and baptized me with the Holy Ghost and fire. The next morning, at work, the enemy tried to make me doubt it, but I knew I had received it.

I thank God for His faithfulness and for these three experiences.