Willie Struhar

I am thankful that I ever had the privilege of hearing the marvelous story of Jesus and His power to save all kinds of people.

I wasn’t brought up in a Christian home. I wasn’t anywhere near a place where I could go to church. We children were never sent to Sunday school. Sin had done much in our home to make it miserable and unhappy from my earliest memory. I didn’t know what peace and joy were.

My father spent his time and a great deal of his money in gambling halls and saloons. At that time he was a constable in the little mining town in Arizona where we lived – one of those mining towns which grew up overnight. There was a rough class of people living there. He mingled with them, and soon he started staying out night after night, leaving my mother alone with us children. And then he began leaving town for days at a time, not telling her where he was. Those were the times she suffered. It kept going from bad to worse until she said she just couldn’t stand it any longer. Dad and Mother were going to get a divorce, and plans were being made to put us children into different places so that we could be cared for.

I was the oldest of four children, and though I was only nine years old, I tried to help mother bear her burdens. Our home was so unhappy it spoiled my early childhood. Mother didn’t know the Lord, didn’t know how to cast her burdens on Him, and so, of course, she couldn’t tell me about God. I think there were times that she did pray, but she didn’t know how to get her prayers through to Heaven.

One day we received an Apostolic Faith paper that someone had sent hundreds of miles to us. I read that paper, and then I sat there thinking about it. I read one testimony that told about a man who had lived a life of sin—and I remember thinking: Why, that is just like Dad. Then I read another testimony of a woman who said she was brokenhearted and afraid to trust God with her children—and I thought: Well that is just like Mama. Those people told how they had found the Lord, and they said they were happy serving God.

I gave Him my heart, and He made such a glorious change!

I kept thinking about it, and as I went to bed I knelt and prayed. I didn’t say anything out loud, because I didn’t know what to say. But I just lifted my heart to God and told Him I wanted what I had read about – I wanted the Lord to make our home happy. There was no excitement and no one to help me pray, but I heard the Lord calling to me. I gave Him my heart, and He made such a glorious change! Peace and joy flooded my soul.

When I went to sleep I had a wonderful dream. What made it so wonderful was that I had never read the Scripture that tells of God’s judgment. But in my dream I saw it. Later in life I read about it, and my dream was so much like the description in the Bible.

I saw the Lord standing in the midst of a throng of people. There were people of all sizes, kinds, and nationalities. As far as I could see there was a great sea of humanity. The Lord stood there, His hair was as white as snow, and it was long. His robes were white and flowing, and His countenance was so sweet – to those who could look upon Him. Some were hiding their faces because the brightness was so great that they couldn’t look upon Him.

There was a great crack in the earth, like a gulf, and on the other side was the devil. Smoke was ascending from the great hole in the ground. The devil seemed to be waiting for those whom the Lord would reject.

There seemed to be a transparent stairway leading up into Heaven, and on this stairway angels were hovering – and it must have been that their bodies were celestial, because they didn’t look like anything that one could describe.

As the people came up before the Lord, each one was judged individually, and they were either accepted or rejected. It just seemed to be a nod of the Lord’s head or a smile that told their destiny.

When my turn came, the Lord smiled and beckoned me to go with the angels. But I didn’t go. I hid in the folds of His garment, by His side, and I waited until it was my father’s turn. Then my father came – but he was rejected. I began to pull on the garments of the Lord and beg Him to please – for my sake – save my father! Up to that time the Lord had not seemed to notice me, but He turned and smiled at me and said, “Tell your father to go get ready.” That was the end of my dream.

The next morning Dad came home after spending sixteen hours at one gambling table. Though he was apparently under the influence of liquor, yet he could listen to me, and he did. He would not have listened to anyone else; he would not have listened to my mother, for he was too stubborn and rebellious, and he didn’t believe in God. He did listen to me, and I am sure my face was shining as I stood there and told him of the dream and told him that the Lord had saved me. I didn’t know just what to call salvation, but I knew I had received what I read about – and that was what I told him.

My father realized that it was God speaking to him through me, and he said, “O God, if that is You speaking to me through this child, I will give You my life!” He just fell across the bed and began to pray his heart out to God, and the Lord did save him that morning. That was the last time he ever came home in a drunken condition.

I want to say that the Lord did marvelous things in our home.

Three years later we came to Portland, Oregon, but through those three years I prayed. I had no encouragement with the exception of the church papers that were sent to us continually. I would read them and go off alone to pray. Always that dream stayed with me, and that wonderful experience that the Lord gave me while praying on my knees. Our whole family had confidence in the experience that had come into my life. Mother had been trying to make herself believe there was no hell. I just looked at her in amazement and said, “Why of course there is. I saw it!”

Before we moved to Portland, I wanted to join a church, so we began to go to a little church near us. I wanted to be baptized, but it was against the rules of that church to baptize children before they were twelve years old. The minister came to our home and talked to my mother about it. She said, “I can’t tell you; you will have to talk to her.” I was called in from play, and I told the minister what I had seen and how the Lord had talked to me through my dream. I told him that I was saved. I guess that minister had never heard anything like that from a child, but he realized that I knew what I wanted so he baptized me in the church.

When we moved to Portland, it was for no other purpose than to serve God among these people. My father had tuberculosis of the spine for seven years, had three operations, and was told that he would never get well. But when we came to Portland he was prayed for, and the Lord instantly healed him. The disease never returned, and he had good health for twenty-five years.

I want to say that the Lord did marvelous things in our home. My parents were both genuinely saved. My mother lived a sweet Christian life before me for many years and then the Lord saw fit to call her Home. I also saw the Lord make a real victor out of my father who had been so weak. God made him strong. And the time came when he also went triumphantly Home.

I am thankful that I have had the privilege of giving the best days of my life to the Lord and in return, I want to tell about the peace and joy I have experienced, the happiness and contentment through the trials of life. I worked out in the business world and faced the same temptations of life that other people had, but I can truly say that I have found there is power in the Gospel to keep a person happy and satisfied throughout a long lifetime.

God has guided my life when at times I didn’t know which way to turn. I have no other ambition than to be ready when Jesus comes.