In March 1943 came the event that was to change my life. A routine physical check-up brought bad news. Chest x-rays showed a soft spotting over both lungs. Specialists were unable to make a conclusive diagnosis, but the trouble appeared to be tuberculosis. Tuberculosis! Hated word, hated disease. I was ordered to bed twenty-fours a day for an infinite period.
Despair settled in. After almost a year and a half in bed, I could see few gains. My husband and four-year old son needed me. Our household situation was becoming more difficult with every month that passed…
There was in me a desire for an all-out effort to reach Him, born of desperation. Sloughed off now were all the trappings of religion, most of them concerned with the ceremonial or organizational aspects of churches that so often confuse the central issue. I began to see wholeness as more than the search for physical health. As I understood the viewpoint of Jesus, it was physical soundness is merely part of a more profound wholeness. In this sense, wholeness can only come about as inner cleaves are healed, as man in joined to the Source of his being. Thus, for me, the search for health became a search for a relationship with God. The question was, what was blocking that relationship?…
So that sunshiny June morning, I got out of bed and stood at the bedroom window looking out at the garden that Peter had so lovingly planted.. A blue, blue sky above.. The sea just over the brow of the hill. There I stood and took the plunge. It amounted to a quiet pledge to God, the promise of a blank check with my life.
“It is ten-twelve AM on the twenty-second of June 1944,” I said. “From this moment, I promise that I’ll try to do whatever You tell me for the rest of my life, insofar as You’ll make it clear to me what Your wishes are. I’m weak and many times I’ll probably want to renege on this. But Lord, You’ll have to help me with that too.”
I took a deep breath; I was trembling, I had entered in. Yet nothing seemed different. The hollyhock faces still nodded at the window. Fluffy clouds still floated in that blue, blue sky. I turned and noted in my journal the date and the hour of the promise I had just made. There would be moments in the future when this pledge would not seem real to me. But it was real, and writing it down would help to remind me.
I felt no emotion other than the relief of knowing that I had completed my part, so far as I knew it. This brought me a peace of mind I had not known during the tortuous days of self-probing and writing the letters of confession.
The proof of the reality of the pledge I had made began coming during the next six weeks. My physical condition was improving. Each morning, I would lie in the yard, soaking up the sunshine. Now I tried joining the family for dinner each night. That did not tire me over such.
Then I began taking short walks some afternoons. It was a joy to stand at the top of the rise in the road and see the sea again, feel the tangy salt air on my cheeks… It was even good to feel sand in my shoes. As of old, I began talking an interest in the garden and the kitchen.. It was like coming to life again. And life was good, so good. The speck of light at the other end of the tunnel was becoming a steady beam.
