When I turned eighteen I moved to Sana Francisco to live with my sister, Marie, and take a position with the Great Western Electric Company. Life went along uneventfully until I was twenty-one when my sister and her husband moved back home to be near my parents. That left me alone in the city.
At that time I was doing a lot of things that would have been ashamed for my father and mother to know. When I look back, what I was doing wasn't all that bad, but the fact was that I wasn't following the teaching and training of my childhood and teenage years.
Every week a group of Salvation Army officers would hold street meting at 22nd and Mission Streets and sometimes I would hear music from the meeting. Well, this particular night the windows were open and I heard the sound of the Army drum drifting through the window. Something came over me to go and listen to these people. I thought that they seemed to really believe what they were saying - at least they dared to stand outside and tell people about it. So, I put on my hat and coat and walked down there.
When I got to the meeting, I noticed one young girl with beautiful blue eyes who had on a hat tied under her chin with a bow. She was just radiant. A lot of people were walking by, but nobody was stopping to listen.
GOD LOVES YOU !
I didn't want to just stand out and look like I was paying attention to what they were saying, so I turned around and pretended that I was window shopping. All the time, I was straining to listen. Well, I turned around again to look and the girl I had noticed earlier stepped out and said very loudly, "God loves you."
And I thought, "No! God doesn't love me. I don't love Him, and I know He doesn't love me. I'm doing too many things that are wrong."
Then I heard her begin to recite John 3:16, "For God so loved the world..."
And that's all I heard. My attention was caught by the word "world". And I said, "That's right, God loves the world. I'm the world. So, God loves ME." With that, something just came over me. I didn't hear any more that I could remember, but when the meeting closed, I followed them. And, as I was walking behind them, I suddenly thought, "Well, I'm not that bad. I didn't rob a bank or steal anybody's husband." So I walked up boldly and took this girl's arm and said, "Is it all right if I go to you meeting.?"
Well, she was so glad and excited about me that she turned around and put her arm around me and wasn't going to let me go.
That service was the first time I ever heard anyone testify and say they were glad they were saved. Every time someone would testify, I would turn completely around and look right at their face, and I would think, "How could you possibly be glad?" I thought when you became a Christian everything became sad. It seemed like everyone became stiff and formal and they didn't have any fun at all. But everyone of these people said they were glad, and their faces just shone. Then at the end of the service some of them came up to the front and knelt down and the officers in uniform would kneel beside them.
I wondered what they were doing. Were they confessing their sins? Were these uniformed people like priests? You see, I'd never been in that kind of service and I didn't know what was going on. But I knew these people were very serious and in my heart I knew that I wanted to come back again, because I wanted to hear more.
MY HEART YEARNS FOR MORE
The next morning at work, I called my girlfriend and I asked her if she would like to go to the Salvation Arm Headquarters on 13th and Valencia Street for a meeting. It had been announced that there was going to be a special service with the cadets from the trainging college. We both found the idea of seeing these cadets very attractive.
So she said, "Sure, I'll go with you. We'll have a good time."
Well, I was a very serious person; it wasn't easy for me to have fun. And I suddenly realized that my purpose of attending that meeting was not for fun but to find out what it was these people had in their lives that I seemed to lack.
ARE YOU SAVED?
When we arrived at the meeting I looked around, and could just sense the sincerity and dedication of those young cadets and knew that something of real meaning was in their lives.
A nice gray-haired lady, who seemed to be the officer in charge, kept looking at us from the platform. I guess my friend and I stood out like two sore thumbs. Our hair was cut short, which was unusual during the days of Prohibition and we both wore coats with fur collars. While one officer was preaching, I felt that this woman was going to come over and talk to me. Sure enough, as the message was drawing to a close, this lady started to get up. So, I began moving over so the lady would have room to sit down, because I didn't want to draw attention to us by having her stand there beside us. I made up my mind that I would ask her some questions designed to cut the conversation short. When this lady sat down beside me, she put her arm around me and asked, "Honey, are you saved?"
I answered, "No, I'm not saved. Are you?"
And she said, "Yes."
JUST ASK JESUS
Well, that startled me, becasue I expected her to say, "I hope to be", or "I'm doing the best I can." And then I was going to say, "I hope to be saved, too, and I'm doing the best I can." But when she said "Yes", by mouth fell open and I asked her, "How do you know that you're saved? You haven't died yet. The books haven't been opened. You haven't gone through the judgment. You may have more things written against you than for you. Instead of going up, you may find yourself going down. So, how could you know if you're saved?"
And she said, "God's Spirit witnesses with my spirit that I am born of God."
Well, I knew that was in the Bible, so I asked, "What did you do?"
Then she answered, "Nothing, Honey. I just asked Jesus to come into my heart, and I asked Him to forgive me. And He did!"
I said, "Do you mean to tell me that we can know, that we can be sure we are saved before we die?"
She answered, "Oh, yes!"
I said, "Well, that's what I want. I want to be saved. I want to know that I am saved."
"Well, just let Jesus come into your heart," she encouraged.
Just then I heard another officer calling out to the people , "Jesus is here. He's calling for you. He wants you to come. He wants to enter your life. He wants to change you."
I said to her, "Do you mean to tell me that Jesus is here right now? Right here? And if I go to the front I'll meet Him and He'll speak to me, and I'll know that I'm saved?"
And she answered, "Yes."
So, I said to my girlfriend, "You can do what you want to, but I'm going to get saved."
In spite of my shyness, I rose to my feet in that huge auditorium with its balcony full of people. As I got up I began to cry and my hands went up over my head. I was crying and shouting as I headed down the aisle. I wan't even aware that my friend had gotten up and was following me. When I got to the altar I cried what seemed to be a bucket full of tears. I wan't crying because of my sins or my guilt or anything that I had done; I was crying because I knew Jesus had died for me and taken my sins and I was forgiven, and I was saved!
When I got up they were all rejoicing and hugging and kissing me and accepting me as one of them. They were doing the same thing with my girlfriend.
Finally, an officer came and said, "Now that you're saved, I want to give you these little books." And he gave each one of us a book titled THE RULES AND REGULATIONS OF THE SALVATION ARMY. Then the man said, "In order to grow and mature and become good Christians, you need to read these rules and regulations. You ought to go home tonight and read it through and begin to obey these rules."
THE REALITY OF SALVATION
When we were on the street car heading for home, my friend said to me, "You sure put on quite a show."
I said, "What do you mean, "Put on a show?"
She said, "Well, you know, the way you were acting. It wasn't real."
I said, "Oh, yes it is real. I wasn't acting. I really and truly got saved." I said, "Didn't you get saved?"
She said, Oh, no. I was just having fun." When she began to realize that I was serious, she said, "Well, I'll give you about two weeks and you'll be coming out of it."
But you know, I never came out of it. Not to this very day. I was twenty-one years old, and now I'm eighty-three and I never did come out of it, because I became a new person. Old things passed away, and all things became new. Oh, there were still things in my life tht weren't right, and I had to grow and mature in the Lord, but I was definitely born of the Spirit that night.
As soon as I got home, I began to read THE RULES AND REGULATIONS OF THE SALVATION ARMY. And at the end of the little book, there was a pledge that went something like this: "I pledge to read three chapters of the Bible and pray fifteen minutes every day. I will pay my tithes and obey the rules of the Salvation Army in order to become a member."
I thought, "That doesn't sound very hard to do." So, I signed the pledge.
The very next morning, I got up early in time to read a chapter out of the book of John where they had advised me to start. After that I began to pray. Well, I prayed for my father and my mother and all my brothers and sisters and my friends and the for the Salvation Army and for my girlfriend and I prayed that I would be a real testimony during the day.
However, when I looked at the clock, not even three minutes had gone by. I just didn't have anything more to pray. I didn't know what else to do.l I didn't know how to meditatie or anything, so I just got up and went to work.
Here, I had been so wonderfully saved by grace and I thought I was going to keep myself saved by obeying a human pledge, human regulations. That has been our error. We have been saved by grace; we're kept by grace; and we grow by grace because it is His seed of life within us that is growing and maturing. He lives His life through us.
But one thing I was admonished to do was to testify to others about my salvation. So, when I got to work that morning, the first thing I said to the other three girls in the office was, "I went to the Salvation Army last night and I got saved. And now I'm a Christian; I'm a different person."
Well, the news travelled like wild fire through my department. I worked in the section where the meters and transformers were brought in for repair, so there were quite a few men working in the shop. The next thing I knew, I was being called "Lassie", and they were all teasing me. But I survived, I was able to take it, because I now stood in a new strength. Bless the Lord!
Chapter 6 - MY YEARS WITH THE SALVATION ARMY
CALLED TO PREACH
I can clearly remember my first meeting out on the street. I was saved on Friday and the next night the Salvation Army was to conduct their street ministry. They told me one of the things I should do was to go and stand with them as a witness of the salvation of Jesus Christ in my heart. So I went. During that meeting I heard Captain Cox announce tht they had a new convert who was going to testify. I looke around for this new convert not realizing she meant me until she took hold of my arm and said, "That's you!"
I said, "I can't say anything! I don't know what to say!"
She asked me, "Are you glad your're still saved."
And I answered, "Yes."
So, she said, "Well just stand right out there and tell the people that you are glad you are saved."
The thought came to me that if I was going to tell the people walking down the street that I was glad I was saved I was going to say it just as loudly as I could. So I yelled at the top of my voice, over all the noise of the traffic, "I am glad that I am saved."
That instant something came down on me and I forgt where I was. By the time I realized what I was doing, I was crying and laughing and jumping up and down, and I was almost beside myself. Then I realized that a great number of people had stopped and were gathered around on both corners.
On the way home, Lieuutenanat White (the girl with the blue eyes and boind hair, who had caught my attention the night before when she said, "God loves you") said to me, "We didn't realize you were a preacher."
And I said, "I'm not a preacher."
She said, "Oh, yes you are. You were preaching."
I asked, "What was I preaching?"
She answered, "You were quoting a lot of scriptures."
And I said, "Well, I don't know any scriptures. The only scriptures I know were the ones I learned as a child in the Dutch Reform Church."
Then she said, "Oh, but you were speaking in English, and you quoting all these scriptures in English."
That was the anointing of God, but I didn't realize it. You see, I had the call of God the very first time I had to open my mouth and tell what Jesus had done for me.
SALVATION ARMY COLLEGE
I began attending the Salvation Army services and growing in the Lord. I learned how to really study the Word of God and to meditate and wait upon Him. I knew in my heart that I wanted to go through the Salvation Army training college and become an officer. And that's what I did. I was trained to cooperate and be in harmony with other cadets and to obey the rules and regulations. I also learned how to study the word of God systematically.
We held meeting in the women's county jail, and we visited people in the old folks home and in hospitals. Another one of our duties was to have street meetings and I was trained in how to speak extemporaneously, as the Lord directed.
MY COMMISSION
Finally I was commissioned as a Probationary Lieutenant and stationed on Third and Howard Street in San Francisco. That is like the skid row street of forgotten men, like the bowery in New York. All this was good experience and I thank God for the training I received in the Salvation Army.
A WITNESS TO MY FAMILY
I had written to my family about the change in my life, and I had been home to witness to them. So during the time I was in training my parents came to visit me. My father just had to come and find out if those things were really true, so they stayed with me for a week. They went with me to all the Salvation Army meetings and they went home satisfied that my experience was real.
I was with the Salvation Army for about five years when my mother died. Since I was the only girl who wasn't married at the time, my brothers and sisters all felt that I should be the one to come home and stay with my father for a while, because he was taking it very, very hard.
So, I got a three month furlough from the Salvation Army to be with him.
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