Chapter 7 - LEARNING GOD'S GRACE
A TURN IN MY LIFE
During the time that I was caring for my father I quite unexpectedly came in contact with my old sweetheart, Herman Van Assen, the young man my father had banished from our property some ten years earlier. Now, here we were together again, and that old attraction sprang up between us.
To make a long story short, I left the Salvation Army in 1934 and married Herman, but since Herman wasn't a member of the Salvation Army, I lost my rank.
About this time, everyone, including me, began to think I had backslidden. But I still loved the Lord, and as it turned out, I was walking out the plan and purpose that was destined for me.
The next five years of my married life I couldn't get away from that call of God. Many times Herman would wake me up in the night and say, "Dora, Dora, you're preaching again." So, I would even preach in my sleep.
Here I thought I was lost, yet, all the time, it was actually God dealing with me. Of course, I thought it was the devil, and I was being tormented before my time. But, all along, it was God speaking to my heart and causing me to realize that I wasn't in His perfect will. I was learning the grace of God.
I had come into the thought that I was the one who had heard the Salvation Army drum beat. I had said to myself, "I'm going to listen to them." I am the one who followed them to the hall. I am the one who knelt at the altar. I'm the one who prayed through, and I was the one who got saved.
I had to learan that it wasn't I at all, but it was the Spirit of God who caused me to hear those drums beat. It was the Spirit of God who put the desire in my heart to cause me to listen to them. It was the Spirit of God who caused me to hear those words, "God loves you." It was the Sprit of God who caused me to kneel at the altar and open my heart unto Him and thank Him for His great and wonderful salvation.
During those five years, I learned that it was the grace of God that teaches us to live righteously and soberly and godly in this present world. Paul said, "I am what I am by the grace of God." So, I thank God that He led me out of the Salvation Army into the deeper truths of His wonderful grace. And it was also by marrying Herman that God united us together to work in the gospel.
It wasn't long after we were married that I discovered my husband really was not a believer. All the time he was courting me, he just consented to go with me to church and to the young people's meetings. He said that he couldn't be in church on Sunday all day. I could go in the morning but he wanted to have his meal at twelve o'clock like he did any other time during the week. So this little friction was between us, though we did love one another. And, in a measure, we were happy and compatible. But deep down inside, there was something lacking. Eventually, I began to realize that he didn't even believe in God or the Bible, and he called himself an atheist.
In those first six years, we had two children, Herman Floyd, our oldest, and our daughter, Tillora.
HERMAN'S CRISIS
At that time, we were living in Banning, California and Herman became very sick with asthma. It grew so bad that it was diagnosed as bronchiectasis, which today might be called emphysema. He would get these very bad diaphragm spasms and would have to be hospitalized. He spent the greater part of four years in the hospital. Finally he said that he didn't want to go the hospital anymore, because they really weren't able to do anything for him. He said he would rather stay home. So I learned to take care of him at home; to give his shots of adrenaline, amytol pills and morphine shot so he could sleep a few hours. Eventually, he was totally beridden.
My sister, Tilly Hendricks, came to help me, and the first night she was with me, she said, "Now, Dora, you need to go to sleep and get some rest. I'll take care of him."
In the morning, Tilly handed me a letter and said, "I dont' know how he did it, I don't know how he got the strength, but he wrote this letter." The letter was to his friend, Henry Boertje, who had come to America with him, and who had married his sister Gertrude.
The letter said, "Henry, I wish I was dead. If I were dead, Dora would be a widow and she would get a widow's pension, and she wouldn't have to pay out all the money for medicine for me. She's still young, and she could get married again, and a stepfather would take better care of my children than I can."
Well, this just stabbed me in the heart. So, I said, "Herman, I'm not going to mail this letter."
He countered, "Oh, yes you are."
I said, "No, I'm not going to mail it."
And this made him very angry, and he began to curse.
GOD'S GRACE MADE REAL
I realized then that he didn't know what he was doing, and I said, "All right, all right." And I put the letter down. Then I walked into the kitchen thinking, "You don't have to mail it, just don't do anything more about it. He'll just forget about it." But while I was putting the coffee pot on, which was only a few seconds later, I heard my husband crying, really crying hard.
I rushed out of the kitchen into the parlor where he was. My sister, Tilly, got there at the same time, and we were both leaning over him and trying to get him to talk to us. I kept saying, "Talk to me, Daddy. Talk to me Daddy", thinking he was dying right before us.
When he could talk, he said, "God spoke to me."
And my sister said, "Oh, you must be dreaming."
But I thought, "How could he be dreaming; he was just cursing a moment ago."
Then he said, "I did not want to pray; God made me pray."
And, I began to realize that something was taking place.
Then, he said, "God reached His hand down and touched my side, and I'm healed, and I'm going to get up."
I kept saying, "No, Daddy! You've been in bed too long. You've been sick too long; you're too weak to get up." And I tried to hold him in bed.
But he pushed me out of the way, and he walked to the dresser in the bedroom. He wasn't able to find his underwear, so he took a blue shirt and blue overalls and put them right over his pajamas.
The whole time, I thought he was going to fall over.
My sister kept saying to me, "Humor him! Humor him! Don't you realize that he is out of his mind? People get superhuman strength when they're like this. Humor him."
So, I didn't touch him or do anything.
Then he looked out the window and saw the garden, and he said, "Oh, look at the weeds in the garden. Weren't you able to keep the weeds out of the garden? Look at that puncture vine." Then he went outside to the garage and got a hoe and he began to chop the weeds.
Tilly and I were riveted to the window just watching him.
All of a sudden, he began to shout at the top of his voice, and he threw the hoe down and jumped up and down, shouting like the Dutch people do "Yay, yay, yay! (Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!) And, then he began to run, stopping every once in a while to shout. I thought, "Oh, my, my sister is right. He has lost his mind."
Then he came into the house and threw his arms around me and said, "Oh, Mama, I'm saved! Aren't you glad I'm saved?"
I said, "Yes, Herman, of course I'm glad. But you mustn't get this excited."
Then he walked into the bathroom with me trailing close on his heels. You see, I didn't quite trust him, because he had already tried to commit suicide twice by taking overdoses of medicine that the doctor had prescribed for his pain. But, here he was standing, looking in the mirror.
I said, "Herman, what are you trying to see?"
And, he said, "I'm trying to see Jesus in me."
Herman realized that Christ had entered into his heart. Then he told me what had taken place outside. He said, "Jesus appeared to me. I saw his light form." And he waved his hand from side to side saying, "I could not feel anything. And then he walked right inside of me." In that instant, Herman had come into the revelation of Christ in you, the hope of glory. He had such a tremendous experience that he actually expected to see the face of Jesus reflected in his own face as he looked in the mirror.
Then, he said to me, "I have to know God's will. I must read the Bible. I'm thiry-eight years old, and I don't know God's will; I must read the Bible. I'll read it on my knees, so I'll know His will for my life."
So, I went and got the Bible and opened it up, while he was on his knees beside the bed. It fell open to Ezekiel, chapter thirty-eight, so that's where he began to read.
I thought to myself, "That's the wrong place to read the Bible. He should be reading the New Testament about Jesus. You see, he had never been brought up in church or Bible school, and I know that's where he ought to begin in order to learn about Jesus and not those prophets in the Old Testament who were so mysterious that we hardly know their meaning even to this day.
Well, he read that chapter out loud, and he got up and said, "Mama, that's talking about Russia, this army of the North and Gog and Magog." He said, "That's actually Russia. Germany is not our real enemy, our enemy is Russia." Then, his eyes looked far off and got real sharp, and out of his mouth came the words, "Look unto the hills from whence cometh thy strength."
I recognized that as a verse from the Psalms, and I wondered how he could know that verse.
Then he said, "I see a road, it is a military road; it is a road coming down from Alaska into America, and America is financing this road." I know now that he was seeing the pipeline extending from Alaska to America. At that time, Alaska wasn't even a state. Herman was actually having a vision.
He announced, "I have to pray." So, he went outside on the porch and knelt down and began to pray out loud with his hands up, and he began to speak in a strange language which, I know now, was tongues.
When he came in the house, he carried a stern look, and he said, "A miracle has happened to me. This miracle can happen to you too."
Tilly and I were both frightened, and we didn't know what to do. But, she said to me, "I'm going to pack up my clothes and go home. You don't need me here any more. Besides, too many strange things are happening here for me." So Tilly packed her suitcase and left.
Then, Herman said to me, "I don't want to overdo it; I'm going to lie down." So he went into the bedroom and lay down and went to sleep.
The next day Herman walked down town to the drug store where we got all his medicine. He went in and told the druggist that the Lord had saved him and healed him and he wouldn't be coming in very much any more.
There was a scale in the store, so Herman stepped on the scale, and he weighed a hundred and thirteen pounds. His regular weight had been about a hundred and sixty-five pounds. He had lost all that weight because of his illness.
So, here we was, up walking around, witnessing to everyone, telling them about the change that had come into his life. He was testifying of the saving grace of God and his healing power.
Herman was a man of one book, and that was the Bible. He would read the Bible, word for word, from Genesis to Revelation, even the begets. I would usually skip those, but he would read every word, and he would put a mark in his Bible every time he would go through it. When I was going through his Bible after the Lord had taken him home, I saw that there were eleven marks. He had read that Bible through eleven times! Of course, his favorite scriptures he had read hundreds of times. He really loved God's word.
It wasn't long until he found work in the army hospital in Palm Springs washing pot and pans. I remember the first time he stood up in church and testified how God had saved him and given him work. He was so thankful to be able to work after being sick for six years. He was crying and everybody else was crying too.
However, Herman didn't stay on the kitchen crew for very long. One day he told the sergeant that he would like to have a job outside as a plumber's helper.
But the sergeant said, "We can't transfer someone from the kitchen into the plumbing shop."
So, Herman and I just prayed, and soon the Lord answered, and he began working as a plumber's helper. He worked in that Army hospital for three years.
It wasn't hard to see God's nature shining forth in Herman. He always looked on the bright side of things and had a quick humor. Children just adored him and called him the "The Candy Man", because he used to carry lemon drops in his pocket for them.
During those early years, we each learned the miracle of God's grace in our own way.
CHAPTER 8 - GOD'S PLAN REVEALED
RETURN TO THE MINISTRY
I, too, came into the experience of being filled with the Holy Ghost, and we began attending the Assembly of God Church in Banning. It was during that time that my husband got the call of God upon his life to go into the ministry.
It told him, "Herman, you'll have to go to a Bible School and get credentials."
But, he answered, "No, I'm going to go out by faith and just trust God."
And I said, "But you have to have some license."
Then he responded, "Who gave Paul license? Who licensed Peter, John, and James? They just went out and preached. Nobody gave them a license. Why do we have to do it today?"
I even said to him, "Would you like to go to the Salvation Army and go through their school. Then I would get my credentials back and be an officer, and we could go out together."
But, Herman didn't want to do that either. So, he began to pray for me. One night I woke up, and he wasn't in bed, so I went to look for him. There he was out in the garage praying, and he was crying out to God. I knew he was praying for me, because he said, "Wake her up, Lord. Don't let her just sleep there. You know that You've called her. You know that the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. You know, Father, it was my fault. I enticed her, and she married me and that 's why she's not preaching today."
Well, I got under such conviction that I just couldn't stand it. I walked back into the living room and I knelt down by the davenpost, and I prayed, "Father, I'll go back into the ministry, if you'll just make the way. I'll go back, even if I have to live on bread and water."
By this time, we had two children, and I didn't see how we were going to have very much just going out by faith. But the Lord opened up the way for us to start our first mission, called the Door of Hope, in Stockton, California.
The only work that I had been trained for was to minister out on the street. So, we obtained a permit, and we would minister out on the corner of El Dorado and Center Street; then we would go into the building and have our little service. And God began to bless us. I know we were a blessing to those who heard us, because many people came in and gave their hearts to the Lord.
Eventualy, Herman began to fall sick again, and because of that, he felt that we were not in the center of God's will. So we thought that it would be better to go into the desert. The Lord led us to Lancaster, California and we found a place to live about two miles outside of town. It was there God led me to open a little Sunday School where I taught a few children and some of their parents.
Herman soon began to realize that he didn't exactly believe what I was preaching. He came to me one day and said, "Mama, you not preaching salvation, you're preaching probation. You're putting people on probation. You're saying that after they're saved they have to do certain things in order to remain saved. They're not really saved; just on probation. If they do right and live right and endure until the end they'll be saved. But that's not what the Bible says. It says, "Believe on the Lord, Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house." I know that I have salvation, and I got it freely, and I don't have to work for it in order to keep it. It's the gift of God."
QUESTIONING THE ALMIGHTY
Well, after hearing him say that, I realized that I just had to have some answers. So I began going through a period of great questioning. With my mouth I was saying, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" But deep down in my heart, I was asking, "Father, I don't understand how you can love everyone and not be a respecter of persons, yet, I see so much difference in life. I see little children born in poor familes whose father and mother, themselves, are really almost retarded. They're born in ignorance, and they're born in want. Many of them never have enough to eat, while other children are born into rich families and have every opportunity. Some are born healthy and strong, while others are sickly and deformed.
Then, I see the difference in the way people hear the gospel. We live in America, can hear the good news of salvation thousands of times, yet there are places in the world where people have never had the opportunity to hear the name of Jesus. It doesn't seem that everyone has been given an equal opportunity."
It was because of this pressure on me that I and my friend, Rhoda Geeson, who lived in Poplar Grove with her husband and family, decided that we would fast and pray. So, after we saw our husbands off to work and the children off to school, we walked down a wash in the desert and came to a juniper tree where we spread out a blanket and sat down to pray and worship God.
In spite of all these questions in my heart, I began to feel the moving of the Spirit deep down within my being. And it began to rise into my throat and into my mouth. I couldn't say, "Hallelujah", any more, and it seemed as though two voices were coming out of me, my own voice saying "Hallelujah" and another voice deep inside me saying "Hallelujah", like an echo.
"Hallelujah!"
"Hallelujah!"
It was so wonderful that I didn't want to stop. I felt something crawling over my feet, and a fly was bothering me, and I thought that I might swallow the fly. So, I said, "Lord, please take me out of the realm of the flesh. I want to continue on in Your Spirit." And that was the last I knew.
THE GLORIOUS VISION
Sister Geeson said that I just flopped down on my back and broke out in unknown tongues. Then I got real quiet, and she knew I was was having a vision.
Finally, it was nearly two o'clock in the afternoon and Rhoda had to leave me there, so she would be home when the children came in from school. She knew that nothing could harm me, because I was caught away in the Spirit.
The first thing I remember was a radiant, dazzling, vibrating, white light, and I know it was the Shekinah Glory of God. In the light, I saw a small cross. It looked like it was standing deep down in a funnel. Through the years I have come to understand that the cross I saw was deep down inside of me. And that's where God begins - in the heart of every man. This cross became larger and larger until it filled my whole vision. It pulsated and throbbed and pulsated , and I heard the words, "You are seeing my heart." Through that I realized that the greatest manifestation of God's love was demonstrated at the cross.
In my vision, I noticed that the rays of light radiated from the cross in all directions, and these rays were the very Spirit of God. It was actually the Spirit of God's love reaching out everywhere and drawing everything back unto itself. That's what love does; it reaches out and draws everything back to itself. It's just like when one of our children falls in the mud. We run out and pick them up and draw them to our bosom and begin to soothe them. It's not till afterwards that we see how dirty he is and that the dirt has even come off on us. Then we go into the house and wash him. There is a scripture that says God loves us and washes us and makes us to be kings and priests. He loves us first, and then he washes us and cleanses us. We are filled with His Spirit for the perfection of our own heart. These rays were like magnets reaching out and drawing all to Himself. The scripture come to me, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me."
Then I noticed that there were big circles, like big whirls or stars and one would unfold from another one. Each time the rays from the cross would go over these areas, I would hear a wonderful sound of praise. It was actually the music of the stars, the music of the universe. It was glorious, wonderful note of harmony!
When I came out of this vision, I was overwhelmed by what God had revealed to me. Yet, there was a small doubt in my heart, because it was so different from what I expected a vision to be. I wan't taken to heaven; I didn't see mansions or streets of gold; I didn't see my loved ones, nor did I see Jesus. I couldn't understand it. Furthermore, I didn't see hell. I never saw this place of torment that I had been taught existed. I had been teaching others that if they weren't saved that they would go there forever.
All I saw was this wonderful Light, the glorious cross with the rays reaching out and drawing all things back unto itself. I didn't understand what these big circles were, but I have never heard such a beautiful sound of praise before, and I had never seen such Light! It was all so glorious.
When I awoke from the vision, I found myself stretched out on my back with the scorching desert sun beating right down on my face. I was afraid that my eyes might me damaged and my face blistered, but then I thought, "No, when you are in the Spirit, nothing bad happens to you."
Then I noticed that my husband was coming to meet me. I was wondering to myself just what I was going to say to him about this vision, because there was this doubt in my heart that was asking, "Did all this happen because I had been questioning God?" From childhood I had been told not to question God, but here I was questioning God's righteousness and His love. So, I didn't want to say anything about it.
But when he saw my face, he said, "Mama, you've received something from God."
I said, "Yes, I did, but I don't know what it means."
And he said, "Well, Mama, don't worry about it. It will all fall together." Coming from Holland, he had some of those old Dutch phrases, and instead of saying, "It will all fall in place", he would say, "It will all fall together."
So, we walked home together in silence.
That night, brother and sister Geeson and their children came over and they were curious about what God had revealed to me. I kept saying that I didn't have anything to tell them, but that I had had a vision, and I didn't know what it meant. Perhaps it was only for me. They went home disappointed, but I just didn't feel that I could speak of something I did not understand myself.
THE VISION EXPLAINED
A day or two later, I got desperate, and I said, "Lord, you are going to have to reveal this vision to me in the Bible, because I know that the Spirit and the Word agree. And, if it's not of You, Lord, You're going to have to take it out of my mind. Otherwise, please show me in Your Word.
I was standing in the bedroom with my Bible, and I opened it at random and put it on the bed. Then I dropped to my knees and began to read. The first chapter of Ephesians was staring me in the face, and my eyes just seemed to be drawn to the tenth verse. Then, one word jumped out at me, and it was the word "times". I had read that verse on many occasions, but I had never noticed the "s" on times. It reads, "That in the dispensation of the fulness of times God would draw together in one all things that are in heaven and in earth, even in Him." I just sat there and gazed at that phrase, "...in the fulness of times, He would gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and in earth." "Times". I didn't know there was more than one time. We had been taught in the Salvation Army that the coming of Jesus would be the end of the world, the end of time. Yet here it said, "times". And in my mind's eye, that vision flashed before me - the cross, the rays reaching out, the cirlcles going around the cross. Then suddenlly I realized that those circles represented great periods of time. God's plan of salvation was being fulfilled in great periods of time. The cross was standing in the center of time, reaching out from the beginning and going forward to the very end, and everything was in the cross.
Then my eye floated across the page to Ephesians 2:7 which says, "in the ages to come God would show His exceeding kindness." So, there were ages to come. And the thought came to me, "if we're all in heaven, and all the rest are on earth, and they're all lost' then, who is He showing this kindness to?" Then I noticed that one place it says, "times" and the other place it says "ages". I realized I must verify this, so I went to my father's Dutch Bible, because that was the only other translation I had to compare it with. Well, the Dutch Bible was the Geneva translation; it wasn't a King James translation. So, I got the Dutch Bible and looked up those two verses and the word was exactly the same in both verses. It was the word, "ewen", and it means ages. In fact, it means even longer than ages. Ewen is the Greek word transliterated, a word that is coined. We did the same thing in English. We took the Greek word "aion", meaning long periods of time, an age, or more than one age and transliterated it into "eon". So the first thougth that came into my mind was, "Could it be possible that the Bible wasn't translated word for word? Could there be an error?" That's when I understood that neither the King James nor the Geneva translation were literally translated word for word.
Even after that, I surely didn't have all the answers, but I did know one thing; God's love is real. Deep down in His own heart, he had a Great Plan of Salvation for all His creation. In Ephesians 1:9 it says, "Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which he hath purposed in Himself." That means to me that God has a will, and God is making His will known unto us, and this will is according to His own good pleasure. And deep down inside Himself, He has a prupose and a plan, that when time is complete, He will have gathered together into one all things in heaven and earth.
We have a part in this Great Plan of Salvation for all people, for we have obtained an inheritance. We have been predestinated according to the prupose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. So, God has predestinated a plan from before time began that everything would be drawn back into Himself through the Lord Jesus Christ. No one has been prredestinated to be lost. All have been predestinated to be saved. I knew that deep down in my heart, and I never doubted it after that morning.
In order to retain what the Lord was giving me, I knew I needed to draw what I had been shown in the vision. So, I got a big carboard box and borrowed by children's crayons. Then I took a yard stick and some plates and saucers to use as patterns, and I drew a big chart. I still have that chart to this day. In fact, I've written two books on this subject: GOD'S UNFAILING LOVE REVEALED IN THE CROSS, and GOD'S UNFAILING PLAN REVEALED THROUGH THE EONS.
This vision changed my life, and it changed Herman's life. Following the revelation, we tried to be in fellowship with other Christians, but this message was so different that it wasn't received very well.
Then one day, as my husband was praying and asking the Father what we should do, he got a vision of working among the Indians, and he knew that God was calling us to be missionaries to the Indian people. God was about to change our lives again.
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