Ambrose and Olga Worrall took the doctrine of “Don’t come uninvited” to extreme lengths — or so I thought. A key story involves their relations with one another.
From The Gift of Healing, pages 118-120:[*]
Some time before our marriage Olga had injured her left hand in a fall on an icy sidewalk. Following this mishap a small lump appeared in the injured area. It did not disappear, but grew larger until it was as big as a good-sized walnut. Olga had been praying, unknown to me, that this lump would disappear. She was a little alarmed at the size of it, the fact that it did not grow smaller and that it was causing her considerable pain. Several of our doctor friends had tried their skills on it, without success. Several recommended surgery, with the warning that because of the position of the lump, it could cause loss of the use of the hand.
I had noticed it and wondered about it but my intuition said let Olga speak of it, if she wanted me to help her. There are times when gifted persons are not able to help themselves, even though they can help others.
At last one night the pain in her wrist and hand became almost unbearable. She had endured this for some time without mentioning it to me; now it had reached the breaking point. Lying in bed, in the dark, with tears in her eyes from this pain, she prayed to God to give her some direction. The next instant, Olga disclosed later, she was hearing words spoken in a voice that seemed quite real and distinct: “Ask Ambrose to touch your wrist.”
At that moment all that I knew, lying in bed beside my wife, was that she turned and said to me, “Dear, will you please touch my wrist and heal it?”
Half asleep, I heard her words. I said, “I have been wondering when you were going to ask me.”
Then I reached out and held her hand and her wrist at the point just above the hand itself where the lump had formed. I held it, I think, only a few seconds, perhaps ten or fifteen. Something told me this was all that I needed to do.
I let go her wrist and went to sleep.
We did not mention this incident in the morning, nor look at or speak of the lump on her wrist. Because of its unusual significance Olga later set down her record of that event.
“That morning I was in a hurry to get breakfast for Ambrose who was a trifle late for work. I did not think about my wrist or hand at all. After breakfast I went out with Ambrose to the garage. He got into the car and drove off, and I closed the garage doors and started back to the house.
“A next-door neighbor was hanging out the morning wash, and I stopped a moment to chat with her. As we were talking she suddenly said, ‘Oh, I see you’ve had that awful lump on your wrist removed.’
“I looked down at my hand and saw that the lump had disappeared.
“I have seen hundreds of healings and with Ambrose and in my own work have helped to bring healing to many individuals. But it is quite something else when it happens to you. I briefly commented on the lump being gone and hurried into the house.
“I sat down on a kitchen chair, quite overwhelmed. With tears in my eyes, I kept saying out loud, ‘Thank you, thank you, dear God, thank you.’
“That night when Ambrose came home the first thing I did was to show him the wrist. I said, ‘It’s gone — it’s gone.’
“Tears came into his eyes as he joined me in giving prayerful thanks to God for this healing.”
That was many years ago. Neither the lump nor the pain returned.
Points:
(1) Ambrose Worrall took no initiative to act on an obvious need of his own wife. Now, until I recently re-read this passage with the intention of copying it here, I had forgotten this detail: “[M]y intuition said let Olga speak of it, if she wanted me to help her.” Thus his inaction was a matter of following intuition or Guidance.
(2) “[G]ifted persons are not [always] able to help themselves.” Jesus quoted the proverb, “Physician, heal yourself” (Luke 4:23) to refute it. God put us in community for a reason. We need to help each other. “You scratch my back; I’ll scratch yours.” I recently mentioned certain inabilities I appear to face as an “NF” person. A close friend and Follower is at the opposite extreme; she never seems to have any doubt about what she wants in life. I suppose that can be a disadvantage in its own way. One isn’t “right” and the other “wrong,” rather, God means us to help each other.
==================================== [*]Ambrose A. Worrall with Olga N. Worrall, The Gift of Healing. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers. Copyright (c) 1965 by Harper & Row, Publishers.
Reblogged 2022-01-20.
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