Part 8: The Rest of the Story -by Stephen A. Gammon and Morley J. Durost

If Not for God’s Miracles…

“You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples” (Psalm 77:14).

“Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30-31).

When my grandfather Morley Durost sat down in his later years to record the things you have just read, he did so over a prolonged period of time and using his manual typewriter. He never completed the project, but I am so grateful for what he did do. As I have said, when I was handed a shoebox full of the pages he had typed they were not in any semblance of order, so I arranged them in order.

There was one story he started to tell and perhaps finished, but only the first page was found in the shoebox. He told of a time when one of his adult daughters was sick with fever and with Polio. It happened the summer after she graduated from the Maine State Teacher’s College in Farmington, Maine. She had been hired and looked forward to starting her first teaching job at the end of the summer, but that summer she became very ill.

Her conditioned worsened and she was hospitalized. As time went on she grew sicker and sicker, until eventually she was paralyzed. My grandfather informed the school principal that it appeared his daughter would not be available for the start of the school year.

My grandfather described receiving a call one evening from the hospital telling him his daughter was not expected to survive the night, so if they wanted to see her before she died they must hurry. Rather than rush to the hospital as he was urged to do, my grandfather called together the elders of the church to join him in prayers of faith.

And so they prayed for hours, claiming the promises of James 5:13-15, asking and believing God for a miraculous touch. Their plea before the throne of grace offered from a distant location on behalf of his daughter was reminiscent of the Centurion who from a distance sent a message to Jesus on behalf of a dying servant, saying in faith to the Lord, “Say the word, and my servant will be healed.” (Luke 7:7)

As with the Centurion’s plea, their prayers were answered! Though I had heard this story before, as I did not have the complete printed story I went to the woman whose story it described; my Mother. She was the young woman God miraculously touched that night in answer to prayers of faith. In the hospital she was not physically present with her parents or other prayer warriors who were interceding for her. She was in bed, paralyzed, and approaching death.

I asked my Mother to recount her memory of what happened that night. She recalled being in bed and unable to move, but she could still hear. She described hearing a Doctor say, “That young woman will never get out of that bed.” But the man who spoke those words did not know what God could do! He did not know that people of faith were storming the heavens on her behalf. He did not know that Jesus Christ had already touched her.

When my Mother heard the man say, “She will never get out of that bed” she said, “Oh yes, I will!” And with that she sat up and got out of her bed! 

A couple weeks later she was teaching school, and a couple years later she married a young ministerial student. In time they had six children, twenty-six grandchildren, and thus far twenty-four great-grandchildren and counting.

If God was not a prayer-answering, miracle-working God, and if Jesus was not Lord of all and faithful to all of His promises, then I and a lot of other people who are very dear to me would never have lived, and I would not have had the privilege of telling you about His faithfulness! But God is forever faithful! He is faithful in every generation! He is faithful in every chapter of life! He is faithful in every moment, even in the hard times, and He will be forever faithful!

The rest of the story is yet to be written. As we walk in faith with the Lord Jesus in our generation, as my grandfather did in His generation, God continues writing His timeless story in and through us, revealing His attributes and proclaiming in our day the wonders of His name! And then at last, by the grace of Jesus, all who trust in Him will share eternity with Him in Heaven where we will forever proclaim His glory and love! Until then let us be faithful, ever learning from God!