Fifty-eight Years of Proving God

After years of serving God, her confidence in Him held steady when crisis struck.

By Ruth Steele

I heard the Gospel from the time I was a child. I was born in Shiloh, Alabama, as the seventh in a family of twelve children. Our home was a very humble place, but my people loved the Lord and taught us about Him. My parents were loved and respected not only by us, but also by the whole community.

To my sorrow, I turned that early training aside for a time. When I was in fifth grade, I had to go away to boarding school because there was no middle or high school in our area. I was sent to Thomaston, Alabama, about 100 miles from Shiloh. I finished high school as valedictorian of my class, but then I had to go back to the farm, and I couldn’t seem to adjust to that life anymore. I told my mother I was going to leave, and I did.

Disaster struck

I moved in with my brother’s family and began attending college, but God did not forget where I was. Disaster struck my life. My brother’s home burned down, and all of my things were lost along with theirs. Many friends and neighbors came to our rescue, and shortly after that, I began to go to the Apostolic Faith Church in Mobile, Alabama, with one of those friends. There, the Lord dealt with my heart. The day came when I couldn’t go on any longer. Trouble drove me to my knees, and there, in a little place that had sawdust on the floor, I prayed my way through to victory. God took me out of sin, and He took the sin out of me.

Not long after I was saved, the Lord brought a wonderful young man into my life, and we were married in February of 1945. In the years that followed, God blessed our home with children. While we were beginning to raise our family, our pastor asked us to go to Houston, Texas, to help with the establishment of an Apostolic Faith work there. We moved into a four-room house, which we shared with the pastor and his wife, and we lived there in peace and love until the pastor was able to get another place.

Called into the ministry

My husband and I did what we could in the work of the Lord, and some years later, God called me into the ministry. I didn’t want the job of preaching, and I resisted at first. I put out a fleece before the Lord, and He clearly showed me that this was His will. I could not doubt or plead with God any longer—I had to keep my promise to Him. I finally went to my pastor about the matter, and he said that he already knew I was called to preach and was just waiting for me to tell him. God helped me take that step of faith, and He has always been with me.

A few years ago, I was in a serious automobile accident. I did not see it happen, but they told me later that I had been knocked off the road and into a house. I was rushed by life flight to a hospital in Pensacola. There they found I had a badly broken leg and extensive head injuries. I was immediately taken into surgery, but in spite of everything going on around me, I had no fear. I thought perhaps it was my time to go to be with the Lord, but God brought me through. I was in the hospital for about thirty days, and when I got home, I still had to go through extensive therapy. It was very painful, but in all my trials, God was with me. They thought I might never walk again, but after a time I was able to do so, though I still had a lot of stiffness and pain.

God’s sustaining power evidenced

I wanted to go to the camp meeting in Portland one more time, and I started asking God to make it possible. About the time I started making my plans, my leg began to tighten up and give me a lot of trouble. I thought about one of our ministers who had visited Century, Florida, with his wife, and I knew they were prayer warriors. I wrote to them asking for prayer, and I received a letter back saying, “The pain and misery can all go in the Name of Jesus.” When I read that letter, I just lifted my hands and praised God. The Lord helped me make it all the way across the country to the camp meeting.

Recently, as my husband and I celebrated fifty years of marriage, I looked back over the years and thought: What a mighty God we serve! God has brought me from tragedy to triumph, and I cannot touch the fringes of what He has done in my life. I have had fifty-eight years to prove Him true, and I thank God for the old-time religion.

Ruth Steele is the retired pastor of the
Apostolic Faith Church in Century, Florida.