Mary Schmidt had suffered with an extremely large growth in her neck for over 35 years. It was so large (16½ inches in width) that it protruded beyond the level of her chin, giving her an extremely grotesque appearance.
Her husband had died a sudden accidental death, and this additional nervous, as well as emotional, shock threatened to prove to be too much. Immediately after the death of her husband, she had gone to her doctor and pleaded with him to remove the growth—she didn’t care then whether she lived or died. Her doctor, of course, refused to consider surgery, knowing that it would mean her certain death.
Physically ill, despondent, so nervous that she was nearly out of her mind, she felt that she could not face the lonely, sick, purposeless life that lay ahead of her now. There came the time when she could see only one way out of a future which seemed intolerable: suicide. And yet she fought this impulse toward taking her own life. So fearful was she at night that every evening a neighbor or friend sat with her for hours at a time trying to calm her.
A Glimmer of Hope
One night in November as she paced the floor, distraught, afraid, and in despair, she remembered the words of a neighbor: “Why don’t you go to the services at Carnegie Auditorium?” she had said. “You’ll find help there, I know. I was cured of polio—but more than that, I found the Lord.”
When Mary had first heard those words, they didn’t register at all. She went regularly to her own church—why go to a religious service way over on the North Side? But now, she wondered. She had to find some help somewhere. She had to have some help—something to hang on to—or she knew she simply could not go on. Next morning found her on a streetcar on her way to Carnegie Hall.
An Encounter with God
During the service, she was astonished and upset at what she saw. Used to an orthodox service, she had never heard of the “power of God,” let alone seen it at work, and as she saw person after person struck with this power, she watched wide-eyed with amazement, not knowing what to make of it all. Then she heard her first sermon on salvation.
“I had never heard of anything like that before, although I had gone to church regularly. When Miss Kuhlman spoke of being ‘born again,’ I couldn’t understand that, either. I figured I was certainly in the wrong place for me, but as long as I was there, I decided to stay till the end. I didn’t know how to pray this way, and I didn’t know what to say, but I thought to myself, ‘At least I can cry, and no one will see me.’”
Mary dropped to her knees, and the words came, simple, short, and from her heart: “Oh, Jesus, forgive me,” she prayed.
When she arose from her knees, she had experienced her first miracle of God’s mercy, for in that instant she knew that she had lost all fear forever. When she went home that night, a neighbor came over as usual to sit with her. “Thank you,” smiled Mary, “but I am not afraid anymore. I don’t need anyone to help me. I found my help this afternoon.” That night she slept the night through for the first time in many weeks—warm and secure.
The reason for Mary’s whole emotional predicament can be explained in her own words: “I went to church, but I still knew very little of the Bible; I knew about the Lord, but I didn’t know Him.”
A Growing Faith
Mary had now been going to the services for several months. As her knowledge of Jesus increased, she only wondered how she had lived so long without Him, and wondered how she could have thought of taking her own life—of wantonly destroying that which He had given.
Although spiritually she was vastly improved, her physical condition seemed to be growing steadily worse. She knew if God did not heal her, she would undoubtedly die from the goiter, as had her mother and aunt before her, from the same affliction.
The Miracle
On a Thursday in May of 1949, Mary went as usual to the auditorium. She had had a particularly bad and sleepless night, fighting for breath the whole night through. This day she took a prayer request with her to the auditorium.
The service was nearly over when she felt a terrific pain in the top of her head, and simultaneously she felt something pull and tug at her neck. Instinctively she put her hand to her throat. There was no sign of the goiter!
“Oh, Lord,” she said, the tears of joy and gratitude streaming down her face, “Is it really true?” It was.
She kept feeling her neck, and then she ran back (no breathlessness now!) to the ladies’ lounge to look in the mirror. She hardly knew the woman she saw reflected there; for thirty-six years she had seen a huge, misshapen neck, and now it was normal and shapely.
In her own words, “For the next three days I couldn’t sleep or eat, I was so thrilled. I wasn’t sleepy; I wasn’t hungry; all I could do was to keep feeling my neck, and looking in the mirror, and thanking the Lord.”
A Living Testimony
When she returned to her doctor, he was astounded. “What happened?” he exclaimed.
“Do you believe in prayer?” she said.
“I most certainly do,” came his answer.
And she told him what had happened. He examined her carefully and found her in perfect health; the heart condition which had badly worried him, completely gone along with the goiter. This same doctor was to ask many times for prayer.
Miraculous Monday: 13th February 2023
Miraculous Monday 027
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