Betty Fox had been ill for years with this merciless disease for which there is as yet no known medical cure; a disease which in spite of palliative treatment and falsely encouraging temporary remissions, follows a relentless course of progressive crippling until the patient finally becomes helpless. Betty had reached this point by the spring of 1950. She hadn’t been out of her fourth-floor, walk-up apartment for months, except when her husband carried her to the doctor—for by this time she was completely unable to walk.
Her legs were ice cold and numb, and so were her arms up to the elbows. Her hands were useless, unable to pick up or grasp anything. In addition to multiple sclerosis, her heart was threatened. The doctor had told her husband and son that it could not indefinitely survive the severe punishment it was taking from the constant, palsy-like trembling induced by her disease.
A Son’s Faith and a Ray of Hope
It was one day in April that her son, who worked at Kroger’s market, said, “Mother—why don’t you go to those services on the North Side where Kathryn Kuhlman is preaching? When I pass by Carnegie Auditorium on the way to and from work, I see people walking out to the ambulances in which they were brought to the services. I’ve seen people walking carrying their crutches. Why don’t you go and see what happens?”
Betty replied quickly, “Well, honey, I’m just too far gone. The doctors all say there’s absolutely nothing to be done.” “Listen, mom,” her son said firmly, “I’ve seen them go in on stretchers and I’ve seen them walk out. If this can happen to others, it can happen to you.” The boy kept urging his mother until at last she agreed to at least listen to the daily broadcasts, but this was easier said than done for she was totally unable to grasp the knob to turn the radio on.
An Unexpected Moment of Power
It was a Friday morning in early May that a friend stopped in a few minutes before the broadcast was due to begin. “Betty,” she said, “I wrote in a prayer request for you, and I want you to listen to it today.” She turned the radio on for Betty, and they sat together on the sofa, listening, but Betty’s name was not mentioned over the air. The next day, Saturday, when there was no broadcast, another friend happened in to see Betty.
They were sitting in the living room talking together when suddenly it happened—”I thought it was just another of the regular shaking spells,” relates Betty, “and then I began to shake so hard, I knew this was something entirely different. My friend was so badly frightened that she went home. She told me later that she thought I was dying. I was scared and began to crawl through the hall and then I met my sister-in-law who was just coming in to visit me, and she took me into the living room.”
The Miracle Moment
“I was sitting there,” Betty continues, “shaking so hard by now I thought I would fall apart, but this shaking was different! My sister-in-law thought maybe a cigarette would help me—so she lit one and handed it to me, but I just couldn’t smoke it. Then suddenly, and instantly, as if someone had turned off an electric switch, I stopped shaking.” Betty’s little three-year-old nephew was in the room at the time, and he said, “What happened, Aunt Betty, that all of a sudden you stopped shaking like that?”
Miraculous Monday: 12th December 2022
Miraculous Monday 021
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