God Came Through
True stories, outside the Bible, of moments when God answered prayer or provided. Each is told as far as possible in the person’s own words, from accounts published before 1931, with a takeaway for today and a link to read the original.
The Child Who Came at the Right Time
Amy Carmichael · Told 1903 · Dohnavur, South India
Seven years old, about to be given to a temple, praying, “Oh, let me die!”
The story, in their own words
South India. A little girl the missionaries called Pearl-eyes had been kept by a temple woman, who once “burnt her little fingers across, as a punishment for some childish fault.” She ran away to find her mother: “It took three days to walk... I described my mother to the people in the streets, and at last I found my mother.” But the temple woman followed, “and the mother gave her up.”
Then she overheard the plan. She was to be “married to the god,” “tied to a stone.” Terrified, she ran into the shrine and begged the idol, “Let me die! Oh, let me die!” Amy Carmichael writes, “Barely seven years old, and she prayed, ‘Oh, let me die!’”
She tried to run again, but the missionaries were away. Carmichael explains, “If she had come to our village then, she could not have been saved... So God kept her from coming then.”
Meanwhile the temple women tried to scare her with the name of the “child-stealing Ammal” — Amy herself. “It was only said to frighten her, but it did a different work.” On “the day after we returned,” the thought came to Pearl-eyes, “I will go and look for that child-stealing Ammal”; and she “came to our village, and stood alone in front of the church.”
What happened next: A Christian woman called Servant of Jesus found her there and, because “mercifully it was late (another touch of the hand of God),” took her home for the night instead of back to the temple. Pearl-eyes stayed with the mission.
So what?
God’s timing protects as well as provides. A door that stayed shut kept a child safe, and the very words meant to frighten her led her home. “We have been struck,” Carmichael wrote, “by the touches that tell how God cares.”
“When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up.”
Today’s step
Thank God for one “closed door” in your past that you now see was protection.
Source: Things as They Are: Mission Work in Southern India (1903), Chapter XIX. Public domain.
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October 18
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House looted, boat stolen, men hunting him in the dark, and nowhere to hide but a tree.
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October 19
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A proud young lawyer, alone in the woods, too ashamed to be seen praying.
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October 20
“Well, I’m the Corpse”
Six months of appendicitis, a doctor with no hope, and a wife preparing to say goodbye.
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October 21
Turned Aside by the Snow
A miserable teenager, a snowstorm, and a substitute preacher with almost nothing to say.
C. H. Spurgeon
October 22
The Child Who Came at the Right Time
Seven years old, about to be given to a temple, praying, “Oh, let me die!”
Amy Carmichael
October 23
A Chair at the Table
A widow, a houseful of children, and her oldest boy gone without a word.
D. L. Moody
October 24
Twenty Pounds in the Garden
The fund down from £780 to £20, thirty pounds needed in days, and no one told.
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October 25
The Late-Night Doctor’s Bill
Salary overdue, rent unpaid, and he had promised God he wouldn’t say a word.
J. Hudson Taylor
October 26
Five Hours in a Canoe
A leaky canoe, a raging sea, and his crew throwing down their paddles.
John G. Paton
October 27
Jehovah’s Rain
Church on fire, clubs raised over his head, and the flames heading for the house.
John G. Paton
October 28
Up and Dressed in Fifteen Minutes
A bride dying days before her wedding, and a doctor who had just said, “No hope.”
Smith Wigglesworth
October 29
A Verse in a Shop Window
Cholera in every street, a funeral every day, and a young pastor ready to sink.
C. H. Spurgeon
October 30
The Night the Ship Was Sinking
Seven hundred people on a broken ship, water gaining on the pumps, and no sail in sight.
D. L. Moody
October 31
The Trinkets That Could Not Wait
Not one penny in the orphan fund, and pounds needed within days.
George Müller
November 1
“You Are a Dead Man”
A needle prick, a deadly infection, and a surgeon telling him to go home and put his affairs in order.
J. Hudson Taylor
November 2
“Sail O! Sail O!”
The final attack was coming at dawn, and they had no way off the island.
John G. Paton
November 3
The Clothes by the Fire
A young man bedridden so long he was fed with a spoon and never dressed.
Smith Wigglesworth
November 4
Five Hundred Pounds and a Ship
A mission with no collections, a party ready for China, and no ship yet.
J. Hudson Taylor
November 5
The Man Who Turned Back
No bread, no money for the milk at nine, and the Lord’s name on the line.
George Müller
November 6
The Walk to Cheapside
Too weak to walk downstairs, two miles to go, and almost no money left.
J. Hudson Taylor
November 7
Rain from Below
A dry island, no fresh water, and the chief sure the missionary would drown digging for it.
John G. Paton
November 8
The Woman on the Train
Seventy years old, on her way to have her leg cut off.
Smith Wigglesworth
November 9
Bread for the Lord’s Day
Saturday night, 8:30, three orphan houses, and no bread for Sunday.
George Müller
November 10
Wind on a Sunday Afternoon
Becalmed, drifting toward reefs, and cannibals lighting fires on the beach.
J. Hudson Taylor
November 11
Just in Time for Tea
Four o’clock, tea at five, and nothing in the cupboards.
George Müller
November 12
A Pound on the Way to the Milk
The milkman due at eight, the fund empty, and Müller praying as he walked.
George Müller
November 13
A Basket of Bread While They Prayed
Saturday evening, nothing for Sunday, and the workers on their knees.
George Müller
November 14
The Sleepless Landowner
A field for a new orphan house, a price too high, and an owner who wasn’t home.
George Müller
About these stories
Retellings are our own, kept to what the sources say. Words in quotation marks inside each story are the person’s own, word for word from the original books, all published before 1931 and in the public domain in the United States. Where a source gives no exact date, the year shown is approximate or the year the account was published.