The story of the beginnings of the New Life Clinic (link) illustrates again how adamant the Worralls were to “not come uninvited.”

On pages 132-134 of The Gift of Healing,[*] Ambrose Worrall writes:

Olga was visiting a sister in New York City, while I was away on a business trip.  A friend from Baltimore, whom Olga met in New York, told her that she had just read a newspaper article about a minister in Baltimore who had become interested in religious healing.  His first healing service was to take place in his Baltimore church on Tuesday the following week.  Since Olga and I were in this work, her friend was sure we would want to attend this meeting.

* * *

… Olga arrived home in time to attend that healing service on Tuesday morning at the Mt. Vernon Place Methodist Church in Baltimore.  As she came into the church, she met a lady we have both known many years, and they sat together.  After the service this friend suggested that Olga should come up and meet the minister, Dr. Albert E. Day.

After the introduction they talked briefly.  In a hurried sentence or two Olga managed to tell him of her own interest in healing.  Dr. Day suggested that she stop in at his office and leave her name and address with his secretary.  This Olga did — and promptly forgot about it, with no anticipation that she would ever hear from him again.

A series of happenings in our home on Thursday morning changed her entire thinking on this matter.  I believe it best here to let Olga report this as she herself wrote it down, some time afterward, for our records:

“. . . The following Thursday morning, around 8:00 A.M., I found my thoughts dwelling on the minister and the healing service.  I made every effort to dismiss these thoughts; after all, the minister did not call me, so why all the excitement?  However, by 8:30 that morning something that refused to be silenced insisted that the minister had need of my help and experience in the field of healing and that I was to phone him.  I actually felt a strong push in the back that made me fall across the bed as I was making up the bed.

“I called out, ‘O God, please don’t let me make a fool of myself.  I have never forced myself on anyone.  The man has my phone number and if he is interested he will phone.’  This was ridiculous — all the years my husband and I have been doing this work we have never gone to anyone offering our services.  However, this command to contact the minister kept after me until at 9:00 A.M. I found myself calling the church office.  The secretary informed me that Dr. Day was not in, was not expected because this was his day away from the office.

“I thanked the secretary with much relief; now I would not make a fool of myself.  Before I could hang up a voice said, ‘I’m the associate minister — may I help?’  Very briefly, I told him my name and my interest in healing.  Dr. Day’s associate minister said, ‘Oh — we’ve been looking for your phone number — the secretary misplaced it.  May I call at your home to see you?’  I answered that I would rather see him at the church office.  By 10:00 A.M. I was at the church office, wondering all the while what on earth possessed me to be doing all this.

“I explained to this young associate minister what my husband and I had been doing in the field of spiritual healing without benefit of any organ­i­za­tion or group affiliations.  In the midst of this conversation, the door of the office opened and in walked the minister himself, Dr. Day, much to the surprise of the associate minister who said, ‘Why — what are you doing in here today?’

“Dr. Day then stated that he had suddenly felt that there was a compelling reason for him to come to his office even though this was his day to stay at home.  Further discussion brought out my own experience of the morning, when I had felt this force within me urging me to phone the church.  Dr. Day then asked me what time that was, and I said approximately eight thirty that morning.  He seemed amazed, and told me that at precisely that time he was on his knees at his home in prayer, asking God to send him someone who knew something about the healing ministry to help in this new venture he was starting.”

Related:  The New Life Clinic
Related:  Don’t come uninvited.
Related:  Reconsidering “Don’t come uninvited.”
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[*]Ambrose A. Worrall with Olga N. Worrall, The Gift of Healing. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers. Copyright (c) 1965 by Harper & Row, Publishers.

Reblogged 2022-08-11.