3. We don’t need to suggest to Him what to do, for He Himself knows what to do.
Whether her children kept those rules as they prayed for her healing, we don’t know. Surely they pressed the Lord often for the healing of their dear Amma. Surely they made many suggestions.
Amy Carmichael wrote a private note on June 12, 1948, “Not relief from pain, not relief from the weariness that follows, not anything of that sort at all, is my chief need. Thou, O Lord my God, art my need—Thy courage, Thy patience, Thy fortitude. And very much I need a quickened gratitude for the countless helps given every day.”
Ten days later she was feeling pressed because of tiring interviews which came “before I had ‘obtained access.’ See 1 Kings 8:56: ‘There hath not failed one word of all His good promise.’ If we take time to let this soak in, there is rest in the midst of pressure.”
The next day, June 23, was not different from other days, to begin with—the early morning cup of tea, the usual quiet time of reading and prayer, perhaps pills for the usual pain, and then the usual people to see. Someone brought word of another who was going through deep water. She wrote a note and made up a parcel to send to her. There was no one at hand to deliver them except the nurse. She sent her off, and then made her way to the bathroom. She slipped and fell. Neela was by her side almost at once. “Don’t tell anyone,” said Amma, “I shall be all right in the morning.”
Neela promptly disobeyed, called the two doctors, Christian Rogan and Nancy Robbins, who came running. They found a broken right arm and a fractured femur. The shock to an over-eighty frame was nearly lethal, and without a blood transfusion and an injection she might quickly have passed through the Gates. She hovered very near for two days and then rallied. So, she noted wryly, those doctors had “slammed the Gates again.”
Most of the responsibility for the men’s side of the work had devolved on Godfrey Webb-Peploe since Murray’s leaving. He had also the spiritual legacy left by Walker of work in the village of Dohnavur, not to mention “all that Shepherd-work means for the Family.” Before Amma’s accident in June he had been given doctor’s orders to rest. A serious infection had set in after someone had kicked him in one of the boys’ games, and the leg had not healed. Just before Christmas of 1948 he had a thrombosis.
Amy herself, though almost totally immobile since her fall, had snapped back sufficiently to be “deep in everything, and power to think has come again.” She felt it was time for more “‘thinks,’ together with one and another of this dear family”—about their allowing her to drop out altogether of the place of leadership, and implementing what had been decided seventeen years earlier: May and Godfrey were to be the leaders. Their appointment by Amma had been perfectly clear to the Family but they had stubbornly (or was it helplessly?) refused to acknowledge her abdication. Up till now all I could say has been, as the Tamils put it, moonlight upon rock.” What she wanted without further delay was validation by the formal election of May and Godfrey in the annual Kingdom Business” meeting.
One evening seven weeks later Mary Mills came into the Room of Peace. Besides being the “Perfect Nurse” who had cared for Amy ever since her accident, she was one of the closest of her companions. Amy read in her face that something had happened.
“What is it?” she asked. “What is wrong?”
“There is nothing wrong,” said Mary. “God has trusted us with a great trust. Godfrey is in heaven.”
Godfrey, the beloved. Godfrey, her son. First it was Ponnammal, then Arulai, then Murray. One by one they had been given to her. One by one they had demonstrated the spiritual calibre she had asked God for, the character so desperately needed in a leader for her Family. And one by one they had been removed. Now Godfrey, the tower of strength she needed so much more in her old age, the one for whom she had so often thanked God. Godfrey. In heaven. We wonder what “her thoughts said” when she heard the stunning news. We wonder what “her Father said.” What dialogue took place between those two during the rest of that night? It is not recorded. We guess that she said YES. We know that she wrote to the Family next day:
“Our God trusts us to trust Him. . . . Let us not disappoint God. Let us rise to this great trust.”
She reminded them of the great promise of Romans 8:28, and of Jesus’ having wept—proof that “tears are not sin. But to go on lamenting would be sin. It would be as though we doubted the love of our most tender Father. To wonder why this has been allowed to happen would be to dishonor Him. I found myself doing this very thing. ‘Oh, why am I left—I who am useless to you all—and he, who could do so much for you, taken?’ Suddenly I knew that even to think such a thought for a moment, was sin. Thank God for the cleansing Blood. But do not let us grieve His love by wondering why. Faith never wonders why.”
Each of these deaths was a death far harder for Amy to bear than her own physical suffering. But she saw in each of them a chance to die, the opportunity to acknowledge once again the lordship of Christ in her life. He held all the rights. She had turned them over long ago to Him when she resolved to follow Him to the uttermost. The searing questions which crowded her mind she knew that she must refuse. It was one more way of saying no to herself and yes to God.
There was one question she could not
