In 1916 while in Denmark I contracted tuberculosis of the throat and head.
I got so weak that while holding a meeting in company with Brother Carl
Forsberg out from Pandrup, Denmark, one evening before the service started
I was suffering so intensely that I went out into the cow barn, sat down on
a milk stool coughing and spitting, praying and weeping until I was so weak
that I was unable to get up when I tried to do so. Time for meeting came,
and the folks did not know what had become of me, so a Brother Madson, a
big strong man, went out to look for me. When he found me he picked me up
and carried me in, laid me on the lounge and the saints prayed for me, and
I got strength to get up and preach. We closed the services that evening.
Brother Forsberg returned to Sweden and I to my headquarters at Hjoring. I
went to a specialist and asked him to write me a permit so that I could
return to America. After he had examined me he said that he could not give
me the permit as I would not be permitted to go aboard ship in the
condition I was in. He said, "You would not live until you got there if you
did start." I told him that I would like to be with my folks when I leave
this world. He replied, "I don't blame you but it can't be done."
Then I got a letter from Brother and Sister Johnson of Jotta, Sweden,
saying that "Brother Forsberg had come home saying that it looked as though
the Lord was through with Brother Susag, he was no near gone. Wife and I
agreed in prayer and the Lord says He is going to heal you and that you are
going to preach to us here many times."
The following Sunday we had services in Hjoring at eleven o'clock, although
I did not seem to be able to stand up, but I thought I might just as well
go to heaven from the pulpit as to go from the bed, if I was going to die
anyway. After I had been speaking about fifteen minutes I quit, as the pain
got so intense in my throat I could hardly speak above a whisper, and the
audience could not hear me. I went up stairs in the chapel where I had my
room, and I lay down on the bed suffering intensely.
Outside my door was a tree and a little bird hopped onto a branch and began
to sing. (I do not know the name of the bird, but the species was like the
birds that used to come to our grove at home in Minnesota and sing. But I
had never before heard one in my travels in Europe). I turned to the bird
and said, "Did my heavenly Father send you from Minnesota to Denmark to
sing for me when I was so troubled?" And the more I would speak to him the
more he would flap his wings and sing and sing until I could forget my pain
and had to laugh aloud. It was nearly four o'clock and that was the time
for the next service. I got up and got ready for the service, and when I
came into the pulpil to preach, to my surprise, I was perfectly healed and
could speak as loud as ever without pain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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