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GROWING UP
During the same year and in the same state as the revival of 1857-1858,
Carrie Frances Judd entered the world. Carrie, the fourth of eight
children, 
was born on April 8, 1858, and spent her early days in Buffalo, New
York. During her childhood years, she lost two of her siblings to severe
illnesses. Because of her own deteriorating health, at fifteen years
old, her brother invited her to live with him in another area of New
York which had a better climate . . .
THE FALL
One cold winter day in 1876, as Carrie was walking to school; she
slipped
and fell hard on the icy ground. She continued to school that day; but
shortly after, her health began to rapidly deteriorate. Carrie
discovered
she had spinal fever. What “seemed to be tuberculosis of the spine”
developed into “tuberculosis of the blood” which forced Carrie to
give up school and her aspirations of becoming a school teacher.
Being “prostrated with spinal complaint…the trouble extended to
all the large joints. Her hips, knees, and ankles could not be touched,
even by herself without great suffering.” For over eleven months she
could not even sit up on her own. She could not even handle light or
much time with people. A small pillow under her head felt
“like a block of stone.” Her days in bed grew into months and then
years. At a time when those around her were expecting her death at any
moment, even her mother allowing friends into her room to say their
last goodbyes, her father came across a unique article in the local
newspaper.
The article told of the account of Mrs. Edward Mix, a
“colored woman” from Connecticut, being healed of tuberculosis through
the prayers of Mr. Ethan Allan. Upon hearing this, Carrie asked her
sister Eva to send Mrs. Mix a letter requesting healing prayer from
her. To their surprise, the Judd family received a quick response from
Mrs. Mix. The prayer found in James 5:15 was central to the letter as
well as an encouragement to act in faith regardless of how she felt.
In the letter was also a specific set apart time where both sides would
pray at the same time for Carrie’s healing.
THE RISING
Even though no one showed up to Mrs. Mix’s regular prayer meeting
that day due to poor weather, she and her husband prayed for Carrie
nonetheless. During their set-apart time of prayer on February 26, 1879,
Carrie engaged in a spiritual battle. Finally, she felt it was time
to act in faith and get up out of bed. Unassisted, she walked over to
the nearby chair. Her healing process was ignited from that day forward.
By April of that same year, she was well enough to use the stairs and
go outside to visit the neighbors. In the years that followed, she
corresponded
with Mrs. Mix. At one point, Mrs. Mix even came to visit and they went
out into the city to pray for healing of those who were sick.
HEALING HOMES
News of Carrie’s healing spread, and she soon became the talk of the
town. People heard of her story in newspapers and wrote letters to her
asking if she was really healed. Many people came to her to hear of
her story and to receive prayer. Her compassion was stirred, and she
opened up a room in her parent’s home to receive such people. Soon
after, she decided to open up a healing home in Buffalo, New York in
April, 1882. This place was one of the first healing homes in New York
and was used as a model for many future healing homes in the country.
WRITER
Carrie was also a prolific writer. Based on the prayer found in James
5 and her own healing experience, she wrote The Prayer of Faith (1880) to encourage others to embrace and
take hold of their healing. This book was significant because it was
among some of first prominent books written on the subject of divine
healing in her time. In 1881, she also initiated a magazine called Triumphs of Faith which emphasized holiness and divine healing.
She continued to write and edit this journal for over
60 years.
PREACHER
Carrie became an itinerant preacher and teacher and traveled
internationally
throughout her life to share her story of healing and encourage people
in their faith. Her zeal to spread the somewhat unpopular message of
divine healing at that time put her in the category of a radical
evangelical.
Through her close friendship with A.B. Simpson, she eventually became
a part of the forming of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA).
Simpson continually encouraged and created space for her
to step out and share her story.
Carrie transcended denominational barriers as she shared her story,
speaking at Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Salvation Army,
Alliance,
and other gatherings. Not too long after the Civil War and in a time
before Martin Luther King Jr. came to the scene, she also preached to
African Americans. In 1889 Carrie experienced some persecution and even
some churches shutting their doors to her, first because she was a woman
preacher and second because she spoke to African Americans.
WEDDING BELLS AND CALIFORNIA
In 1890, Carrie married a successful business man named George S.
Montgomery
who was previously healed of diabetes and afterward had
“consecrated himself to the Lord’s service.” He brought her from
Buffalo, New York to Oakland, California. With her husband’s constant
support and great provision of resources, she opened up an orphanage
and a training center there.
The Montgomery’s also built The Home of Peace which is still there
to this day. This was the first healing home on the West Coast and
through
Carrie’s move to California, she was one of the first early advocates
of divine healing on the west side of the nation. In several histories
of the Divine Healing Movement, Carrie is the only woman listed among
the other key shapers in the movement of Charles Cullis, A.B. Simpson,
A.J. Gordon, William E. Boardman, Andrew Murray, and other men. She
and her husband also became honorary officers in the Salvation Army
before the turn of the century.
THE PENTECOSTAL STAMP
When birth of American Pentecostalism arose through the Azusa Street
Revival in California in 1906, Carrie, although hesitantly at first,
eventually received her Spirit baptism experience (in 1908). Even at
age 50 and having already been a successful minister, she was open to
all that the Spirit had to offer. This experience deeply impacted her
life and spirituality and the theme of Spirit baptism became integrated
into her magazine and her teaching.
Because of her great reputation, she was used as a bridge between
Evangelicals
and Pentecostals. To the Evangelicals, she had a voice to introduce
Spirit baptism to them without all the fanaticism and to the
Pentecostals,
she remained balanced and didn’t overemphasize the gift of tongues.
By 1914, she was part of what would later be called the Assemblies of
God.
Throughout her life, Carrie became personal friends with Charles Cullis,
A.B. Simpson, William Booth, Minnie Abrams, Pandita Ramabai, Elizabeth
Baxter, Maria Woodworth-Etter, William J. Seymour and was connected
to Smith Wigglesworth, Aimee Semple McPherson, John G. Lake, and many
other prominent Christian leaders in her time. She continued her
ministry
until her death on July 26, 1946 and was succeeded by her only child,
Faith Berry.
INSPIRATION
Carrie continually gave away whatever she received from God. After her
own healing, she taught others about healing and prayed for them to
be made well. She later lived through the Pentecostal revival of the
early 1900’s and was open what the Spirit wanted to
do while remaining balanced in the midst of some fanaticism. After her
Spirit baptism experience, she encouraged others towards the same
fullness.
Whenever she experienced something from God, she eagerly sought to help
others receive the same.
Carrie remained faithful to her husband and to the Lord all the days
of her life. She lived a full life based on total surrender to the Holy
Spirit, discipline, and unity in love, service, prayer, and faith. While
Carrie made mistakes in her life like all people do, she serves as an
inspiration not only for young people and for women to step out in faith
against all odds, but for all people to live lives fully surrendered
to the Holy Spirit, to be unified in love above all controversies, and
to freely give away what has been freely received.
The following
is one of my all-time favorite articles by Carrie Judd Montgomery. She
talks about her healing encounter and her Spirit baptism experience;
then, moves on by highlighting that being in His presence is the most
important thing of all. Stopping, being still, and simply knowing He
is God. She shares her secret of how to walk in His inheritance for
our lives.
Carrie Judd Montgomery, “Life on Wings. The Possibilities of Pentecost,”Triumphs of Faith 32:8 (August 1912), article was taken from
an address delivered at the Stone Church in Chicago in 1910 and revised
by the author (CJM). Transcribed and copyrighted
by Jen Miskov - http://asleepinthedaylight.
blogspot.com/
I want to talk to you about “The Life on Wings.” Read with me
Deuteronomy
xxxii :9-14. That the Lord’s people are the Lord’s portion is a
precious thought, for He left everything in order that He might have
this portion. So, I believe the Lord means for us to realize how very,
very precious we are to Him. We remember how in our own experience He
found us in a “desert land” and in the
“waste howling wilderness,” and led us about and instructed us and
kept us as the apple of His eye.
Then in this scripture there follows the picture of the eagle stirring
up her nest. Many of you have probably read the description as has
actually
been witnessed by some who have climbed to the dizzy height of rocks
and watched the mother eagle break up the nest of her young. The time
had come when the mother-bird saw that the eaglets must learn to fly,
and in order that they might learn to do this, she took her strong beak
and made havoc of the nest; pulled it to pieces in order that the
eaglets
might no longer have a resting place there. Then she throws the young
eaglets out of the nest down over the dizzy precipice, and of course,
the little things think they will be dashed to pieces on the great rocks
beneath, but with one great swoop the mother-bird sweeps down under
them, and the little eaglets, instead of falling down to be dashed to
pieces on the rocks below, fall upon the safe, strong wings of the
mother.
This is the picture that God gives us as the actual way in which He
deals with you and me. We can all of us think as we look back, how He
stirred up our nests. We had such nice ones; all fixed up for ourselves.
They were softly lined, and cozy and warm, and we expected to stay but
God came, spoiled all our plans, broke in pieces the nest and tumbled
us out. Why? In order that we might learn to fly; in order that we might
find the wings which He had already caused to spring forth within our
very hearts, but which we had not learned to use, the wings of faith.
I look back and remember how He tore my nest to pieces. I had it all
arranged. I had my aspirations and ambitions as a young girl. I knew
just what I wanted and what would make me happy, and what, in a vague
way, I trusted would make me useful, but God permitted the nest to be
pulled to pieces. That awful sickness that followed after I had fallen
and injured my spine, those days and nights of suffering, of anguish,
of helplessness ; those days when the very room had to be darkened on
account of the suffering in my head, were but a mere shadow of the
darkness
that had come into my life and into my very soul. Through this awful
trial it seemed as though everything was lost; I could not see that
there ever would be any brightness in life. I was a confirmed helpless
invalid. For two years and two months I lay there, being taken down
at the age of eighteen, at a time when a girl’s .life usually looks
the brightest. Oh, how hard it was! Nobody knows how hard, and I was
so hungry after God. My soul was utterly unsatisfied, but God was
breaking
up the nest of human ambitions, human hopes and aspirations. He knew
what He was doing, although I did not.
Job said, “He knoweth the way that I take; when He hath tried me I
shall come forth as gold.” He knew the way for Job and He knew it
for me also. Now, after all the years of blessing that have been mine
since I was so wondrously healed by the Lord, I realize more and more
it was because the snug nest in which I thought I was so secure, was
broken up. Now I am able to encourage other hearts that are going
through
the shadow and through the valley. So take heart, dear friends; it is
better farther on, for as some one has said, there are two openings
to the tunnel. We go in at one end, but there is another end to come
out. We may he in the tunnel today, beloved, but the other end is there,
and you will go through if you go on with God.
What would my life have been without that stirring up? God only knows,
but I know it would not have been what it has been. After the long
period
of suffering and anguish and the coming down to the very jaws of death,
the Lord swept His great eagle wings under the poor little frightened
eaglet and I found His great wings to rest upon.
He says in Exodus xix:4, “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians,
and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto Myself.”
Oh, what a blessed goal! Unto Himself! On the strong eagle wings God
bears us unto His very heart of love. Oh what a wonderful day that was
when He answered prayer for me! The time had been set for prayer by
that dear colored woman, Mrs. Mix. How wonderful it was that we heard
about her at all! The Lord knew what the result would be when He let
that little account of her healing of consumption in answer to prayer,
be published in a Buffalo paper, and let it catch my father’s eye.
In those days very little was known, especially in this country, about
Divine Healing. Do not think, beloved, we ever had such meetings as
these we now enjoy. I would that yet might realize your privileges!
When this dear colored sister in Connecticut wrote and said
“The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise
him up,” I didn’t know that was in the Bible. She said,
“This promise is for you as though you were the only person living.
That was a wonderful thought, and the Lord gave me a mighty inspiration
of divine faith I never had before. He revealed Himself to me, raised
me up, caused all the diseases to depart in one instant of time, and
gave me my first introduction to the Holy Spirit. Oh how wonderful it
all was! No words can describe it.
Those days were days of praise when it seemed as though I should call
upon everything around to help me praise the Lord. I found the eagle’s
wings. At first it seemed as though I only knew the dove wings; they
were not very strong; the little attempted flights of faith, in certain
directions had to be increased. You remember the Psalmist said,
“Oh that I had wings like a dove, that I might fly away and be at
rest.” But the dove wings would not take us very far; we need the
eagle wings. So through different teachings and especially through many
testings and trials of faith, the Lord changed the dove wings into the
eagle wings.
But some are saying, “How are we to get this faith?” The only way
God can develop our faith is through trial. You ask the Lord to give
you a stronger faith, and what does He do? He puts a trial upon the
faith you already have. He will take your faith and test it and try
it, and you think all is lost, but that very testing and trying of your
faith is what brings out the pure gold and causes you to have a stronger
faith than ever you had before.
In California we have many gold mines even yet, although they are not
so plentiful as they used to be. There are two kinds of mines: one is
the placer mine which contains the loose gold mingled with the sand
and which therefore can easily be separated; the other is a quartz mine,
where the gold is in the rock. When it is free gold it can very easily
be separated from the rock, but in many of the mines there is what the
miners call rebellious ore; they also call it refractory ore, and when
I first heard my husband call the ore rebellious and say it was a
technical
term they used, I said, “That is just like some people, rebellious
ore, refractory ore; the gold is there but very hard to get out.”
This gold is so united with baser metals that they must have a different
process to get the gold free from the baser ore; they do not care
anything
about the baser ores, they can be burned up or volatilized, but the
miners are after the gold.
Now God is after the gold in us. “I counsel thee to buy of Me gold
tried in the fire, that thou mayst be rich.” They have different
processes
now, but one process which is used a good deal is a row of furnaces
through which it is put one after the other and each one is hotter than
the preceding. We ask to be delivered from one of God’s furnaces and
we may get into a hotter one. I visited a mine and I saw the whole
process.
First, they broke the rock in pieces and then pulverized it, then there
were large canvas sheets spread out, slightly on an incline, and the
pulverized rock and ore was put on there and a stream of water was run
over it, and some one stood at the top and swept it down carefully.
The pulverized rock which was light went off with the water, but the
metal, which was heavier, stayed on the canvas and it was swept off
in little piles. It didn’t look’ at all like gold, and you know,
beloved, it is only God that can see the gold in us sometimes; I am
sorry we haven’t more spiritual perception to enable us to see the
gold in each other. May God help us to see the gold in each other’s
souls!
Those sulphurets, as they call them, look something like mortar; you
couldn’t see any gold at all, but it was there. We went into the furnace
room, and saw where they were putting it into one furnace after another;
my husband is a mining man and he took me to visit this large mine that
I might see all the processes.
The superintendent stood by me and we saw a lot of little sparks flying
in every direction, and he explained that that was the baser metals
being burned or volatilized, and then, not knowing he was uttering a
great spiritual truth, he said, “When the sparks stop flying we take
it out of the fire. It is finished.” That was so good I looked up
at my husband and said: “Why, that is the way it is with us; the Lord
takes us out of the furnace when the sparks stop flying, the sparks
of doubt, the sparks of fear, the sparks of impatience and of lack of
love; when they stop flying then God the Great Refiner knows it is time
to take US out of the furnace.” Let us ask God to do His work quickly
that the sparks may stop flying, but when we do see the sparks flying
in ourselves or in each other shall we not be more patient now that
we know what the sparks are? that they are only flying because God is
working with us or working with some other soul? May God help us to
be patient with each other when the sparks fly! Sparks are not always
agreeable especially when they fly upon us, but the Lord can make us
patient.
Oh, I often think that if in stead of getting impatient with the dear
tried ones when perhaps their love fails, or their patience fails, or
their faith fails, if we could only stand in love and tenderness and
resist the enemy for them, claim the victory of the blood for their
poor, tried souls how much better it would be and how much faster the
Lord could work with our own souls. The Lord help us! He is trying to
teach us to love one another with a pure heart fervently. I understand
“fervently” here, in the Greek, means to be
“boiling hot” in our love. You never can have the love that keeps
up to the boiling heat all the time unless you first have a pure heart.
“Love one another with a pure heart fervently.”
We want to look again at the thought of the winged life. We get it in
that well-known passage in Isa. xl:28-31.
“He giveth power to the faint; and to them
that have no might He increaseth strength.” I wonder if there are
any faint ones here tonight. He says He will give you power. The
fainting
are the very ones to whom He promises power, but to them that have no
might at all He increaseth strength.
All that we have must be surrendered to Him to use as He wills. The
one thing I found hardest to consecrate to the Lord when I was a girl
and He was seeking to lead me to Himself, was a little talent I was
born with, and that was a little gift of writing verses and also prose
and when the Lord sought to lead me to Himself during that awful
suffering,
I gave God all but that one thing, and about that I said,
“No, it is good and I do not have to give it up.” He pressed it
upon me that I had to surrender it to Him, and finally I told Him I
would hold on to it as tightly as I could and that He would have to
pull it away from me. That wasn’t very pleasant for the Lord, nor
for me, but He was faithful; He saw I had to take the hard way. So when
I got to the place of full surrender, just before I was healed, I said
“Lord, I am willing to have Thee make me willing,” and He took me
at that. When I got there I gave it all up to Him as best I could, and
I never expected Him to let me write another thing.
I had written from a child and had a volume of poems printed, written
before I had finished my eighteenth year, but I never expected to be
able to write again, and so after my healing it was a wonderful joy
to find that that which had gone to Calvary with Him was given back
in resurrection power. There only was this difference: Instead of using
it myself, the Holy Spirit uses it. God seems to keep it, as it were,
locked up in a cupboard, and whenever He wants me to use it for Him,
He enables me to use it in the power of His endless life, and then takes
it back again for safe keeping. That is why the Lord is pleased to use
the little book, “The Prayer of Faith,” so greatly, because He wrote
it through me. This is a little illustration to show you that everything
you have, has got to go down into death, all your natural ability, all
your natural talent, all your natural knowledge and wisdom. Everything!
If He chooses to give you back anything in resurrection life, all right,
and if He doesn’t it is better not to get it back. It is an empty
life, wherein you feel absolutely nothing; perfect weakness, emptied
out for Jesus; you feel nothing but blankness and God causes you to
stand before Him. It is just a question of trusting Him; letting Him
take possession of your mind, and “when our weakness leans upon His
might, then all is right.”
People know very little about the mind being cleansed by the blood and
being emptied of all its human thoughts. I cannot begin to tell you
what God has done in my mind since I have had this fuller baptism of
the Holy Ghost. He shows me that people are having their minds corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus. He shows me that the
weapons
of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling
down of strongholds; casting down imaginations and every high thing
that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God. He shows me I cannot
reason in the old way. Oh the wonderful realization that God has emptied
my own mind out, and that I have the mind of Christ. This is so restful;
it feels as though my brain was having a holiday, and all the busy,
wearisome thoughts are gone.
This is a part of the life on wings. In all the many years of
blessedness
before this fuller baptism, I did not know what I am talking about now,
this freedom of the mind from all care; of course, I had a great deal
of blessing and a great deal of freedom from care, and felt that God
had guided me and blessed me wonderfully, but I didn’t know what I
am talking about now. Now I feel that the Holy Spirit holds my brain
just as He does the rest of my being, but it is just as loving and
tender
as it is strong.
Now He tells us He exchanges our strength. We shall mount up with wings
as eagles, and this is wonderfully true not only in the spiritual and
the mental, but true in the physical, and since this mighty baptism
in the Holy Ghost which I received over two years ago, I know what that
mounting up with wings is in my physical being. I feel oftentimes when
I walk along the streets as though I could hardly walk properly, I am
so full of something which seems as though it was lifting me up on
wings;
wings on my feet, wings on my limbs, wings all over. I realize it as
I run up and down the stairs. It is Romans viii:11,
“But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell
in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your
mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.”
Early this morning as the power of God was upon me, and I was
recognizing,
as I so often love to do, the presence of the
indwelling Comforter, and worshipping Him in His temple, with the Father
and the Son, was led out in prayer for different things, but all at
once He said to me, “I want you to recognize definitely that I am
filling the temple.” Of course, I know He always
fills it, but this was something a little different and He wanted the
recognition that every part of spirit, soul and body was pervaded with
His presence, and that meant, as He revealed to me His meaning, that
I should drop even prayer for the time and be
occupied with the presence of His glory, and I said,
“Oh, God, the Holy Ghost, Thou art filling Thy temple,” and immediately,
just as though a little vial of attar of roses had been broken in this
room and every part of it would soon be filled with the perfume, so
the presence of His glory, sensibly pervaded every part of my being
and even love and prayer were lost in worship. Then I thought of the
time in the Old Testament when the temple was so filled with God’s
glory that the priest could not even stand
to minister.
There is, therefore, an experience beyond service and beyond prayer,
and that is a revelation of His own personality to such an extent that
there is nothing but adoring worship filling our being. Usually it is
a blessed experience to be able to speak in tongues, to let the heavenly
song flow out, but there are times when even tongues cease, when His
presence is so all-pervading and the atmosphere so heavenly that I
cannot
talk at all in any language, but the power of His blessed Spirit upon
me is so marvelous that it seems as though I were almost dwelling in
heaven.
I hope this testimony will make some one press on for the fulness. The
Word tells us, “That the communication of thy faith may become effectual
by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ
Jesus.”
Philemon 6. Through our faithful testimony somebody else’s torch may
be lighted in the love and providence of God, and suppose we should
hesitate for fear of persecution, should stop acknowledging every good
thing which is in us in Christ Jesus and somebody’s torch should fail
to be lit. We have a great responsibility, and if we fail in testimony
our own light will grow dim.
If you acknowledge everything that is in you in Christ Jesus He will
be ready to give you more good things, and just so far as you have gone
on with Him you will be able to help somebody else. I find a great many
witnesses who have failed God. It means a great deal to be a witness
for God in these deeper and higher things, because doing it means
reproach;
it means going outside the camp, and I have found some people that do
not like reproach and draw back and try to compromise; but I pray that
we may always be kept true. Beloved, keep true and testify faithfully
to Him. He tells us in Revelation that because we have a little strength
and because we have kept His Word and have not denied His Name, He has
set before us an open door. I could go back and tell you of one door
after another that God opened in my own life. When the little doors
were opened He could open larger ones, until now the doors are so large
and so many I never know which to enter, only as God makes it clear.
So, beloved,
be faithful and do not deny His Name.
In Ps. ciii :5, we read, “Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things;
so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Here is a reference
to the eagle again, the youth renewed like the eagle’s. Beloved, I
do not believe in growing old, do you? I believe God means just what
He says. Isn’t it beautiful? I never expect to grow old. The years
may slip over my head, but what of that? That has nothing to do with
it. He who has eternal youth is my youth and my strength.
Now, who is going to trust God for the winged life? You can crawl
instead
if you wish. God will even bless you if you crawl; He will do the best
He can for you, but oh how much better to avail ourselves of our
wonderful
privileges in Christ and to “mount up with wings as eagles, run and
not be weary, walk and not faint.” O beloved friends, there is a life
on wings. I feel the streams of His life fill me and permeate my mortal
frame from my head to my feet, until no words are adequate to describe
it. I can only make a few bungling attempts to tell you what it is like
and ask the Lord to reveal to you the rest. May He reveal
to you your inheritance in Christ Jesus so that you will press on and
get all that He has for you.
© Jennifer Miskov
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