Holy Ann - She Talked With God!
“But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” (Matthew 6:6). After hearing this Bible verse one Sunday, young Ann Preston—an untaught, unlettered Irish girl—knelt down voluntarily for the first time in her life and began to cry out.
While crying out, Ann had a powerful revelation of her distress. “I see all the sins that ever I did from the time I was five years old all written on the chair in front of me, every one,” she told the mistress for whom she worked. Looking down, Ann cried out: “Oh, ma’am, worse than all, I see hell open ready to swallow me.” She began to smite her breast, and cried out, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” Desperation gripped her as she repeatedly cried for mercy.
At midnight, Ann jumped up: “No mercy, Lord, for me?” But as the question passed her lips, assurance filled her heart. Ann always said that as she looked up she saw the Saviour as He was on Calvary, and knew there and then that His blood atoned for her sins. “I felt then something burning in my heart,” she would later say, “I just longed for the morning, that I could go home and tell my father and mother what the Lord had done for me.”
Ann picked up a Testament, and then prayed her first simple request as a child of God. “O Lord,” she said, “You that have taken away this awful burden, intolerable to bear, couldn’t You enable me to read one of these little things?” putting her finger on a verse. She read: “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst” (John 4:13-14).
There is, however, a class of Christian life which God makes possible and Ann did not immediately possess. It is where the human will is surrendered to its Maker, the whole life is consecrated, and the Holy Spirit of God fills the soul. The years proved that Ann had a great battle: an ungovernable temper. She wept over it, confessed it, fought with it—but would fall again.
One evening, Ann heard Psalm 34 read out. Verse 16 impressed itself strongly upon her: “The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.” She asked the reader to mark the verse for her, went to her room, knelt down, and prayed for light. She opened the Bible at the place where the leaf had been turned down. “You can’t read it,” the devil said. “Well, the Lord will give it to me,” Ann replied. Wonderfully, Ann was enabled to read the verse repeatedly. (From thence, unlettered Ann could read the Bible although no other book.)
While still upon her knees, Ann said: “Lord, what is evil?” The answer came: “Anger, wrath, malice,” and so on. Ann wept and prayed all night long as her inward sinfulness was revealed. Toward morning, she cried out: “O Lord, how shall I know when I get deliverance?” The answer came: “Well, Jacob wrestled until he prevailed.” In her simplicity, Ann asked: “What does ‘prevailed’ mean?” The reply came: “Getting just what you came for and all you want.” Again she queried: “And what will it do for me when I get it?” The reply came back: “It will enable you to rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, and in everything to give thanks. You will live above the troubles of this world and the things that now upset you.” Ann fervently desired to be sanctified [made holy] throughout—body, soul, and spirit (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23).
The following day, Ann persisted, pleading Jesus’ promise: “Ask and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you”. She cried: “Lord, I have been knocking all night. Open unto me! Open unto me!” The answer came.
For two hours it seemed as if Ann had entered into heaven. The house was filled with her shouts of praise! The trees appeared to clap their hands and praise God! For eight days, Ann ate nothing for joy. The following years felt as though lived in the heavenly places. When one morning Ann found her lips dumb instead of the usual praise, it was revealed to her that “the just shall live by faith” and that she should simply trust God. Ann applied these principles and obtained perfect peace.
Ann’s life became a witness to the power of faith, holiness, and ‘prevailing’ in prayer; she went to be with Jesus in 1906.
—See Helen E. Bingham, An Irish Saint: The Life Story of Ann Preston (“Holy Ann”)
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1 comment:
Her story inspires me alot.
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