50 Women Every Christian Should Know by Michelle DeRusha

Author:Michelle DeRusha [DeRusha, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012000, Christian women—Biography
ISBN: 9781441220622
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2014-08-05T16:00:00+00:00

A Stumbling Block

Not long after her spiritual revelation, Hannah and Robert resigned their membership to the Society of Friends, and in 1859 Hannah was baptized by immersion at a Baptist church near her Philadelphia home. But while Hannah was at peace with her decision, her extended family—particularly her father, a devout Quaker—was appalled. They refused to accept her conversion and banned her, her husband, and their child from visiting. Devastated but undeterred, Hannah later wrote that although she was an outcast from her earthly father’s house, she was comforted by the fact that she was not cast out by her heavenly Father. Ultimately, after several years had passed, her father softened and reconciled with Hannah and her husband.

During the 1860s Hannah’s faith took another turn when she was introduced to the increasingly popular Methodist holiness movement. The Smith family had weathered several difficulties, including Robert’s financial ruin and his subsequent breakdown, which resulted in a move from Philadelphia to a small town in New Jersey. Distanced from her church, Bible study, and friends, and exhausted from caring for her ill husband and her children (she now had five), Hannah struggled to find a spiritual home in New Jersey. When her dressmaker encouraged her to attend a Saturday evening holiness meeting with the local factory workers, Hannah, out of desperation, agreed. Initially she assumed the working-class people wouldn’t have anything to offer her, but she was soon proved wrong. In those humble meetings and among those humble people, Hannah found the real Christianity for which she had always longed.

As she settled into her newfound religion, however, Hannah hit a roadblock. Followers of the holiness movement emphasized what was known as the “second blessing”—an experience that indicated the palpable presence of the Holy Spirit. Pray as she might for such an experience, Hannah was left without this conviction. She watched with a mix of joy and envy as her husband was transformed by the second blessing at a Methodist camp meeting during the summer of 1868. But although she felt on the verge of such a blessing, Hannah was never completely overcome with emotion, the clear sign that a baptism of the Holy Spirit had occurred. She often approached the altar with a handful of handkerchiefs, prepared for an onslaught of tears that never materialized. Why didn’t she succumb to overwhelming emotion like so many others at the camp meetings? she wondered. She worried her lack of emotion made her less faithful and perhaps was an indication that she was not a believer at all.

Finally, after two years of relentless praying, Hannah concluded that the second blessing and its accompanying emotional response was simply the reaction of those with a more emotional disposition like her husband. To those with a rational, practical nature such as herself, spiritual truth was imparted as a growing conviction about the truth of the Gospels rather than a feeling. Hannah later explained this reasoning in her bestselling book The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life:

I am convinced

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