I have always been enamored by the
life of Katherine Kuhlman. She was so filled with the Holy Spirit and
overwhelmingly anointed that miracles happened and people lay ‘slain in the
Spirit.’ She was an evangelist, a lady at that, a first in many matters. Let us
go through her life and ministry.
Katherine Kuhlman was born to German
parents in 1907 in a small place called Concordia, in Missouri, USA. She was
one of the four children and strangely her father was a Baptist and her mother
a Methodist. Her father rose to be the Mayor of the town, but died early in an
accident. Katherine was very fond of her father whom she called ‘papa,’ and
when young clung to his legs and not let go when he returned from work. It is
that love that she transferred to the heavenly Father later on in her life.
When she was just 14 years old as she
was attending the service with her mother in the small Methodist church, she
came under the experience of being born again. As the last song was being sung,
her hands holding the hymnal book began to shake; that she was a sinner came
clearly to her and leaving the hymnal at the pew, she went to the front row and
sat there weeping and involuntarily shaking and trembling. Something had
happened to her; she was born again. Though she did not recognize the Holy
Spirit that time, she never forgot the moment when the Holy Spirit came upon
her and she had the experience of the new birth.
Katherine’s sister and brother in law
were in the itinerant healing ministry and wanted her to come along with them
to help with their children as they traveled from place to place preaching.
Katherine became a nanny to her sister’s children for the next five years and
traveled with them all over USA. When her brother in law brought the message,
people were slain in the Spirit, a new experience then. All these must have
given her a background in itinerant ministry and when her sister wanted her to
return home, she started her own ministry.
She preached only about salvation, her
own experience of being born again. In 1933, she started her ministry in Denver
and held meetings in abandoned truck garages and paper company’s warehouses and
in such small places. Her ministry was doing well and she had started radio
ministry and was travelling around the country. In 1937 she met another
itinerant preacher Waltrip, who was married with two boys. But he divorced his
wife and abandoned his children and proposed to Katherine. She took the plunge
in 1938 in spite of people warning her not to. Very soon she realized that it
was a mistake and did not know how to correct it. Evangelic ministry along with
her husband was not fulfilling, for her husband would not let her preach. It
was his show.
One day as she was weeping and
walking in a dead end street in California, Los Angeles, she took the decision
and gave herself fully to the Lord. She would say later that Katherine Kuhlman
died that day to herself. She cried to the Lord to take her and use her, though
she was without any talent and any merit on her own. She would tell her Lord,
she had nothing to give Him, except her love, which she gave with all her heart
and her body she offered to Him as a living sacrifice. She filed for divorce in
1947 and started her own ministry. She was divorced by 1948.
Though it was a turning point in her
life and ministry, it was not all a bed of roses after that. She was not accepted
in the Christian circles. In one of the meetings as she was preaching, the
Pastor having learned that she was a divorcee, came to the stage, took the
microphone from her hand and made her leave the stage and the very town itself.
She met with such treatments in many places and was shattered, but she
continued her ministry. A small church in Ohio, where she was conducting
meetings desired to make her their pastor; she objected saying she is a
divorcee but they told her that her past was not of interest to them and that
in the present people are coming to the Lord, are being healed by her ministry
and so they would like her to be their pastor. She became their pastor in 1948.
The last 10-15 years of her life were
a blessing to many. It is said that nearly two million people got healed during
her services. She started and ran a Television ministry called “I believe in
miracles,” from 1966 to 1975, which became very popular throughout America and
Canada. She was a charismatic evangelist, and embraced all denominations
including the Catholic church. People thronged to her meetings and many were
healed. Katherine developed a heart condition, but she would not rest or slow
down her ministry. She died in 1976 following an open heart surgery, in Tulsa,
Oklahoma, USA.
Katherine resented being called
‘faith-healer,’ for she was not doing anything by her own power. She said that
she had no healing power, but it was God who acted through her. She made it
clear that she was not a psychic healer, who mastered the art of mind over
matter. Her case was simple for she was a yielded vessel, which God used
mightily to manifest His power through the Holy Spirit to heal people.
A consecrated life is a life set
apart for God; such people are married to the Lord, and place themselves at the
disposal of His Will and pleasure to be used as He would wish. She lived in the
world but had consecrated her life to her Lord. She would say that such a life
was not easy and that it had a price tag on its head. A consecrated life could
be lonely for she had no social life, and no personal life. Her life was
entirely devoted to the Lord, her Master. She would remind her audience that she
was human and she was a woman, but her life was totally devoted to her God, who
is a jealous Husband!
God bless such people and multiply
such devoted lives for His glory.
