In 1972 I had a heart attack – while I was in the hospital in Mullins, S.C. I had been sick. I was admitted this particular morning. Gloria, (my baby daughter) took me and after they put me in the treatment room and started running I.V. on me, she went back home to attend to things we had left undone as now I’d be all right.

Well later that day the nurse called for her and the rest of my family to come as I had had a heart attack.

I knew then God cared for me as I could have had it at home or at work or while I was alone anywhere, but I was there in the Hospital when it happened. Well I got OK, came home, and after a few months I was as good as new and back on the job every day.

Then after a few years I kept having more and more trouble and getting weaker and weaker.

All the time I had so many weak spells and would get so I couldn’t breath so often until my husband (Raymond) just got an oxygen tank for me. Oh this was the lifesaver for me for so many times. For a few years family and close friends knew it was getting harder and harder to get me to come around. These things were happening more often.

I had gotten so I was so weak I had to have help to do almost anything.

I had the heart attack the last day of March, 1972. That day when I came to, I told of an experience with God and the figure eight being stamped on my heart. I thought then I’d live eight days, after eight days passed then I thought eight weeks, then eight weeks passed then eight months came and went then I felt I’d have eight years. Well this had not crossed my mind in a long time. I was now using Nitroglycerin 1/150 gr. under my tongue for chest pain and oxygen and other medicine and went in to see my Doctor quite often. But on April 1st, 1980, I was admitted to the Mulllins Hospital in Mullins, S.C. I had been so weak for so long there were times I thought I’d never make it.

Raymond worked late hours as we owned and operated two businesses in our small town of Lake View, SC. This finds me alone every night until 12:00 o’clock midnight.

I was operating the Furniture store and seeing my family Doctor quite often. He, on many occasions, had advised me to enter the Hospital so that the necessary test could be run to find the cause of the weakness. I felt there was a simple explanation for this and would not require a trip to the hospital.

Though this time I got so sick and closed up the Furniture Store and came home.

I got worse instead of better. I called my Dr., Randy Elvington in Nichols, S.C. and couldn’t get him this time so I called my daughter, Gloria. She came right then and took me to the Hospital. There they kept me. I stayed and stayed and stayed. Oh it seemed like forever. The Doctors there kept getting another Doctor to help with my case until I had three. They came up with; – heart trouble, a non-functioning Gallbladder, and my blood was not checking right so I had to stay until they could take enough test to kill a horse, but me being human, I could stand it O.K.

Then on Wednesday morning they came into my room and said they were almost sure I had Leukemia or Hodgkin’s disease, one or the other. My daughter Gloria was with me and the nurse and two Doctors. I said, “I won’t accept either one of them as they are both bad, now go out and bring me something good and I’ll accept it.” They smiled but Doctor Randy and Dr. Basily talked it over and decided to cut a lymph node from my neck and get Bone Marrow from my hipbone and send it off.

Well they did this and in the process of this my heart failed on me and I slipped away (passed out) in the operating room probably about noontime on Wednesday afternoon. I didn’t come to until about 8:30 pm. Dr. Basily did not leave me all afternoon. They put oxygen on me and gave me nitroglycerin during the afternoon and called all my family in. They were all there and my pastor Rev. Mimms Fanning also when I came out of it. Time I started getting enough breath to talk I said ” Boy they say Ye though I walk through the valley and shadows of death I will fear no evil. Gee! Mr. Fanning I was scared to death.” After this I got OK but had to wait for reports to come back.

Well after eleven days of this they told my husband and called in all my family.

They each one came then my pastor, Mimms Fanning of Bear Swamp Baptist Church (who has been such an inspiration to me I know God sent him to me), and then the two Doctors. Now they told me I had Chronic Lymphatic Leukemia.

Now just a week later, down in Charleston, SC, the Doctors there that took the stitches out of my neck said: “Well here we drop the Chronic and add Acute.” The lymph node had grown back to full size and over so he said it’s in the last stages and working fast. They said the marrow in my bones were 94% decayed and cancer was all over my body. Since the lymph glands are all over the body there was no operation or nothing known to medical science to do me any good. Now they were going to send me to Charleston, SC for chemotherapy to try to arrest it.

Those next few days were the worst I had ever spent. I’d think about I was too young to die. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to leave my children yet! My Grandchildren didn’t know me well enough yet they still loved me. Oh I didn’t want to leave them yet. And my thoughts would intensify, as I would remember that my Mother died with Leukemia at the age of 36 when I was just 15 years old. Yet I had to boost my family as they could cry if the looked at me and they wouldn’t leave me alone. Though one night they all went home. I was to go to Charleston the next day. They’d be back then for sure. Raymond had picked up my medical reports from the Mullins Hospital to take with us to Dr. Richardson in Charleston.

Well when I got by myself I opened them. I called Raymond and told him to get a photocopy made of them so I could keep a set because I said, “Raymond God is going to heal me of Leukemia and when He does, people won’t believe I ever had it.” Well along then he just knew I was going to die so he’d do whatever I asked. So he took the medical reports to the Chevrolet place in Lake view and Mr. Jimmie Smith let him get a photocopy of them I have them now for anyone to see that would like to.

Now in doing this, news got out all over town I was dieing with Acute Leukemia – and people started praying for me. Gee I thank God for prayers and I thank God even more for answers!

My son, Raymond E. Garris of Myrtle Beach was owner of Ray Garris real estate business then. He left his new Cadillac for me to ride in as I’d always said, “One day I’ll own a Cadillac.” He wanted me to ride my last few rides in one. He said he was leaving it for us to drive to Charleston, as it’s 138 miles from Lake view. So I went to Charleston, some of my family went with me. I was to report to Room 208 at the Medical University at 1:00 o’clock on April 28th, 1980. There they took what seemed to be a gallon of blood from me then they started with examinations and test.

Here I met Dr. Richardson. He said to me, “Mary, I’ll talk to you then I’ll call in your family and talk to them.” Oh God, I knew then I was to hear nothing good.

He did just that too. He told me there was no cure for Leukemia, Nothing he nor anyone could do to do me any good. I would get weaker every day. (Oh God I thought I couldn’t do anything now I was so weak I’d crawl around in the house so I wouldn’t fall.)

He talked to me then told the nurse to ask all the members of my family to come on in. I told him then not to say the things to them he had said to me, but Yes, he did it anyway, and more. He told us nothing would do any good they would try to arrest it for a while but I’d get accustomed to the chemotherapy and it wouldn’t do any good then there was nothing unless something would be discovered. He said there were only about five cases of the kind I had in the state of SC and that I would be an Invalid in no time. He was going to give me a treatment of hemotherapy once a week for five weeks and if I was still alive he’d smile. One of my son-in-laws, Bill Griffin (an civil engineer with the Seaboard Coast Line in Florence SC) asked him to please give us some hope for time, as the rest of my family was torn up so bad they were quiet for once in their life time.

The Doctor just said if I was still alive in five weeks he’d smile. I said “Hey there, go easy on that kind of talk in front of my little five foot two there, that’s my little girl.” As Linda (my daughter was a fifth grade school teacher at Tans Bay School in Florence, SC) was showing tears now. I said, ” I’ll be back and I’ll be better because I know the man that made the body, the blood and bones, His name is Jesus.” “Well,” he said ” You be here five weeks from now and I’ll smile and if you’re still the same as you are today I’ll smile twice as that will prove that we are getting it to arrest for the time being. I said. ” Start grinning Doc because I’ll be back and I’ll be better.”

Well the trip back home and the next few days were the saddest days I’d ever spent. Now instead of three Doctors opinions I had more than half dozen opinions and all of them saying the same thing. I was to get weaker every day until death. “Oh God I don’t want to die and I’d think a lot of times of my mother. I’d not missed her or thought much about her for probably thirty years but now, Oh God, “Why can’t you do something for me?”

I was saved some twelve years earlier. Now being a Southern Baptist for 53 years and Healings by God not been taught strong enough but I started searching my bible for anything on Healing. Now Healings by God and Faith Healings was for Quack preachers and Holly Rollies, but now the more I studied the bible, God’s Holy Word, the more I found on Healing, and me, well, I read and studied long hours like I’d never studied before. I was beginning to think there was more to my salvation than just fire Insurance, when I cam to the understanding that you get your salvation the same way you get your healing and you get Healing the same way you get your salvation. Just be Receiving of it. Praise God! Well, along about now I received a letter unlike any letter I’d ever received before. The name on the return address didn’t ring a bell. I opened it and there was an eight-page letter. Now I didn’t feel like reading an eight-page letter or have time for all that not now as I was having company almost all the time. I was getting get-well cards and Flowers and candy and phone calls continually. I got “get well” cards by the hand full. It was amazing. I got cards and things from people I hardly knew and some I’d never seen before. They were all so sweet just letting me know they were sorry and they were going to pray for me. But this was a hand written eight-page letter. Now I thought why would a complete stranger take the time to write so long a letter. This letter was from Shirlie Ford, Nichols, SC. She was a daughter of Sadie and Dennis Page of Lake View. They were members of Bear Swamp Baptist Church also and I knew them well but didn’t remember ever seeing this girl as she had married and moved away about twenty years before. Though the next day I was real sick and depressed but there was something about that letter that caused me to be drawn to it. I was still amazed that a total stranger would care enough to write so long a letter. Surely I could read it and today I was just praying for anything to make me feel better. As I began reading it I couldn’t believe it. God had answered my prayers right down to the very smallest detail. This letter contained almost every scripture in the Bible or Healing. Shirlie had not only listed the Healing scriptures she had written them down and explained each of them on a first grade level Praise God.

Even though she had written them down I would not be satisfied until I saw them in my bible for myself. Since I’m not one to accept anything that anyone says I’d spend hours looking up every scripture and reading one of her letters and by the time I’d finish with one there would be another one, so Just stayed in the word of God with a letter in my hands as I received them on an average of three a week. Now I know that I would not be defeated, not only could I speak forth my faith in God to Heal me but also now I had the word of God to back me up. Something was happening inside of me down deep in my innermost being. God’s Word was being planted in My Spirit as I feasted on it. As I was praying and realizing you get your healing the same way you get your salvation you just receive it. It’s Free Now. It’s been paid for with the Blood of Jesus and now it’s MINE. All I have to do is accept it and hang on to it so why worry?!! Oh How I talked

to God. I’d read his word until I’d get so tired I couldn’t sit up then I’d lay down and pray to God and rest awhile then I’d watch a few minutes of TV. then back to the Bible for the Word of God with one of Shirley’s letters. I felt I needed to hear the word of God.

I needed to read my Bible like I needed to eat, drink or sleep. Now the Lord started showing scriptures to me. I mean plain in my mind I’d think of a Bible scripture. So I’d get my Bible and turn to it. It was like God speaking just to me. I thank God today for those moments of his assurance to me.

One night all alone and oh so sick God showed me, as I talked to him “Father God if there is anything in the Bible of Mind on healing for Me I want to see NOW for myself.” Well the next thought in my mind was Plain – Hebrews 11-1.

Oh Boy!! I jumped got my bible and read (Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.) Oh my I don’t see one thing in here about healing. So I read the whole chapter nothing on healing. Now I just didn’t get this scripture from God, The devil is speaking so strong to me. This must be where it came

from. But anyway I read it again and again, went back to bed and lay there trying to figure it out, got up, read it again and again. “OK Lord I’ll memorize it but I don’t see anything about healing in it. It’s all here telling about Faith, nothing on healing.” I said, Well it just didn’t say the Word healing, but later I learned that Faith is the first thing and the most important and last thing there is to healing. That morning I got up with Hebrew 11-1 on my mind. I could say it over and over now but still it didn’t say anything about healing to me.

Well the mail came, a letter from Shirlie. The first thing she was explaining Hebrew 11-1. Oh now I knew the Lord my God was with her and I also knew the devil had not been talking to me, it was the Holy Spirit because as Hebrew 11-1 was given to me, God knew Shirlie’s letter was on the way. He knew He’d had her to explain it to me in that letter. He also knew that as I read that letter it would open up to me and Praise God it did, like food for my hungry body. Thank God now for I started believing for a healing.

In Shirlie’s letter that day she said, “accept your healing right now. Go mark the date on the calendar!!” Well, I read her letter, prayed, accepted it and went to mark it on the calendar. As I turned there was a knock on my door. It was Mr. Joe Morris of Fairmont, NC and Deacon of Bear Swamp Baptist Church. He said, “I’ve come to pray for and with you.” Praise God that is what I needed. I told him right then I had just received healing and marked the calendar, as this is the day I received of God’s healing Power for my Leukemia. We prayed together I started right then thanking God for healing me. I wrote letters to several churches around and told them I was asking for prayer for My Faith to stand strong for my healing as I was standing on the Word of God.

Well I praise God today for their prayers, as I know a lot of people did pray. I asked for the elder’s of my church to come lay hands on me and pray for according to James 5: 15 (and the prayer of Faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall rise him up and if he has committed sins they shall be forgiven him.”

Now many friends came and prayed with me. Mary Grace Spivey, Lake View, SC, Inez Page, Nichols, Kay Trombley, Lake View, Mr. & Mrs. Israel, Dillon, SC, I could go on and on but we all prayed in agreement with me according to Matthew 18:19, “again I say unto you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask it shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven.” Now it was up to me. God had made available all of these means for my healing and now it was my responsibility to take advantage of every one of them. Shirlie’s letters kept coming all of them seven and eight pages long just full of the word of God and each scripture explained and they would come the very day I needed them. On a day I’d feel good nothing came.

I was on my own but days I was so sick a letter would come I knew it had to be inspired by God. I would pray, read my bible, go to sleep, and wake up with the word of God on my mind. Many times I would get a letter explaining a scripture I had just read. As the Holy Spirit explained it to me through Shirlie’s letter it would become crystal clear for the first time in my life and would become meaningful to me. One day I got so sick I said, “Lord I’ll just have to go on in to the Doctor for a shot as I just can’t stand it.” Well, I would never from the minute I marked my calendar and accepted healing, I wouldn’t say I felt bad or was sick – no way. When people called and asked how are you? Or come to see me or any time they asked,” How are you?” I’d answer, “God is healing me, and I know he will so I’m fine”. But this time as I started to give in to the severe pain and go in for shots the mail came. Now God knew how I felt. But the letter I got from Shirlie that day I didn’t feel like reading it. As I reached for the letter I said. “Praise God, now the devil didn’t stop Shirlie Ford, and so I will not let him take over Mary Bell” as the envelope was all it took that day. She had run out of envelopes so she made one out of notebook paper and scotch tape. But as I touched the letter I thought, Oh Lord you knew even before it came, but I just said, “Now Old devil, I was about to give in and cry out for help”, but Shirlie had written the letter and no envelopes no way to go get any, as her husband (Frank Ford) drove one car and sometimes her son (Jimmie) has the other and she didn’t have a way until one gets back. Well this day they were both gone and she would have had to wait until the next day to mail my letter had she waited for envelopes.

But you see God knows the little things help us to do and become big things.

Well I just said, “Well I will not go in to the Doctor. I will not repeat that I feel like dying.” I just said, ” Now Lord I know you KNOW how I feel because if you can know about a small envelope then you can know about how a small Mary Bell feels so I will never tell it.” You see God knows even before we ask but the old devil don’t know where we hurt until we tell him but now he’s listening even when you talk to a Doctor or in your prayers to Jesus. He hears and that’s where and when he jumps in and starts to work. Now I had said all along God was going to heal me but this day I brought it into the now. I just knew he would now May 21st, 2980. I was to go back to Charleston, as so much better but still a long way off but I knew the Doctors would say I was better.

Now Dr. Richardson came in after the usual gallon of blood had been taken and started with examinations and test again. Then he asked me a lot of questions, gave me a prescription for another round of chemotherapy and told me to come back in four weeks this time. I told him I was so much better I didn’t need any more of that as it was doing all kinds of things to me. I didn’t want or need it any more. I told him Jesus was at work in my body and he would fill my blood vessels with New blood and my bones with new marrow, and I didn’t want any more Lukuran and it was causing me to have a headache all the time and I couldn’t remember. I just couldn’t think clear as my head hurt all the time so I asked him, ” “Please don’t give it to me this time.” Well he looked at me and said. “You’ve got leukemia and you’re not going to get rid of it and this way you’ve got of trying to throw it out the window as if you don’t have it is what’s causing your head aches because of the mental block. Now as soon as you can accept death as a part of life, as that’s what it is, and make out a will and get your business in order, get your house cleaned up just as if you’re expecting company, you will see your headaches will go away.” Well the old devil was speaking through Dr. Richardson that day although at the time I didn’t think about that.

I just turned to eave and stopped and said “Well I may die with it and soon but I’ll go down fighting.” Then I told him a little joke about a little boy playing with two frogs and when he got tired playing, he put them into a bowl of milk. Now the little Frogs jumped and jumped trying to get out. Soon one little frog said, “Now I learned I can’t get out so I’m not going to kill myself trying.” So he just quit jumping and rested, soon he died. The other little frog was still jumping and kicking, soon the milk turned to

Butter. The little frog crawled on top of the Butter and out of the bowl. Now I name that little frog Mary Bell. I may die but I’ll be fighting it to the very end. He smiled and said, “take care and I’ll see you in four weeks, but if you need me anytime, day or night, just call me.” Well this trip I knew I felt better, but I was still so weak I could hardly stand but a few minutes of anything and I was sick again. Now on the trip back home the old devil really started working. He sure knows where, when, and How. (I can’t fool myself and I can’t fool Doctor’s in the Hospitals, they know. Now it’s their business to know.

I’m just trying to pretend God is going to heal me). Now all this and more went over and over in my mind, on the trip home. I was glad I was in the back seat and could look out

the window and the family not notice the tears so much. Though it was an unhappy trip because of what Dr. Richardson had said but my family knew I was some better so for a few hours I drew courage from them. Well it was late Wednesday afternoon when we got home and I was put right to bed. I was tired and sick. “Oh God”, I cried but the old devil worked harder than ever. Those were horrible days from then until Friday night as I had steadily got worse all the time and when you’re as sick as I was you can’t get much worse. Friday night I thought I’d die for sure. I waited, prayed, cried and waited for daylight to come. I told Raymond to take me to the Hospital. He did real fast. When we got to the door of the Hospital, Dr. Randy Elvington saw them trying to get me in the door, as he was there that morning. He came and told Raymond, “this is it, this is the way leukemia does, just take her to my office, and I’ll go there right now so it won’t cost you a Hospital visit. It’s $40.00 here and at my office, it’s only $13.00 and this is it. All we can do is give her a shot to help make it easier for her. I’ll be there time you get there.

You see, Dr. Randy had grown up with Raymond and knew all the Garris family all is life and he knew and seemed to love us and felt I had already had a lot of medical bills. He gave me a shot and helped them put me back in the car laying down in the back seat and sent me home to sleep or die. They asked if I wanted to go to the Hospital for it to happen or home. I could hear them talking but was not much for responding but I motioned for home. On the way home, Raymond saw my pastor. He stopped and told him to come to the car and Mr. Fanning did and prayed for me. Now I was too sick to pray for myself. All day I lay there like dead, but at 6:00 o’clock that evening, God spoke to me. I called Shirlie. Now I had never spoken to her before. I said, “Shirlie, this is Mary Bell, please pray for me.” She started, and I didn’t hear a word she said as I was praying so hard myself. Now I was so weak I could only whisper but God heard and answered. Praise God.

The next day, I awoke feeling like a new person. I went to Sumter, SC to see my sister, Bertha Harrelson and her husband, W.F..They had been an inspiration to me all along. W.F. was the pastor of South Side Assembly of God in Sumter, SC. I went to church that day with them. When the service was about over they asked if I wanted to ask the church people to pray for me to be healed. I stood up and said, “No”. I told them I had accepted my healing May 10th. Now this was May 25th and I told them, “I know God is going to Heal me. I want everybody to pray for my faith to stay strong. ” Oh I talked a few minutes and I do think o5% of the crowd forward to give the preacher their hand. I asked them to pray for my faith to stay strong against negative talk like what the Doctor had said and I told old Satan to flee from me. Well after speaking for Jesus in that Church, I went from one church to another and done the same thing, telling everybody I was not going to pay any attention to those Doctors. I was going to stand on the word of God to heal me and I would take the Doctor’s medicine. Now I prayed for my Doctor’s to be ready to accept what they would find when I went back to Charleston again. Oh how I prayed for God to control negative talk.

July 2, 1980 I went back to see Dr. Richardson in Charleston. The gallon of blood was the first thing, then the examinations and test. He went out; when he came back he had another Doctor with him. They both examined me and checked me and in a little while they went out again. Then they came back with pad and pen. The other Doctor sat down and begins to write. Dr. Richardson said to me, “Now Mary, this is Dr. Something will write whatever you say because we want you to tell us what you have been doing, everything! I said, “like what?” He said, “like everything you do and everything you eat. Like what you do when you wake up in the morning, do you get up or stay in bed? What do you eat for Breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? Do you take exercise? Just whatever.”

Now this other Doctor had sat down, crossed his legs with pen and pad ready to write (short hand). “Well, I said, ” 90% of the time I have been praying and praising God and the other 10% of the time, I’m calling and asking everybody else to do the same thing! Then I stopped He said, “But we want to get it written down so we can tell other patients what you did and ate and everything because your blood count is up.”

I just said, “Praise God!” It’s up and I just told you what I’ve been doing so go ahead and write it down Sir and tell the other patients because I knew it would work.

Now I did want so much for the test to prove what God had done for me. This proof wasn’t necessary for me. I already knew that God was healing me because God is faithful to his word. But I wanted proof to show the world that God is still in the healing business today. I know that He can and does Heal.

Now healing is like salvation, it is for everyone though everyone doesn’t get it, why? Because they don’t receive it.

If 100 of us was in a church with a God sent preacher. When the preacher gave the call for salvation, maybe two or four would go up and get saved. Well, that’s the two or four that received.

Now healing is the same way. The reason you don’t get healed is because you don’t accept, and get it manifested in your inner being. “Oh, Dr. Richardson said, ” You didn’t even ask how far up your blood count was.” So I said, ” Well how far up is it?” He said, “UP TO NORMAL!!!” I said, “Praise God!” Then he said, “Well you are on your own. This time you can go home with no prescription; no medication at all and you can come back in four months this time. But now you stay in close contact with your Doctor back home and if you need me day or night, just call me.”

So now I was suppose to be seeing my Doctor back home to have my blood count checked twice a week all the time, but I had stopped that long before because I had just as good a Doctor and real true friend, I know he would see me anytime on a few minutes notice, so I did not worry. But as I came back home now with no medicine for leukemia, though I still had nitroglycerin for my heart and pain pills for the leukemia but that was all. They had told me the first week I’d feel like I had to have help and just may need to have to call for it and get it started back as soon as I got home but I told him, “Thank you but I won’t need you or my Doctor back home because God has healed me.”

Along about the time I got home and was beginning to feel high and proud, God had healed me and I didn’t have a thing to worry about, Oh God, Dr. Randy Elvington took sick and died in a few minutes. He was gone. Now I was just not ready for this to happen. No one knows how I felt about this loss. I just didn’t know what to do. I depended on him to tell me what to do; now he was gone. What? Where? How? And When? All questions and no answers.

I tried putting myself together as I now had to get another Doctor and I would cry out for God to help me not to need any more chemotherapy or anything but show me what to do. Well finally I called and got an appointment with Dr. Basily in Mullins, SC. He was the Doctor that was with Dr. Randy Elvington all the way through my staying the Hospital in Mullins. Now I went to him. He would not brag on my health at all. Though he just listened as I told him God had healed me. My blood pressure checked 144/80 that day. I was happy. Dr. Basily just said, “I’ll write for you a prescription for some pain medicine” So he did, he wrote two prescriptions for me, told me to walk as much as I could, up to two miles a day, eat a lot of vegetables, take vitamin pills and lay off so much meats. Then come back in at least two weeks unless I needed him earlier. Now this was another hard week for me. I’d be sick some and need help, but Praise God, I hung on to “(God has healed me in the name of Jesus”) and I won’t need any of that medicine.

Now the pain seemed to intensify more and more, then the weekend came. My son Raymond E. “Buster” Garris came home. I love him so much and he’s my only boy and though he always comes home quite often, this time I just will never forget as if it seemed that he had not been here this week-end, I couldn’t have made it. Although he was 34 years old, he is still my little boy.

I went back to the Doctor Monday. This time my blood pressure checked 156/90.

Well I came back home and went to bed. The next day I got up and started writing letters to anyone in the Hospital like Shirlie wrote to me, Praise God! I’m beginning to feel better. After this I spoke in my church, Bear Swamp Baptist of Lake View and told them God had healed me and then the old devil worked harder. People would say things like, you don’t think the Doctor’s cold have made a mistake? And, I don’t believe Mary Bell ever had leukemia to begin with. Yes, people want you to die to prove them right. Gee, I want to live to prove them wrong. Anyway, negative talk will help get you down if you don’t feel so well anyway.

So I got sick again. It was now September 4th. I went back to the Doctor. The nurse took one look at me and said to Raymond, “take her on to the hospital. Dr. Basily will be right there.” Well, Raymond took me to the hospital and a nurse and the Intern that was there in the emergency room got me clothes off and put a hospital gown on me to get me ready for the Doctor. Still he was not there. Oh Lord, I thought I’d die. But I had to wait for the Doctor and as I lay there looking up in the ceiling, I like heard a voice speaking soft and low and slow. Mary Bell, I have healed you of leukemia, now don’t let the old devil take away from you what I have given. Oh Lord, I said, “Raymond, if you’ll hand me my clothes, I’ll put them on and we’ll go home as I am feeling better.”

The thing that still amazes me is that as I rose up from the stretcher, I really did not hurt any more. The pain was gone. I put my clothes on. Now I took plenty of time in doing this as I had to give myself time to believe this because a few minutes earlier, the pain was so severe and now I was OK. The intern and the nurse just said they were sorry the Doctor didn’t get there, as they had never had me to wait like this before. I told them that I could understand it now as God was in control and that was why the Doctor hadn’t got there. After I got dressed I went down and waited a few minutes longer to see if I was going to start hurting again as I’d say now if you’re ever going to hurt again, do it now. But when God does something everything works in order for his will because God knew it would take time for me to realize I was not hurting, Praise God. I came home. I know now the old devil was playing one of his tricks. Because I had been working for my Lord and Satan don’t like that so he tries to stop me anyway he can. He is powerful but my God is greater and more powerful.

Now it was September 14th. I was home and getting stronger and going in to work. I was beginning to cover couches and chairs in the Furniture store again. A few days later, I got sick again. I took all the pain medicine Dr. Basily had prescribed for me but nothing did any good. Soon I was so sick I could not even pray. I just started saying, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus”, over and over. I said his name and rolled and tumbled. It must have started about mid afternoon but I kept saying Jesus and rolling until about 3:00 in the morning. I saw a picture of Jesus on my wall at the foot of my bed. I saw it so plain. (There is not a picture there and has never been a picture there). But I saw this face just as plain as life itself. There was a light around the face of Jesus on this picture.

When I saw this face, I just lost my temper completely. I almost didn’t think I had that kind of temper left. But now I just knew my God had let me down. I thought it was God’s time for me to die, so here he’s come for me. Well, I said, since this is it anyway, I will tell him just how dirty this is now. Oh boy, I just started blessing Jesus out. I said I know you’ve come for me now. I’ll go but they say God don’t make no mistakes. Well boy, this is one. Oh I said a lot, and the face of Jesus didn’t say a word to me. I just saw him smile and I was gone. (Asleep I know now) When I awoke about 8:00 o’clock that morning, I looked around and I was in my bedroom. I almost couldn’t believe that. I said right out loud, ” I’m alive. I didn’t die!”

Raymond said (also out loud), Yes, you’re alive now, but you were so sick all night. You see he was sitting there with me looking for the same thing I was. Oh God, I do wish I could take pain out of the world. Praise God, I have not been sick a day or night or any since that experience with the face of Jesus.

On November 4th, 1980 I went back to Charleston. Dr. Richardson was still amazed at me. Then he didn’t give me any medicine and he told me to back March 11th, 1981. I did go back and Dr. Richardson was still amazed. He told me I didn’t have to go back now for six months and the he said, ” You and your Jesus and positive thinking is just what did this for you because we don’t have any cure for this kind of leukemia. But I don’t see where you’ve got it today.” Praise God! I want to say I do hope everyone that reads this book will be blessed by God and if you want to know what advice I have for you if you are sick even unto death no matter how bad it is, God is able to heal you – just –

1. Believe the Word of God for yourself. Acts – 20:32. (And now, brethren I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, And to give you an inheritance among all them, which are sanctified.)

2. Call the elders of your church to pray for you, using oil. Use all of James 5:14: Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:

3. Pray the prayer of agreement: Matthew 18:19 (Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in Heaven.

4. Pray the prayer of Faith in the name of Jesus. John 16:23 (verily I say unto you, whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you.) Praise God he didn’t say maybe. Ask and he will give it to you then thank him for it.

5. By the laying on of hands Hebrew Chapter 6 and Mark Chapter 16.

6. Speak the word of God in Faith. Luke 13: 10-17. I KNOW it works.

7. Have Faith in the name of Jesus. Phil 2: 9-11. Sickness is a name it must bow to the name of Jesus.

8. Act as if the New Testament is True. By acting on the word you put yourself is position to receive from God.

Now one think I learned to do. I was always trying to live a Christian life. Well just quit trying and start doing it. Before this healing I lived the 10 Commandments – 6 Commandments and 4 Best You Cans.

May 10th, 1981

Now it’s been one year since I had this death sentence put on me. I know that God is in control because one day I stood in Bear Swamp Baptist Church to give a testimony that God had healed me of leukemia. I said, “I told Raymond now I am human. I know I’ll die sometime, but I’ll never die of leukemia, Now I May die today or tonight or anytime with this old heart of mine, but I’ll never die of leukemia.”

Well I sat down and as I did, it seemed as if someone said, “Why do you want to die with a heart attack?” I said, “Hey, wait, I just as well give Him the heart also.” I sat down again, now everyone was laughing and I was saying, “thank you Jesus for healing my heart.”

Well that was eight months ago now and I have not used another nitroglycerin nor the oxygen tank has not been used on me since that minute.

Praise God I know that God sent his word and healed me. Now he took the heart just like that. A few weeks later, my son, Buster came home and said, ” Hey where is the oxygen tank?” We told him, “It’s in the closet in the back bedroom.

Now Praise God.”

I know that as God sent his word to me In a letter it gave me roots to start living again. Now…Yes, I have had a bible all my life and can read. But God knew what it would take for me. Shirlie’s letters continued coming until I had been back to Charleston for the third time, the Doctor sending me home with my blood count normal. Then one night I dreamed she would stop writing and I would not miss the letters. You see I had gotten to where if I didn’t get a letter, I’d feel empty as if I was lonesome for a good friend, or some of my family. But after the dream that night, a few days later I got a letter from Shirlie and in it she said, “Well You Are Healed in the Name of Jesus, Now I feel I don’t need to minister to you anymore.” So the letters stopped coming. Though I kept every one she ever wrote to me and now and then I get a chance to read some of them I Praise God for people like Shirlie and Lois Garris, my sister-in-law from Lake View, SC whom, for eight years, came to me almost every time I got sick and during the heart failures before the bout with leukemia. She came in and helped with me and she came every day for so long. Lois kept saying over and over, ” I could see Mary Bell change after she claimed a healing from God. I could see at first she quit having the weak spells like before then she started getting stronger every day.”

Oh God I thank you for Lois as she meant so much to me and for so long Shirlie’s letters was my life, my Buddy, my Friend, my All. Oh Lord, it took it all to see me through. And my God knew what it would take and he supplied my every need. Thank God now I know I’ll live to be seventy years old. You can too if you ask from God, expect it, and don’t accept less.

Now when I get to be 70 years old I just then may ask for more, but for now, that’s enough. Now if you notice my healing didn’t come in an instance or in a day because the forces of evil are so strong. I kept getting sick over and over.

I know that God could have done it in a twinkle of an eye but he didn’t. As I am human and it takes time for me to accept anything then also the farther down the road you go the farther you’ve got to come back. Also, I kept letting the devil interfere.

You see, we have to be willing to accept a healing and not keeping any of the benefits that go with being sick. You can’t say to the disability office, “I’m sick”, and to God, “I’m healed in the name of Jesus,” It’s got to be one way or the other. ALL the Way. This is why more people don’t get a healing. Because they want to hang on to all the benefits of being sick, want pity from friends and family, but want a healing from God. Well you have to confess to it all and to all times until it is manifested in your mind, then body. This is the way God works.

Praise God.

Now you can’t keep carnal thoughts from coming to our minds any more than you can keep a bird fro flying over your head but you can keep them from Building a nest in your hair.

So live for Jesus and don’t worry about people. Amen.
Postscript

November 6, 2004

I am typing up this long lost hand written account of my Mother’s story. I am her baby daughter, Gloria and I myself am now 47 years old. My Mother is obviously without question a remarkable woman. Today she is 77 years young. She has helped me raise my two daughters and is now helping my daughter raise her children. My Mother comes to my house every week and washes my clothes, irons them and puts them away.

She claims she enjoys doing it for me and I would do anything to make her happy, ha ha.

We have enjoyed a long cruise together a few years ago and recently a magnificent mountain trip. My father, Raymond has been dead for about 8 years now. He died of Alzheimer’s disease and a bad heart. My Mother visited him almost daily in the nursing home for years during the final stages of his life.

My brother, Buster and my sister, Linda and I are truly blessed for having had Mary Bell Garris in our lives all these years. She teaches us right from wrong and prays for us daily. Hopefully one day, we can make her as proud as she has made us.

Thank you, God.