The Autobiography of Ruth Tagg Caley

About midnight I was panicking and said to myself, “I know who will help me.” I went into thekitchen to pray for help.Silent PrayerThere are many little crosses . . . each of us in life must bear . . . But the burden can be lightenedwith a daily silent prayer . . . Nothing offers greater comfort . . . in the struggle and the strife . . .Like a silent prayer at night time . . . just before we go to bed . . . often aids the sagging spirit . . .and to better days has led . . . Silent prayers can be the bulwark . . . that can turn the evil tide . . .and the force that moves the mountains . . . if in faith we shall abide . . . Oh, the burden of ourcrosses . . . will become too great a weight . . . only when we start believing . . . that a silentprayer can wait. (By James J. Metcalfe.)voice said to me, “How do you know if your prayer was heard.” I felt some spirits all around inthe room. The room seemed to be full of good and bad. I was confused and in doubt for a fewminutes and another soft assuring calm voice said, “Woman! Where is thy faith.” (The firstvoice that said, “How do I know that my prayer was heard,” was the evil one.) The second one,“Woman where is they faith” was a good spirit. I walked back into the front room where Johnlay and I felt that he would be OK and I wouldn’t need a doctor. The next morning John wasfeeling fine. He sometimes got feelings around him to bother him. He said he thought Old Nickwas around. John was a very spiritual man but I think the other force tried to discourage andoverthrow the good because John was in a way handicapped. But the good was the strongestIt was in the year of 1950, everything seemed to run its course in our family. Young sonJohn owned a motor bike and one day he said, “Well I can’t go far because the motor is out forrepairs but I can peddle it,” and rode it up the street to see his boy friend about one mile away.He was over his visit and was starting for home when a car came whizzing down from thecanyon and didn’t slow down and had no license, no brakes. It was his class mate in school. Hehit John, John flew up in the air, dented the top of the car, cracked the windshield and landed onthe road holding his head. John’s bike was pulled out from under the car looking like a pretzelall twisted up. This boy driver had been picked up twice before for his bad driving. I’ll bet hegot what he deserved this time. Our John was taken to the hospital for tests. The next morningour neighbor, being a nurse, said, “Well what are you doing here?” John was scratched up prettybad when they found him and he kept on saying, “Dad I didn’t take your car, honest I didn’t.” Hehad a concussion but no serious damage and was able to come home in about three days.Soon after that David went roller skating and someone pushed him down. We had to callfor the ambulance to come and get him. His leg was hurt and they had to put sand bags forweight to stretch it and keep it that way so it wouldn’t shrink. David was quite a long timerecovering and looked pale. But in time he recovered back to normal.One morning I noticed John (husband) was still in bed when he usually got up earlier toget ready for work. I said, “John, it’s nearly 8:00 a.m. and you must get up. You will be late forwork.” He tried to get up and put on his trousers and couldn’t. I looked at his face and it wasRuth Tagg Caley pg 49