Faith is the Substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen…Mark 11:23. I never really learned this bible verse, till I was grown up….but I saw it practiced consistently on Frieden Farm….while growing up. My mother, Frances Frieden had great, great faith. She was afraid of Mice and Snakes…….but I have witnessed her staring down a killer tornado…..I have seen her walk THRU the valley of the shadow of death…coming out healed on the other side… and I have been the recipient of the faith she had for the
protection and health of her children!

Little brother Jimmy was always a bit bigger than most other kids his age…he has since grown into a typical Frieden Mountain Man….Consistent with his size…he also seemed to get into “bigger” messes, while we were growing up….than the rest of us. I remember the day as a toddler, he tugged on the cord of a very hot electric iron…looking up just in time to collect the steaming hot point of the iron into his left eye socket…I remember the horrible red burn that covered his eye and cheek….I remember the prayers of my mother on
the way to the hospital…..and I can see to this day that he was spared any damage or even a scar….but more than any of the other crisis….I remember the broken pencil!

According to the elementary teacher at Illinois City School, Jimmy was doing a very stupid thing…..he was racing a friend…in the classroom…on his way back from the pencil sharpener. Somehow the freshly sharpened new pencil got turned into the palm of his hand, just as he tripped and fell sharply to the floor. As he got up crying from the floor, blood was gushing out of the fresh wound in the center of his palm….and the pencil lay broken on the floor. I remember my mothers concern….as she took him to the doctor for repairs on that Friday night. But mostly, I remember the terrible looking swelled hand that seemed almost detached from his arm…..by Sunday morning. Jimmy sat and dozed on Moms lap thru church. I remember Dad carrying him to the car asleep after service as we headed home to the farm. It seems that he slept fitfully all day Sunday….and cried hard when Mom got him ready for Sunday night services. When they changed the dressing on his hand, he cried uncontrollably ….but off we went to Sunday night services. As we sat listening to the preacher that night….I noticed Mom grab Dads shoulder…I heard her tearfully tell Dad that Jimmy was very sick…he was flushed, sweating….and a faint dark red line was beginning to trace its way up the center of his forearm….blood poisoning I heard Mom cry to Dad. In all of my 13 years….I had never witnessed what happened next… Calmly, but very boldly, my Dad picked up the now very limp body of little Jimmy…..and stood up ….. politely he interrupted the preacher…..he allowed that little Jimmy needed prayer for healing….that something was very wrong and that all of us needed to pray for a miracle. Without missing a beat…and without showing alarm…the old preacher called Mom and Dad with Jimmy … out into the aisle…he met them there ……he held Jimmy’s bandaged hand …. he spoke directly to God….and requested the miracle of healing. My mother cried…. but she offered up the loudest of Amens….at the end of the prayer. The three of them came back to their seats….and the service went on. I was sitting next to Mom. Minutes after returning to her seat by me, she took Jimmy back onto here lap. The flush was gone from his face and his fever appeared to have broken. He seemed now to be sleeping soundly. Mom wasn’t satisfied. I watched as she began to unwrap the bandage on his hand. I watched as she held the awful looking, wounded hand gently in her hand. I watched as dark looking thick liquid began to ooze out of the wound in his palm. I felt tears in my own eyes…. when, as Mom continued to cradle Jimmies little hand in here own….a one inch long piece of pencil slipped out of the gash in his hand…followed by multiple slivers of wood and graphite lead. My mother gently swabbed at the wound..and carefully collected the pieces of ‘broken pencil’ that had come out of the wound. She accepted God’s miraculous..with dignity and with confidence that had grown out of years of believing that God Really was God! Before we left the church house that night…little Jimmy had his hand back…the swelling and grey color was gone. The red streak up his forearm was gone…the fever and sickness were totally gone.

Back home on the farm that night, Mom put only a light bandage of gauze on the hand. We got up early for school the next morning. By the time I got in from my morning milking chores..Jimmy was at the table eating pancakes. I noticed he had no bandage on his hand as he wielded his fork. I grabbed at his hand as I walked thru the kitchen…. the gaping wound was gone. It had, literally over night closed to the size of a pinprick surrounded by soft skin like that of a baby. Mom only smiled as she watched me inspect the miraculous……her only words to me were that “I should always expect the miraculous…our God”, she said…”is a very good God”.