"Goodbye, Polly."

by P.J. Madden

"Smith, watch me when I'm preaching. I get so near to heaven when I'm preaching that someday I'll be off."

He thought back on these words that his dear Polly had once spoken. "Well," he mused, "she certainly must have preached tonight."

It was New Year's Day, 1913. The local doctor and a policeman had met just as he was stepping out the front door, on his way to Glasgow to minister at some meetings. However, the look on the two men's faces as they met him told him something was wrong.

"Polly's dead, Smith. She fell dead at the mission door." Just a few hours before, he had bid her well as she was leaving to go preach there.

He loved his Polly. She was everything in the world to him. In the natural he was devastated, but deep down inside, he knew that she was where she wanted to be. He began to speak in tongues and praise the Lord, laughing in the Spirit.

Soon the house was filled with people. Her body had been brought to the house. At Smith's instructions, they took her up to her room and laid her lifeless form on the bed.

"She's dead, and we can do no more." Smith just smiled. He knew differently.

Asking everyone to please leave the room, he closed the door when the last one had left. He turned around and walked over to her bed. He knew that she was with her beloved Lord as she had so longed to be, but standing before her now, he couldn't bear the separation.

"In the name of Jesus, death give her up." Polly's eyes opened and looked straight into his. "Polly, I need you."

"Smith, the Lord wants me."

An incredible struggle was going on inside him now. Oh, how much he wanted her with him. How could he go on without her? He had thought that they would have so many more years together.

That still, small voice came- the voice he knew so well, the only one he loved more than hers. "She's mine. Her work is done."

With tears streaming down his face, he yielded to his Lord. "My darling, if the Lord wants you, I will not hold you."

She smiled as he kissed her cheek tenderly. Then he simply said, "Goodbye for the present." Her eyes closed, and she was gone.

"Yes, Lord." He had obeyed. He turned and walked out of the room. It was the hardest thing he had ever done.

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This is an extract from "The Wigglesworth Standard" by P.J. Madden.