Now, that’s the way the gift is supposed to be working. See? Now, I want you to notice this. It wasn’t my sincere prayer that brought this gift. Gifts are not brought by sincere prayers. Gifts are foreordained of God. They’re ordained and sent. Here at the Municipal Bridge. Sister, no doubt you know where the Municipal Bridge is, don’t you, cross from Jeffersonville to Louisville? Twenty-two years, when I was a little boy, just a little bitty lad about five years old, or six years old, when the Angel of the Lord appeared in the bush…You’ve heard me tell that haven’t you, when I was packing water? Well, about two weeks after that, I was playing marbles with my little brother. And I thought I’d got sick, some real funny feeling came on me. And I went and set down by the side of a tree. And I looked down at the river, and there went a bridge, a big, great big bridge going across the river. And I counted sixteen men that fell off of that bridge and drowned. And I went and told mother. And I told her I seen it. And they thought I was crazy or something. They thought I was just at a little nervous hysterical child. And twenty-two years from that time, on the same ground went the Municipal Bridge across, and sixteen men lost their lives on it. See? Wasn’t nothing that…It’s—it’s God sent it. Your prayers brought it. See?

Experiences, 1948-03-02, Phoenix, AZ, §44