::grace fellowship, inc.
                                 ... healing and restoring people -- william mark bristow

Today (January 4, 2010) about 10:15 EST we lost a giant in the moving of the Power of God.  Ruth Fisher, 26 years with Kathryn Kuhlman, from the time God healed her of ruptured discs in 1951 -- slipped into glory.

I met her in person, December 3, 1999 at Pastor Benny Hinn's 25th anniversary in Anaheim, California.  She and her sister Maryon Marsh were on the platform with Pastor Benny, and the Lord spoke to me and said, "Ask her to come and minister in West Texas."  In that crowd it seemed impossible, but I literally ran into her going out the door!  She agreed to come and we became friends the moment we met.  We hosted her twice in West Texas to packed out auditoriums and each meeting produced verified healings and miracles. 

She asked me to accompany her on numerous ministry trips over the last few years to New York, Los Angeles, Houston, and Pittsburgh. 

Pastor Benny Hinn allowed me to "shadow" her and minister in among the wheelchair patients in a few of his great Miracle Crusades.  The most recent was in December of 2007 in Pittsburgh. 

A couple of our services are preserved on video.   I'll try to recount a few of the miracles I saw. 

I think the year was 1974.  I was about 17 years of age.  We attended the Regional Convention of the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International at the Statler-Hilton Hotel in downtown Dallas, TX.  Kathryn Kuhlman was the main speaker.  I believe you can find this story in the now defunct Dallas Times Herald Newspaper from maybe August 24-25-26, 1974.  The woman I am telling about is pictured on the front page.  I was sitting near the wheelchair section, just a few seats away.  Ruth Fisher was wearing one of Kathryn's dresses (they wore the same size).  It was a pink Jackie-O styled knee length of the late 1960's and early 1970's.  It has bishop sleeves with large cuffs and a high satin collar neck.  "Would you like to stand up?" Ruth asked the woman sitting in the wheelchair.  The sixty-ish woman slurred, "Yes, but I have Lou Gehrigs'."  Friends surrounding the woman interpretted her slurred speech for Ruth to understand.  Ruth got a big usher to assist and with his and Ruth's help, the woman stood.  The first steps were grueling to watch.  Ruth and this giant of a man - usher literally picked up the woman's legs and moved them forward as if I were watching a clay-mation animation being filmed with the puppetter moving the puppet a segment at a time.  Then, it happened, a leg moved at the woman's will, then the other leg, and she was walking -- steading herself with Ruth and the usher's aid.  Back and forth they walked in a side aisle.  In a moment, Ruth turned and moved the woman into the long aisle running the length of the 3,000 seat hall.  They walked completely to the back, and by the time they made the long walk to where I was seated, the woman was walking normally on her own.  By the time she reached the 8 steep steps to the platform, she pushed Ruth and the usher aside and mounted the steps unaided.  Dr. Richard O'Wellen of John Hopkins Hospital was on the platform that day and took the woman aside for some clinical evaluation.  He could find no trace of advanced Lou Gehrig's (ALS).  The next day, the woman returned --to testify.  The news media, the press, skeptics, and various "look-e-lous" packed the auditorium along with the faithful.  The complete story of this miracle of a woman dying with ALS who had flown against her doctor's orders from Canada with seven friends to aid her was told on every Dallas news outlet.  I was an eyewitness.

I have wondered a thousand times -- what would have happened if Ruth had not assisted this woman to receive her miracle?  Nothing methinks.  She would have sat there in the power of God, with His mighty presence on her body and without her appropriation - absolutely nothing would have happened.

The Law of Appropriation was the first message I heard Ruth give.  It's a simple message from John chapter 5 -- the man at the pool of Bethesda.  Jesus gave his an impossible task, "Rise!"  But the power to accomplish the miraculous was in that WORD of God, "RISE!"  When the man what was I'm sure a feeble attempt to comply, the Power of God came to bear and he was healed!

Ruth saw it in the Word searching the scriptures after her own healing in 1951.  Joshua 1:3, "Every place the sole of your foot treads have I given unto thee. . ."  There it is.  The old Scofield reference Bible was a footnote at that verse, "The Law of Appropriation.  God gives, but we must take."  That became Ruth's daily walk with God. 

In 26 years, she never missed one of Miss Kuhlman's "Miracle Services."  She worked for those years in the services encouraging other's to act when the power of God was present.

I'll never forget the first service in Odessa, Texas.  The place was packed with people in the overflow room watching by video.  Pastor Paul's grandson, Seth had suffered a football neck injury and was unable to stay for the service.  We brought him in just as we were about to begin.  Ruth was sitting on the front row, and probably five to six hundred people watched as she prayed with him, then he removed the neck brace and was completely healed.  Can you imagine the excitement?  We hadn't even started the service!

One of my favorite memories, as the power of God was falling.  Worker's were in the aisles with people (following Ruth's example), and it was kind of an organized chaos with Ruth and me as moderator up front.  I was waiting for the next worker to bring someone to tell of the Lord's touch when a woman, probably in her 70's ran past me -- following behind and out of breach, her husband said, "Stop her!"  "Why?" I asked.  "She can't walk!"  was his frustrated reply.  "But she's running. . ."  He interrupped, "She had a stroke seven years ago and she hasn't set foot out of that wheelchair since."  I'm not sure he graspped at all that day -- the Lord had healed her.  (I was later told their First Baptist Church in a little community nearby where they had attended for years was turned upside down by this miracle.)

Ruth's wisdom to me means as much.  One day we were sitting in a restaurant in her hometown of Beaver Falls, PA -- Eat'n'Park Restaurant.  I was about to complain about a minister who had done something I didn't like.  As I started to tell Ruth how I wanted to give that one a piece of my mind, I said, "I wanted to tell them ..."  (she interrupted) , "there's a better way."  Ruth's voice is often in my head now when I'm irritated, or irked, "there's a better way."

A couple of my favorite stories from her days with Kathryn Kuhlman.  They were in Sweden -- Stockholm, I think, and because of Kathryn's own service, all the hotels were full -- and something had gone wrong in their hotel reservations.  There was no place to stay.  Kathryn suggested the Salvation Army.  They had two rooms available.  One for Kathryn, Maggie, and Ruth.  One for the 5 men on the team.  Two rooms but no beds!  Kathryn slept in a hammock.  Maggie slept on a table, and there was nothing for Ruth but the cold floor so a pastor (who was an undertaker) brought a coffin.  Ruth slept in the coffin.  "I proped open the lid -- I'll tell you that for sure!"

One of Ruth's favorite memories was of the great choir rehersals in Pittsburgh which were held at an old mansion (Kathryn rented auditoriums for the services so there was no permanent facility other than the offices).  They often served dinner afterward and everything was ready and Miss Kuhlman was nowhere to be found -- when suddenly she appeared at the top of the stairs -- and always a lady, came slidding down the bannister rail - side-saddle!

Ruth still had one of Miss Kuhlman's pulpit dresses - a silk affair in 1970's psychodelic paisley -- yellow's and pale green.  A Jackie-O style knee length with the bishop sleeves, satin cuffs and neck collar.  Maryon wore it to some of the services.  It had a small tear in one of the sleeves, and it was my own mother's thrill to do the repair.  Ruth said Kathryn walked in to the office one day with the dress rolled up in a ball and tossed it to Ruth, "Don't let Maggie see that!"

Ruth and Maryon told me the staff at CBS could always tell when Kathryn Kuhlman was in the building -- everything got peaceful -- the atmosphere in the building changed!  Ruth may not have realized it but she had that effect.  Ruth Fisher and my friend, Jerry B. Walker.  People literally "fought" to be near them.

I liked her because she was real -- no pretense.  Coming in late one night on a long drive on the turnpike north of Pittsburgh -- she was tired and she started to sing, "The old grey mare, she ain't what she used to be. . ."  And my favorite, sitting in the lovely coffeeshop of a Hilton hotel in Houston.  Myself, Alton Sutter, Ruth Fisher and Maryon Marsh.  We were dressed to go to the service and Ruth and Maryon were always the picture of elegance.  The waitress didn't notice Ruth's coffee was cold.  "Young lady," said Ruth as she motioned for the waitress to return.  "Yes maam."  Ruth pointed to her cold cup of coffee and quipped, "I like my coffee hot and my men cold!" 

Walking with me one afternoon thru an antique mall in Beaver Falls, she said, "Why don't you take me home, I'm older than everything in here!"

I will be forever grateful for the privilege of knowing her, working with her, and most of all for her friendship.  (In the coming days I will add more memories and will shortly add her teaching, "The Law of Appropriation.")