The most wonderful answer to prayer that I ever saw was that of a poor Mohammedan widow, who, with her children, was starving.
I had closed the White Memorial Hospital in Pasrur, India, for two months. One day, I decided to open it, and, taking with me my assistant, a young Indian girl, we drove in the evening to put the hospital and dispensary in order. As my decision was made suddenly, I took with me only a small five-cent loaf of bread and some butter. The next morning at five o’clock, we ate most of the bread and butter.
We were so anxious to open to patients the next day that we worked on till two o’clock that afternoon, forgetting our need of food. Then, becoming weak and faint, I sent the assistant to prepare some Indian bread and greens for herself, telling her I would take what was left of the bread and butter we had in the morning.
Later, I drew a small table to the edge of the veranda, and sat down to my bread and butter. My Indian assistant drew a native bedstead close to the veranda, with her bread and greens on a brass plate, and also made ready to eat.
She had just seated herself, but had not yet touched her food, when a big black mountain crow, or raven, flopped down on her. He took one side of the bread in one claw and the opposite side in the other claw. Then he carefully brought his feet together and took up the vegetables.
It is not uncommon for crows to steal food from our plates when we sit outside, but they generally fly into a tree near by and caw and brag. This bird acted differently, and although both of us were most indignant, we watched him with interest. Up into the clear sky he went, over the hospital, across the city, on, on, till only a speck, when he seemed to sink and vanish. I shared my bread and butter with my assistant, and we finished the work. Then we opened up to patients the next day.
I cannot recall whether it was one or two days later that we saw a poor, weak woman coming in the gate, carrying a baby in her left arm, and a child of two or more on her right hip. Two other children came trailing after her, snatching at her clothes whenever they could to help themselves along. She staggered to the veranda and sank exhausted to the floor. We revived her, and asked from what she suffered.
“I am a Mohammedan widow,” she said. “My husband died six months ago, and left me with these four children. My children and I have been starving. For three days we had nothing to eat. I prayed, oh, how I prayed to Mohammed; but Mohammed never cares for women and children. Then I prayed to the gods of the Hindus, but they, too, never care for women and children. Then I threw myself on the ground and clasped my hands as the Christians do, and I cried, ‘O God of the Christians, send food to us, that my children may not die.’
“While praying, a crow dropped down and swept my head with its wings and flew away. I lifted my head and looked. There before me lay a beautiful piece of bread and some vegetables. I took the food, and my children and I ate.
“Some of the village women came past me as we ate, and asked me where I got the food. I told them the crow had brought it. ‘That is not a poor man’s food,’ they said. ‘That has come from some one of the better class.’
“ ‘I know the tender-hearted doctor who has a hospital at Pasrur,’ one woman said. ‘I think if you go to her, she will take you in and care for you.’ I started at once. Sometimes we got a ride, sometimes we walked, but we are here.”
My assistant thanked God that she had been counted worthy to give her dinner to answer this woman’s prayer. It was her food, without a doubt, that the crow had carried to the starving widow and her children.
True Education Reader, ©1931, Maria White, M.D., 354–356.
“Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).