by Bonnie Irene Cunningham

I read of a man in Kansas City that had lost both hands in a explosion and his face was also badly torn. The surgeons did all they could for him, but his eyesight was utterly destroyed in the explosion.

He had been a Christian just a few years, but had fallen in love with the Bible. His distress at no longer being able to read was almost unbearable.

He heard of a lady in England who had learned to read Braille with her lips, so some friends ordered parts of the Bible in a special moon-type Braille, thinking he might learn to read it with his lips. But the explosion had destroyed the nerves in his lips, and there was no sense of touch. He was broken-hearted and wept.

But then as he stopped to kiss the Bible forever, he happened to touch some of the raised letters with his tongue. He read the Bible this way through several times, and many of the books of the Bible over and over again.

This man loved God’s Word. How many of us have read the Bible through at least once?

(Editor’s note:) What an inspiring story. But, Sis. Bonnie’s own story is equally so. Sis. Cunningham is my grandmother. She was born on Oct. 1, 1917 and, in 1935, at the age of 18, she was saved, sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost. That same year, in December, she married my grandfather, Cecil J. Cunningham, who had been a licensed evangelist with the Church of God of Prophecy for a year at that time. From their wedding day, she was not just a wife: she was a preacher’s wife.

She tirelessly aided her husband in pastorates in Tennessee, Alabama and Maryland, as well as during his tenure as State Overseer in the Church of God of Prophecy, variously, in the states of Alabama, Kansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Wisconsin and Wyoming from 1944 to 1973.

In the 1960's she became afflicted with Rheumatoid arthritis, which, in time, completely disabled her. I remember visiting my grandparents in the 1970's and early ‘80's, when she was still somewhat mobile, and I was fascinated that, in spite of her obvious pain and suffering, she never complained. She was always upbeat and even served as an encouragement for many others, as her faith in God never wavered: not even when her husband passed away in 1984.

Even now, although totally incapacitated by this dreadful condition, her thoughts remain firmly on the Lord. Currently living in Lewisburg, TN, she receives no greater joy than when someone visits her and reads the Bible to her or sings old hymns to (and with) her.

Her life has served to inspire me and many others. This man’s love of the Scriptures isn’t something about which she merely wrote, it is something she lives.