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About the Book
"100 Days in Heaven" by James A. Durham is a spiritual memoir that chronicles the author's experiences during a 100-day visitation to heaven. Durham shares vivid descriptions of the sights, sounds, and encounters he had in heaven, offering insights into the beauty and peace of the afterlife. The book explores themes of faith, redemption, and the eternal nature of the soul, offering readers a glimpse into the mysteries of the heavenly realm.
Kathryn Kuhlman
Kathryn Johanna Kuhlman was born on May 9, 1907, in Concordia, Missouri. Her parents were German and she was one of four children. Her mother was a harsh disciplinarian, who showed little love or affection. On the other hand, she had an extremely close and loving relationship with her father. She would describe, as a small child how, her father would come home from work and she would hang on his leg and cling to him. She often said that her relationship with God the Father was extremely real because of her relationship with her own father.
Kuhlman was converted, when she was 14, at an evangelistic meeting held in a small Methodist church. When she was 16 she graduated from high school, which only went to tenth grade in their town. He older sister Myrtle had married an itinerant evangelist, Everett B. Parrott. They spent their time traveling and asked that Kathryn could join them for the summer. Her parents agreed and she went to Oregon to help out. She worked with them, and often gave her testimony. When the summer was over she wanted to stay, and the couple agreed. She ended up working with them for five years.
The evangelistic team was made up of four people, Everette, Myrtle, Kathryn, and pianists named Helen Gulliford. In 1928 Everette missed a meeting in Boise, Idaho. Myrtle and Kathryn preached to cover for Everette. The pastor of the church encouraged Kathryn to step out on her own. Helen agreed to join her. Her first sermon was in a run-down pool hall in Boise, Idaho. The team covered Idaho, Utah, and Colorado for the following five years. In 1933 they moved into Pueblo, Colorado. They set up in an abandoned Montgomery Ward warehouse. They stayed there for six months.
Denver, being a much bigger city, was the next stop. They moved several times but ended up in a paper company's warehouse, which they named the Kuhlman Revival Tabernacle. Then in 1935 they moved once more to an abandoned truck garage they named the Denver Revival Tabernacle. Kathryn was seeing a lot of success in Denver. The church grew to about 2000 members. She began a radio show called "Smiling Through" and invited speakers from all over the country. One of them was Phil Kerr who taught on divine healing. In 1935 another invited evangelist was Burroughs Waltrip.
Waltrip was bad news for Kuhlman. He was a charismatic, handsome man several years older than she was. There was an immediate attraction, and one family claims to have seen the couple embracing in 1935, but he was married and had two children. Waltrip left Denver and went home to Austin, Texas, but the relationship simmered between Kuhlman and Waltrip. In 1937 he was invited back to Denver to take the pulpit for two months. Shortly after he divorced his wife and abandoned his two sons. He then spread the story that his wife had left him. He moved to Mason City, Iowa, where he told everyone he was single, and started a new ministry. Waltrip raised pledges of $70,000 to build a ministry building called Radio Chapel. It was state of the art with a disappearing pulpit and an art deco style. He appeared to be a successful and dynamic preacher.
There was an ongoing relationship between Kuhlman and Waltrip, and they married in September 1938. Kuhlman was naive about the consequences of her choices and the marriage was a disaster. She announced to her church that she and Waltrip were married and they would go between Denver and Mason City preaching at their two churches. Most of the people in her congregation left due to her relationship with Waltrip. She gave up her church in Denver, lost some of her closest associates, and moved to Mason City. Waltrip's success turned out to be a pipe dream as well. The Radio Chapel was completed in June of 1938. By October 1938 Waltrip could not meet his debts. In December Waltrip was demanding a higher salary, even with the shortfall in income. His Board of Directors quit and left him to deal with the finances. His solution was not to pay the mortgage or debts on the Chapel. Radio Chapel went into bankruptcy. Waltrip's last sermon was in May 1939. The Waltrips were on their own. Kathryn's happy vision of she and her husband flying back and forth between Denver and Mason City with a successful preaching careers was utterly demolished.
The next few years were very hard for the couple. They embarked on the road as traveling evangelists, primarily staying in the Midwest. They were not accepted in many places due to their marriage history. Initial advertisements listed Waltrip as the primary evangelist. Then occasionally Mrs. Waltrip was also mentioned. By the early 1940s Kathryn Kuhlman Waltrip was given equal billing. Finally by the mid-1940s Kathryn was using only Kathryn Kuhlman in meetings where she was the primary speaker. In 1944 Kuhlman went on an evangelistic tour on the east coast without Waltrip. It may have been a conscious decision to leave him, or she may also have taken the opportunity to reassess her life. It appears to have been more gradual as Waltrip wrote about them as a couple as late as 1946. Kuhlman never returned to Waltrip and they eventually divorced in 1947. She left her marriage behind and from then on acted as if it never existed in the first place.
In 1946 Kuhlman was asked to speak in Franklin, Pennsylvania. She was well received and decided to stay in the area. Kuhlman began preaching on radio broadcasts in Oil City, Pennsylvania. These became so popular they were picked up in Pittsburgh, and she was preaching throughout the area. She began to preach about the healing power of God. In 1947 a woman was healed of a tumor while listening to Kuhlman preach. Several Sundays later a man was also healed while she was teaching on the Holy Spirit. She was now convinced of God's healing work. One important thing to note is the context and timing of this breakout period in Kuhlman's life. 1947 was the beginning of the Healing Revival (sometimes referred to as the Latter Rain Revival) that would last for the next 10 years. What was happening in Kuhlman's meetings was breaking out across the United States. It was in this time frame that the Voice of Healing Ministry was established and men like William Branham, Oral Roberts, A.A. Allen and many others were propelled onto the public stage. Kuhlman was not associated with those groups, but stepped into the flow of what God's Spirit was doing across the nation and the world.
In 1948 Kuhlman held a series of meetings at Carnegie Hall in Pittsburgh. She eventually moved to Pittsburgh in 1950, and continued to hold meetings at Carnegie Hall until 1971. She was used by God to bring the charismatic message to many denominational churches, including the Catholic Church. (She received a lot of criticism over this and was accused of being a closet Catholic.) These were her best known years. Her style was flamboyant. She would hold her famous miracle services and the auditorium was filled to capacity every time. She was on radio and television shows. She was ordained in 1968 by the Evangelical Church Alliance. Hundreds of people were healed in her meetings, and even while listening to her on the radio or television. People she prayed for would often be hit with the power of God and be "slain in the Spirit." Kuhlman never claimed that she was the healer. She always pointed people to Jesus as their healer.
Kuhlman had been diagnosed with a heart problem in 1955. She kept a very busy schedule and overworked herself, especially in the 1970's. She traveled back and forth from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles frequently, as well as taking trips around the world. Her heart was enlarged and Kuhlman died on February 20, 1976, in Tulsa, following open-heart surgery. Videos of some of her services are still available and continue to be popular today.
Be Content with What You Have
Contentment is not simply about settling for what we have, but trusting in what God has said. Both anxiety and greed rise in our hearts as Godâs words fall. When the author of Hebrews wanted to teach his readers about contentment, he told them an old story with a familiar refrain. He quieted their fears and quenched their greed by reminding them what God had said . âKeep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said , âI will never leave you nor forsake youââ (Hebrews 13:5). Which prompted Charles Spurgeon to ask, Will not the distresses of life and the pangs of death, will not the internal corruptions and the external snares, will not the trials from above and the temptations from beneath all seem but light afflictions when we can hide ourselves beneath the bulwark of âhe has saidâ? The seed of unnecessary fear in the heart of a Christian is forgetfulness â an inability to remember and trust what the God of the universe has said and done. No one has ever had any grounds to accuse God of not following through on his word. Not even one phrase in any sentence in any statement he has ever made has failed (Joshua 21:45). We will only be truly content with what we have when we know that we have him. And we will remember that we have him when we hear and believe his voice. God Has Said When God said, âI will never leave you nor forsake you,â he was speaking to Joshua before little Israel went up to take the whole land of Canaan by force. A nation of nomads was about to invade a land filled with enemies bigger and stronger than themselves. Not one army, but many (Joshua 3:10) â and not our turf, but theirs. Israelâs only confidence was that God had told them to go. He had said . What did he say? The foreign land you are about to enter is already yours (Joshua 1:3). No enemy, no matter how many or how strong, will be able to defeat you (Joshua 1:5). And most promising of all: âI will not leave you or forsake you.â âI Will Never Leave Youâ âBoth anxiety and greed rise in our hearts as Godâs words fall.â This great promise will fall flat if we think mainly in terms of geography and not fidelity. Of course  God will never leave us because heâs everywhere all the time. âIf I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!â (Psalms 139:8). But we see Godâs fidelity  in the very next verse, âIf I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold meâ (Psalms 139:9â10). If you are his, he will not leave you; he will lead and protect you. When Joshua stared out into impossible circumstances and enormous opposition, God said, âI will not leave you or forsake you. . . . Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.â (Joshua 1:5, 9) When the author of Hebrews saw what followers of Jesus would face, and how they would be tempted to wander, he went back to those same words (the only time this promise is quoted in the New Testament), âHe has said, âI will never leave you nor forsake youââ (Hebrews 13:5). You will never be alone. No matter how desperate and alone you feel, no matter how much opposition you face, no matter how precarious your circumstances become, he has said, I will be with you.  His presence can calm any fear â if we donât forget that heâs there, heâs near, and heâs attentive. What You Donât Have The author of Hebrews, however, wasnât warning about Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites. His readers, who were Jewish converts, were facing intense persecution, but from within their own nation â from their own communities, even their own families. And as the scorching friendly fire fell, an even more threatening enemy emerged within their hearts: their own cravings and desires. He says, âKeep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, âI will never leave you nor forsake youââ (Hebrews 13:5). When Western Christians today read, âBe content with what you have,â we might assume the Christian has enough. We may hear, âDonât long for more than you need.â But many of these young converts were being thrown out of their families, cut off from all provision and protection. To follow Jesus was to embrace abandonment and accept poverty. So, many of them were being called to be content with what they did not  have. âThe seed of unnecessary fear in the heart of a Christian is forgetfulness.â Discontentment suddenly doesnât seem so unreasonable. Some of them went without food â for Christ. Some of them had only the clothes on their back â for Christ. Some of them lost their homes â for Christ. Some of them âjoyfully accepted the plundering of [their] property, since [they] knew that [they themselves] had a better possession and an abiding oneâ (Hebrews 10:34). If they  could be content with what they had, and didnât have, how can we not learn to be content with what we have? Grace Enough Be content with what you have.  Are there six more terrifying words in a culture like ours? They certainly land on me like six sharp cannon blasts. Donât let your heart endlessly pine for what you might have one day, but cultivate satisfaction in what God has given you for today. The word for content  is the same word in 2 Corinthians 12:9, when Jesus says to the apostle Paul, âMy grace is sufficient  for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.â Paul responds, âTherefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strongâ (2 Corinthians 12:9â10). Paulâs message is not like so many contentment gospels: If the Lord gives you less, make lemonade. Rather, he says, If Christ gives you less, boast in your less, because you get to see more of him in your less.  His grace is sufficient to cover any deficiency in us. If God is that big, and grace that sweet, then we are able to say what the vast majority cannot say: âIf we have food and clothing, with these we will be contentâ (1 Timothy 6:8). We will not be simply appeased, but pleased, because our deepest joy does not rise and fall with what we have (Philippians 4:11). How Silver Kills a Man If we want to be content with what we have, however, we have to be free from the love of money. As Paul warns, âThe love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangsâ (1 Timothy 6:10). And through this craving, many have forfeited contentment and forgotten what God has said. Intimacy with God loses its value as we fall deeper in love with our currency (and all it buys for us). âWe will only be truly content with what we have when we know that we have him.â If we keep flirting with money, we will make ourselves sons of Judas, who traded God himself for thirty pitiful pieces of silver (Matthew 26:15). But even before he died, Judas knew he had been had (Matthew 27:3). He had grossly overestimated money and misjudged the love that no amount of silver could buy: âI will never leave you nor forsake you.â Could he not see how murderously unhappy the Pharisees were (Luke 16:14)? Still he couldnât shake his cravings for more, even if they cost him everything. If we could feel the horrible realization he felt after trading Jesus away for money, would we not race to give away every possession necessary to have God? Would we not gladly have however little in this life to gain him in the next and forever? Content and Courageous What does contentment sound like? True contentment does not sound cheap, shy, or docile because it often requires profound strength and lionhearted courage. Hebrews continues, âHe has said, âI will never leave you nor forsake you.â So we can confidently say , âThe Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?ââ (Hebrews 13:5â6). As he looks out on this small army of Jesus-followers, facing want and need and worse, he turns from Joshua 1 to Psalm 118, which goes on to say, It is better to take refuge in the Lord      than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord      than to trust in princes. (Psalm 118:8â9) Courage ties Psalm 118 to the promise from Joshua 1 because God says to Joshua three times, âBe strong and courageousâ (Joshua 1:6â7, 9). And before Joshua heard those four words, Moses had said to him, âBe strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake youâ (Deuteronomy 31:6). When you are tempted to worry about how much you have, set your mind on what he has said . If the true God is your God, he goes with you. He knows what you need (Matthew 6:32). And knowing all you need, and all you will face, he will never leave you nor forsake you. Therefore, we can be courageous wherever his hand leads us, flee the shiny promises of silver, and rejoice in what we have. Most of all, we can rejoice that we have him.
