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About the Book
"Brokenness" by Nancy Leigh DeMoss explores the concept of brokenness as a necessary step towards spiritual growth and intimacy with God. The book delves into the idea that true brokenness involves surrendering control and allowing God to transform our pain and struggles into sources of strength and growth. Through personal stories, practical insights, and biblical teachings, the author encourages readers to embrace brokenness as a pathway to freedom and wholeness in Christ.
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.
5 Important Heart Lessons from the Woman at the Well
At times, we may need to have a heart-to-heart with someone we love. Those conversations can be difficult. We may be afraid to say whatâs needed because we donât know how the other person might react when we get the courage to speak up. Maybe we donât want to hurt their feelings, but we canât continue without change in some way. The longest one-on-one conversation Jesus had with someone in the Bible was with a woman. She went to the well to draw water and Jesus was waiting there. Like many of us, she didnât know him very well. Sheâd heard of the Messiah but didnât realize He was right there with her. Her daily duties were keeping her occupied and he appeared in her life out of left field. She wasnât expecting him to show up and she sure didnât expect him to change her life. But He was expecting her. He had plans she knew nothing about. He used her powerfully even though her life was far from picturesque. Itâs an encouraging story and beautiful. Encouraging to us because God allows us to participate in His work here on earth. It doesnât matter where weâve been or what weâve done in the past. He can use us and will for His purposes. Itâs beautiful because when we have a personal relationship with Him, He gives us what we deeply need â the satisfying, living water to quench our spiritual thirst. Here are 5 heart lessons we can learn from the woman at the well in the Bible: 1. We might find Jesus waiting for us. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacobâs well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, âWill you give me a drink?â John 4:7 The woman at the well was doing a routine chore â drawing water from the well. Nothing was out of the ordinary, except for who was sitting at the well, resting â waiting for her. I love how the Scripture mentions that Jesus is tired. Iâm sure Heâs been exhausted with my own spiritual immaturity, rebellion, and stubbornness at times. But He patiently waits for us. He wants us to be honest with him about our life. He waits until the perfect time to work things for good or to change us in some way for the better. 2. When we know Him â weâll love Him. The Samaritan woman said to him, âYou are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?â (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, âIf you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.â John 4:9-10 Jesus doesnât even acknowledge her comment about their differences but goes straight to the heart of the matter. She doesnât know him. Itâs one thing to know who Jesus is but itâs the real deal when we know Him in our hearts. Then itâs love. Iâll never forget figuring out I was âin loveâ with Jesus. (I didnât even realize we could fall in love with Him. Iâd never heard anything about that in the church I grew up in.) I couldnât stop thinking about Him. For years. Everything reminded me of Him, and I saw God in creation everywhere I looked. Why do I think about God 24/7? We think of someone constantly for years and canât get them out of our thoughts because weâre in love. When we truly know Jesus, we will love Him. 3. Sometimes, we donât believe. âSir,â the woman said, âyou have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock?â Jesus answered, âEveryone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.â The woman said to him, âSir, give me this water so that I wonât get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.â John 4:11-15 She must be wondering how something as natural as water can become something that seems impossible. Living water? It doesnât make sense. Jesus is about to transform her natural way of thinking into spiritual drinking. Theyâre alone when this intimate relationship begins. We may discover our own relationship with Him requires alone time, too. He works best in us when weâre not distracted by the world. Maybe weâre in a hospital bed or down on our backs with nothing else but Him to keep us company. Itâs in these moments, he gets our attention and speaks to our spirit, making his presence known and drawing us close. 4. Jesus opens our eyes to see the truth clearly. He told her, âGo, call your husband and come back.â âI have no husband,â she replied. Jesus said to her, âYou are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.â âSir,â the woman said, âI can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.â âWoman,â Jesus replied, âbelieve me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.â The woman said, âI know that Messiahâ (called Christ) âis coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.â Then Jesus declared, âI, the one speaking to you â I am he.â John 16-26 It didnât take her long to realize Jesus was telling the truth. Her eyes were opened, and his words helped her know Him better. The same is true for us. It can take a long time to truly get to know someone. He shows us who He is as we go through the troubles of life. We get to know Him better as we go along putting our trust in Him through lifeâs difficulties. Jesus will replace natural thought with spiritual insight. He takes lies we believe and gives us truth through His word. Helping us worship Him in spirit and in truth. 5. Donât linger in a place you should leave. Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, âWhat do you want?â or âWhy are you talking with her?â Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, âCome, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?â They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the womanâs testimony, âHe told me everything I ever did.â So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers. They said to the woman, âWe no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.â John 4:27-30, 39-42 She didnât linger when it was time to leave. Her water jar was left behind as evidence of what she forgot about when she met Jesus at the well. Literally leading others to Jesus with her powerful testimony. They went to him and asked Jesus to come stay with them. And (my favorite part) because of his words many more became believers. It can be hard to distinguish Godâs direction when weâre not in a close relationship with Him. But when we spend time with him in prayer, reading the Bible, and surrendered in obedience, we will act out of our personal relationship. Weâll want to share what Heâs done for us with others. We want everyone to know Jesus the way we do. As Jesus rested by the well, waiting for the woman, Heâs patiently waiting for us, too. He knows us quite well even if we donât really know Him. He wants to have a heart-to-heart conversation with us, as well. Open your eyes and see Him. Know Him. Your heart will never be the same. Melinda Eye Cooper Crosswalk.com Contributing Writer
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