Kicked out of college and hooked on drink and drugs, Pauline Hamilton drove recklessly towards a cliff near her home to end it all. At the last moment, her tyre blew out, leaving her stunned in the stationary car.
Pauline’s life changed forever. She turned at once to the God who had rescued her and, in grateful amazement, offered her whole life to Him. This dedication would eventually take her to China, where she would serve for over 30 adventure-packed years as a missionary. Through many trials Pauline never lost sight of the God who had promised never to let her go.
‘Come back! Come back!’
Mother was calling to me as I pulled away from the cottage in my sister’s grey convertible. I could see her in my rearview mirror. Mother was not very tall, only a bit over five feet. Her beautiful white wavy hair blowing softly in the summer breeze was framing her face, today etched with lines of worry. Her hands were gripping the porch railing as though she were steadying herself. I swallowed hard, but just ignored her calls. Pushing my foot harder on the accelerator, I sped away.
The car was a fairly new one my sister was letting me use while she was travelling in Europe, and on that hot summer afternoon I had the top down, not to enjoy the breeze blowing my long brown hair, but so that everything would go according to plan.
I had only one intention. Although that gravelled mountain road was one of my favourites, I was not out for a pleasure drive. No, not today. All I could think of was to reach the hairpin turn and go flying over the cliff to put an end to my miserable existence.
No one would know I had gone over intentionally.
There was no guard rail to stop me, and accidents there were frequent. Besides, I had to take this route to go for the bottled gas we needed. At last, the opportunity I had hoped for weeks had come, and in such a way that no one would guess I meant to take my own life. I had left no suicide notes. My going over the cliff would be considered just one of those tragic accidents.
Life could not continue as it was. Everything I had ever wanted, hoped for, and worked for was gone – my future destroyed. And it seemed that no one cared. From the time I was a small girl I had wanted to study medicine, and I had worked hard toward that dreamed-of goal. Two years of medical school were already behind me. How I had looked forward to the vigorous, fulfilling years ahead in my career, and eventually to having a happy home of my own. But now, in the space of just a few weeks, hopes for both career and home had all been shattered.
The first blow had come in the form of a letter from the medical school informing me that I had a secondary lesion of tuberculosis in the right lung and must take a year out from my studies. I was supposed to be going into my clinical year! I wasn’t prepared for anything like this. I was aware that lately I hadn’t had my previous strength and energy, but I thought it was just the usual end-of-year weariness.
My brothers and sisters, all older than I, were away, and had no idea what I was going through. Nor could I have shared this turmoil with them in any case. I felt no one could possibly understand. Following the doctor’s orders, I had tried to rest but I couldn’t. At night, sleep wouldn’t come. I would lock myself in my bedroom and pace the floor into the wee hours. It just seemed that the bottom had fallen out of everything. But that was only the beginning.
The second blow came the day I told my boyfriend, a student in another medical school, about the tuberculosis. My parents objected to this boy, and I guess because they objected I had come to like him more. In fact, we were secretly planning to elope sometime that summer. But since I had seen the x-rays myself and knew how serious the disease was, I felt it was only fair to explain the situation to him. He came to see me, and we decided together that our relationship had to end. But I could never forget the unfeeling way he said: ‘Well, I guess we’d better part company; you’re as good as dead.’ That cut me deeply, especially since I had thought he really loved me.
Not knowing much about our relationship, my parents couldn’t know what this new hurt meant to me. They were just relieved, I guess, that it was all finished. Then several weeks later that wound was opened up again when word came from a friend that this boy I had hoped to marry had eloped with my best friend. But the worst was still to come.
A second letter arrived from the medical school. This time it contained the statement of my dismissal from the school. Under no condition could I continue my training. I guess I deserved dismissal as my behaviour had hardly been above reproach. But it was blow upon blow. It was more than I could take.
And so every night I continued to lock my bedroom door and pace the floor. And each night Mother stood outside, pleading with me to talk things over with her, trying to assure me that they could understand and that they did not blame me. I wouldn’t listen. How could she and Dad understand when they had never experienced anything like this? I took so many sleeping pills that I should have died, but instead they just invigorated me and left me sleepless. I could think of nothing worth living for.
And now suddenly the opportunity had come to end my anguish. As I was tearing up the road with the accelerator pushed to the floor, familiar landmarks flashing by me, a kind of mad exhilaration possessed me. I had neither the time nor the inclination to reassess things now. I just wanted to reach my destination. Numbing my sense of feeling, I didn’t let myself think of Mother as she had looked, calling after me in her fear.
I was almost there – just two more turns to make. Suddenly there was a terrific bang and the car careened out of control, nearly flipping over on that narrow gravel road. Somehow reining the shiny convertible to a stop, I got out, saw the skid marks and then spotted the blown-out tyre on the left front wheel.
As I stared at the ragged hole in that tyre, I didn’t hear any heavenly voices, but I knew that God had done this. Right there on that skid-marked mountain road the Spirit of God brought back to my mind things I must have learned many years before in Sunday school.
The first words that came to me were: ‘He cares!’ And then, in a marvellous way He continued to show me how much He loved me. I knew the verse He was using, John 3:16 – I had learned it as a child. But this time it had my name in it: ‘God so loved Pauline Hamilton, that if Pauline Hamilton believes in Me, she shall not perish, but have everlasting life.’
I began to reason: obviously God cared enough to stop me on that road, stop me from taking my own life – but why? I had turned my back on Him many years before, and refused to give Him any place in my life and my plans. What reason could He have to care about me? But He did, and the realisation of that love broke me.
I crouched down on the road with all the necessary tools beside me to attempt changing the tyre, but instead I found myself weeping before the Lord, He speaking to me and I to Him. I didn’t know much about prayer then – my praying up to that time had been little more than ‘Now I lay me down to sleep,’ or ‘Lord, give me this or that.’ Today it was different. Though neither formal nor beautiful, my prayer came from the heart. It ran something like this: ‘God, You win. I’ve made an awful mess of things. Lord, if You can do anything with this mess, here I am. You take over.’
Something happened there on that hot, dusty road that I can’t explain scientifically; but it changed my life completely. I wasn’t even sure the words that came to my heart were from the Bible – yet I felt they had to be. ‘Be strong and of good courage,’ God said to me. ‘Be not afraid, for I am with you.’ How I needed those words – and what comfort they brought to my heart!
Minutes after I had handed the mess of my life over to the God who cares, a car came into sight from the opposite direction. The driver stopped when he saw my predicament and asked kindly if he could help. As he changed my tyre, he didn’t ask any questions, probably thinking my tears were brought on by the blow-out.
After the spare tyre was at last securely in place, I slowly backed the car around and headed for home. Oh, I was dirty! My face was streaked, dust having mixed with perspiration and tears to make mud. Quickly slipping into the house I announced simply to Mother that I had had a blowout, and ran to my room to clean up. Wisely, my parents never asked any questions. I don’t know how they prepared supper that evening without any gas; I wasn’t hungry and didn’t go down. I was still pretty well shaken by all that had happened and wanted to be alone to think over the events of the afternoon. Amazingly, the old burden and heaviness of heart seemed to have gone! That night I didn’t lock my bedroom door nor pace the floor. Instead I pulled down my old Bible from the shelf, dusted it off and began searching for those life-transforming words the Lord had spoken to my heart.
By the time I lay down on my bed, it was nearly five o’clock in the morning. I was absolutely exhausted, both nervously and physically. I slept, and I slept and I slept – so much so that on the second day my worried parents called the doctor. ‘Let her sleep,’ were his instructions once he was sure that my problem was simply exhaustion. I slept for about two and a half days. I awoke a new creature in Jesus Christ.
This is an extract from Pauline Hamilton’s forthcoming biography To A Different Drum, shortly being re-published by 10Publishing after a gap of many years, and available to pre-order now.
• At 63, Pauline was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and mission leadership ordered her to retire early and return to the US. Chinese friends overwhelmed her with gifts as she left her beloved home and set off for America in 1978, where she would enjoy ten more years of good health, speaking throughout the US and other countries and writing her autobiography, To a Different Drum. Pauline died in her sleep while travelling on an OMF ministry trip in the Northwest US. ‘Dr P.’ is remembered as a ‘jolly, humble, intelligent, down-to-earth, beloved … person of faith’. Near the end of her life, she wrote: ‘Whatever I had given up to follow the Lord, He had returned to me a hundredfold.’ Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity
