I Am the Praying Mother of Jacob DeShazer
taken from Missionary Tidings, April 1957

My story is not one of boastful pride, but of witness to the goodness of the God who ever hears and answers the intercessory, pleading prayers of a Christian mother. My son, Jacob DeShazer, is a living example of what the Lord can do for any mother who really "gets hold of God" for the solving of every trial and problem in the rearing of sons and daughters.

My son became a soldier of the United States, and was assigned to duty in the air corps. After basic training at various airfields, he was in 1942 assigned to secret duty in special training for one of the most dangerous missions on which American airmen ever flew.

I saw Jacob in Portland in March 1942, little realizing what the future held in store for him and the family. From Portland he returned to a southern training base, and a few letters were received from him. Then one day the letter and pack ages I had sent him were returned, and we knew not where he had been transferred.

After Jacob had been gone several weeks, I awakened suddenly one night with a strange feeling like unto being dropped down, down, down through the air. Oh, the terrible burden that weighed upon my soul! I prayed and cried out to God in my distress. Suddenly the burden was gone, and I drifted off into an untroubled sleep, something unusual for me. (Comparing the time here with the time in occupied China, it was just the time when Jacob had had to parachute from his falling plane.) How I praise the Lord now, but of course then I didn't realize or know what was taking place so far away. When we heard in the war news that our airmen had been over Tokyo dropping bombs, little did I realize that my own precious boy was in the crew of one of the planes.

The next thing that happened was when Portland Journal news men called us to find out something about our boy, and asked for his picture as one of the men taking part in the Doolittle raid over Tokyo. No one can realize the agony, pain and sorrow we suffered as we heard that the Japanese were holding him as a prisoner, for the stories of the barbarous cruelty of the captors had been told again and again.

One day when I was at home alone, I started to offer thanks for my little lunch when suddenly a terrible burden gripped me. I walked the floor praying, and then knelt beside a chair and cried unto the Lord, "O God, my heart just can't stand this any longer. Oh, give me something as a witness or comfort. Oh, if Jacob were only saved and ready for heaven!" Then in a most wonderful way I heard God speak, "I took care of him in this country; I can take care of him wherever he is." I said, "Yes, Lord, 1 know Thou canst do it." And then, O praise the Lord, the burden was again lifted, and I was sure all the Japanese in Japan could not kill him if God wanted him to live. O wonderful, wonderful Savior! He is a God who hears and answers prayers; a present, living, eternal, heavenly Father.

But a little later there came the renewal of another burden--the burden for Jacob's soul. If I could only know that he was saved, I could give him up if it should be God's will that I should never see him again. Again a promise came from God: "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:9. (It was about this time that God spoke to Jacob in his prison cell in Japan, and Jacob surrendered his life to Christ, as is recounted in "l Was a Prisoner of Japan.")

Another burden concerned Jacob's daily food. We knew not whether he was being starved, though the reports of the cruelty of the Japanese military indicated that no prisoner was ever given enough to more than maintain life in the body. At times we would sit down to eat, and someone would remark, "I wonder if Jake has anything to eat," and we would leave the table with our food untouched.
One day there came the awful news -- the prisoners were all to be executed. I cried again unto the Lord, and again He spoke to me, saying, "His angels do watch over him." Well, I thought, what better company could he have? (Quote from Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo by Ted Law- son: "The Japanese captured two of our crews. Later, when they bragged about it over the air and said they had convicted our fellows of 'inhuman acts,' they mentioned only four men. They mentioned Bill Farrow, Dean Hallmark, Sergeant Harold Spatz and Corporal Jacob DeShazer. The Japs said at first that these men would be put to death if Japan were bombed again." The first three were executed by a firing squad, but Jacob DeShazer was spared through a miracle of God.)

Finally in August, 1945, the news flashed over the radio that some of the Doolittle men had been found alive, and that our boy was one of them. Oh, the boundless joy! God had heard and answered my every prayer.

When Jacob was returned to the United States, very thin and weak, I learned that God had not only spared his life, but had saved his soul in his prison cell, and then had called him to preach the everlasting, glorious gospel of redeeming love to the people of Japan. Yes, my every prayer had been answered: prayer for the preservation of his life; prayer for the salvation of his soul; and prayer for God to use him for some useful service in life. Glorious, wonderful, loving God-He is the ever dependable trust for the heart of a praying mother.

In conclusion, I plead with you parents -- pray, pray, pray for your children. Hold them up daily at the Throne of God. He will not fail you if you have first given yourself wholly over unto Him.

-Reprinted by permission of The Bible Meditation League.