This blunt statement of fact set Iva immediately on the defensive. At the same time it once more awakened within her the old dissatisfaction of soul, for she knew that the faithful friend had spoken the truth. Eventually, after a fierce struggle with pride and ambition, the young woman made a complete surrender to her Lord. Indeed, from that time onward, she became so abandoned to the will of her heavenly Father than when, once more, a friend made an appraisal of her Christian character, she could honestly say that Iva Durham Vennard, “ranked high among the King’s daughters. Her queenly dignity, sanctified ability, sound judgment and rare quality of leadership were a benediction.”

Iva was born in the prairie state of Illinois, USA, in 1871. Her father, a northern soldier, survived the horrors of the Civil War, only to die of tuberculosis several years later, leaving his wife with three daughters and an adopted son. Mr. Durham had won the respect of his neighbors by his godly life. As long as he was able, he visited various homes in the town, offering prayer. Mrs. Durham possessed a strong Christian character and rose bravely above the loss of her husband, supporting her family by the profits of a dressmaking and milliner’s shop, as well as a photographer’s studio. Within a few years after the death of her husband and that of her oldest daughter, Ione, she moved to Normal, Illinois, in order to be near a brother.

Iva, then only small, had been deeply impressed by the last testimony of her sister. She was not converted, however, until she was twelve, when she attended a series of children’s services held in the town. As she advanced into the teens, her spiritual progress became retarded by the social life into which she was drawn. When she enrolled for teacher’s training at the Normal State University of Illinois, she permitted her studies to crowd out the warmth of the “first love” for the Savior. Then, too, her closest girl friend was the daughter of a Unitarian minister who, because of Iva’s beautiful voice, occasionally invited her to sing in his church. As the association grew more intimate, she began to read Unitarian literature and, before long, suddenly realized she had become engulfed in a sea of doubt in regard to the truths of God’s Word.

It was in the summer of her nineteenth year that she had first met Joseph H. Smith. Although she told herself she knew she would be bored, and consequently took along some of her skeptical reading material, Iva had agreed to attend, with her mother, a camp meeting at Decatur, Illinois. Among those in charge at the camp were two godly men. J. A. Wood, author of “Perfect Love”, and the other, that man of God mentioned above who later figured so prominently in Iva’s spiritual life. As the services progressed with the presence of the Holy Spirit in evidence, the girl became so conscious of her need that she burst into tears and made her way forward for prayer, remaining until she received an assurance of divine pardon.

In the autumn of the same year, Iva was again moved by God’s spirit during meetings held by Joseph Smith. It was then that she claimed the experience of entire sanctification as far as she understood it. It was then, too, that she volunteered for Japan but, a year later, was unable to pass the necessary medical test on account of her tuberculosis history. Thus Iva was forced to lay aside all plans for foreign service and to continue with her teacher training at Normal.

At its completion, Iva plunged whole-heartedly into her chosen profession. Once more this talented young woman was drawn into the vortex of worldliness. In fact, for the next two years, she so far laid aside her religious convictions as to indulge in card-playing and even yielded to the allurements of the theatre and opera. The education she had acquired created a thirst for more and, in the autumn of 1892, she enrolled at Wellesley College for girls.

The girl’s charming personality and the bent of her intelligent mind had interested the professor of modern languages at the Normal School. When he was made president of Swarthmore College near Philadelphia and invited Iva to spend the Christmas holidays with his family, she happily consented.

Thus, of this year at Wellesley, Iva writes: “It was one of the greatest years of my life culturally though in my heart I was not submitted to God.”

This great spiritual unrest continued during the following year which found her teaching in California. In turmoil of soul, one Sunday she attended a Methodist Church in Santa Ana, where to her astonishment, the minister that day was J.A. Wood. His sermon on the words, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God,” brought back floods of memories of better days spiritually. Once again Iva turned to Bible study, and prayer too became a reality.

With her return to Normal, however, worldly ambitions again became uppermost. Her professor friend now hoped she would complete her college course at Swarthmore and promised to secure a scholarship for her. He himself intended eventually to accept a professorship in a German university and suggested that Iva accompany him and his family to Europe, making her home with them. Then she could attend lecture courses at Oxford and, in the summer holidays, study French and German. The future beckoned with rosy fingers to the talented young woman and, all things considered, she decided to go to Swarthmore.

But, since God’s ways are not man’s, Iva’s plans came to a decided halt. It was at this juncture that she had attended the Normal camp meeting, met her old friend Joseph Smith and found herself in the throes of a great struggle. Iva was brought to a realization of the fact that she was consulting only her selfish desires in regard to the pattern of her life; she was giving no place to God. In vain, she argued with the relentless Holy Spirit,
“An education is not wrong; it is not carnal to desire to be intellectual. God gave us our minds, and He wants us to use them.”

After days and nights of agonizing prayer, but with an increasing longing for a sense of divine favor, she said “yes” to God’s question, “Will you forever put the spiritual before the intellectual?” And Swarthmore, with its promise of worldly advantage, was erased from her future.

Having thus decided, it now remained for Iva to face her professor friend and tell him of her change of plans. He happened to be visiting in Normal at the time, and so, with the scholarship certificate in her hand, she approached him with much agitation. “I must return the scholarship,” she confessed. “I cannot go to Swarthmore this year.” Both astonished and grieved, the professor exclaimed, “You make me feel as though I were attending a funeral.”

“You are,” was the rejoinder, “- my funeral.” Then, hoping he would understand, she added, “I’ve made my choice to be spiritual first, and that means my unswerving allegiance to Christ in every detail.”

To her great astonishment, her friend replied in a most kindly manner, “I would so much rather you would be a noble woman than a great scholar.”

Scarcely able to control her emotions, Iva rushed home and, throwing herself across her bed, gave way to a flood of tears. She said later that life never looked so desolate as when she accepted the Cross with its death to self. In desperation she cried, “Oh God, I must hear from Thee.” Reaching for her Bible, she opened it. The words in Isaiah 60:1, “Arise, shine; for they light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee,” seemed to leap from the page. At once, a wonderful sense of inward purity gave her the assurance that God had, without a shadow of doubt, accepted her sacrifice, and her empty heart became filled with unutterable peace.

It was then that she discovered the secret burden her dear mother had been carrying on her behalf. Now, while tears of joy flowed down her cheeks, Mrs. Durham exclaimed, “God has answered prayer! He will show you what the next step is to be.”

While waiting for this “next step” to be made clear, Iva began to accept calls, first to sing and then to preach, in an aid to revival efforts in various churches. In one village, it turned out that she was the sole evangelistic party.

“Men came from the river bottoms, barefooted, with guns in their hip pockets,” she relates. “It was a far cry from Wellesley and the New England Conservatory, but my heart was at rest through it all.”

Thus, throughout those early days, the Holy Spirit unctionised her message and many were converted. Iva became more and more convinced that definite Christian service was to be God’s will. At the same time, however, she balked at the thought that preaching was to feature largely in her ministry. In the first place, she disapproved of women preachers. Then, too, the Methodist Church did not ordain women for preaching and, as she put it, she had no desire for a “non-descript ministry under no particular auspices and with no denominational recognition.” And so while she earnestly prayed for guidance, she had a secret hope that “He would excuse me from preaching, and let me be perhaps a singer or a social worker.”

That summer it so happened that a friend, the superintendent of a deaconess home in Buffalo, New York, visited in Normal and asked Iva to consider returning with her to her post of duty. The girl became sure of God’s plan when He impressed upon her the words of the prophet Isaiah, “If thou draw out the soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday.” Perhaps too, there was the comforting thought that, in this sphere of work, God would not require her to preach. Be that as it may, He saw her sincere desire to serve Him and was willing to wait a little before revealing His full plan for her Life.

So, about a year after the blessed reality of her encounter with God, she arrived in Buffalo, with an appointment as field representative to Conference Evangelism. She adopted the deaconess garb, with the bonnet and white silk ties, which indeed proved extremely useful in her night visits to city missions, and, even in church circles, she found it spared her from social involvements which could otherwise have absorbed much of her time.

This period of Christian service, however, was not without its problems. This Methodist Conference was not loyal to the doctrine of sanctification, which Iva believed and had experienced. Some of the pastors she was called upon to assist were drifting from the old-fashioned standards of Methodism and did not wish again to revert to the “old paths.” In deep distress of soul she would pray, “O Lord, please let me go to Japan or Africa, or anywhere rather than this burned-over territory, among this prejudiced and stiffnecked people.” It pleased God, however, not to answer this cry of her heart – at least, not for the time being. So Iva continued, midst many hardships, in her deaconess work. In her travels, she lodged in accommodations often poorly heated. The monthly allowance for deaconesses in the Methodist Church was only eight dollars, and she accepted the position of trusting God alone for personal needs.

In January, 1896, she assisted in revival services in a wealthy church. Her travail of soul was such that, during her three weeks’ stay, she was not able to stand in the pulpit without first taking refreshment. But the God-given burden was not in vain, for a well-to-do lady in the town opened her heart to the young deaconess and, after prayer, became converted. Turning completely from her selfish life, Lavinia Parish, until her translation to Heaven, gave of her abundance to Iva for three and one-half years. Her lovely home was a haven of refuge, and her thoughtful care in providing well-cooked meals and warm clothing enabled the young servant of Christ to fulfill her God-appointed tasks. When, because of physical problems, Iva was forced into a sanitorium for treatment and rest, Miss Parish assumed all expenses.

In the spring of 1898, Iva was appointed Deaconess-at-large. This meant that her duties took her all over the Untied States, where she opened training institutes for deaconesses, gave addresses at Epworth League convocations and performed other such duties. But she realized to an increasing extent that church organization and politics were taking the place of active evangelism. After a day of fasting and prayer to God for a revelation of His will in regard to the matter, divine guidance came in the promises, “I will make my words in thy mouth fire” (Jeremiah 5:14), and in the Scripture, “Many…believed on him for the saying of the woman” (John 4:39). “I laughed aloud,” she tells us, “and the cloud lifted.” After years of doing evangelism, Iva had at last come to realize that she was actually called to it. This being the case, she determined to take her stand.

But her choice brought much personal suffering and misunderstanding. Consulting the Secretary of the Women’s Home Missionary Society, who controlled the Deaconess Order, in regard to inserting a course in evangelism into training, she met with a courteous but definite refusal. What was she to do next? An answer came through the suggestion of Bishop Thoburn – “You found a training school yourself with this special evangelistic curriculum.” Then he continued, “This is an answer to the prayers of my sister Isabella in India. She has been asking God to save the Deaconess Order and to make it a soul-winning agency.” Advising her to express her opinions in a letter to the board of bishops, he promised personally to deliver it.

Thus it was that, in October 1901, Iva received permission to open such a school in the city of St. Louis, Missouri. The next year the “Epworth Evangelistic Institute” came into being, and for eight years it continued with encouragement from the bishops, but with mounting prejudice and opposition on the part of minor officials who were embracing more liberal views than those upon which the Methodist Church was founded. Iva Durham became shocked at “the cruel unfairness and heart estrangement that could develop among Christians.” But she had received a commission from her Lord and she kept faithfully on with her training of young women, keeping before them constantly the wonderful work that the Holy Spirit was able to accomplish in their lives, when they were wholly submitted to Him. After some setback, the most spiritual of teachers were found, which gave Miss Durham more time to engage in the evangelistic work that was ever dear to her heart.

Meanwhile, Iva had met the man who as eventually to become her faithful partner. Tom Vennard, an architect and mason contractor, had agreed to wait ten years if necessary for his bride, while she established her work at Epworth. Iva, although admitting that, if she were to marry anyone, it would be he, held out little hope of there ever being a possibility of marriage, knowing the demands upon time and strength made by the work God had called her to. But Mr. Vennard had told her that he firmly believed the time would come when she would need him. “And then you will find me waiting,” he had said.

After much prayer and fasting, Iva received comfort through the promise in Jeremiah 32:39, “And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them.” She became assured that, some day, God would open up the way for marriage, and when that time came, her ministry would be enriched.

That time came perhaps sooner than either of them had anticipated. After two years of waiting, the couple were married, and embarked upon twenty-six years of partnership, blessed of God, and made possible because of the husband’s unselfish attitude towards his wife’s life of public ministry. “I am willing to be your background of support,” he had pledged in their courting days, and he had meant it.

After nearly five years of married life, God blessed the Vennards with a baby boy. For a while, however, it looked as if neither mother nor son would live. But after a period of anxious waiting, it became apparent that both were to be spared, in answer to much prayer. It was some time before Mrs. Vennard could resume her former responsibilities and, when she did, it was to find that practically all responsibility, except that of raising finance, had been taken out of her hands. Textbooks, courses of study, in fact nearly every detail had been changed. “Methodist preachers do not want deaconesses who study theology,” she was told. “If our deaconesses are trained in theology, they will become critical of the preachers and that will be the end of the deaconess movement.”

Heartbroken, Iva Vennard felt that her time at Epworth had come to an end. She had been termed by some as “a dangerous and powerful woman,” and it was evident that those in authority were afraid of the influence she wielded and were determined to render that influence void. Thus in October 1909, she offered her resignation to her board of trustees. “You are angular in your positions, Mrs. Vennard,” they told her. “You have not learned how to compromise.” But Iva stuck to her convictions, and when told that “these epochal experiences were outmoded and that the new method of reaching people would be religious education,” she replied, “I understand the issue, and it is because I have already made my choice that I am now presenting my resignation. I also understand the tendency of modernism, and I have made my choice to remain with Orthodox Methodism. I believe that the two epochal experiences in grace are Scriptural. I have sought them, and I believe I have entered into both. Such realities of Christian experience can never become out-of-date.”

Thus, at length, they were forced to accept her resignation. “We shall never cease to praise God for these eight beautiful years we have enjoyed at Epworth,” Mrs. Vennard told her friends. “He has owned our labor with His gracious favor in the pardoning and purifying of multitudes, and in the sending forth of young women prepared to labor, with the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of peace…Now God leads us and we are going with the note of triumph in our soul.”

Some time before, Mrs. Vennard had received an invitation from the Christian Witness Company in Chicago, to start a training school there. It would have its own charter, and, though a branch of the National Holiness Association, would be completely independent. She would not, however, take so vital a step without consulting her husband. She suggested that perhaps she should not take on the responsibility of another such institution. Instead, they could have their own home, while she still engaged in evangelistic work during the summer. His answer was clear and firm. “No, Iva…you are still too young to give up this training school work, for that has come to be your real call. Your evangelistic work is merely contributory to it. If we thought only of our selfish preference now, we would soon lose our assurance of the Lord’s favor. And if we backslid we would both be unhappy, and our home would not have the right atmosphere in which to nurture our son. For his sake, as well as our own, I want you to go on.”

And so Iva Vennard accepted the invitation. In the meantime, that summer proved to be especially blessed of God when, at a camp meeting, her ministry was particularly fruitful among the young people. She felt this to be a seal upon the step she was about to take. Then, too, a rich personal blessing came to her at that time. The preacher every morning spoke from the text, “Ye shall receive power.” She tells us in her own words what followed.

“One of the most deeply spiritual and most mystical experiences of my life came to me while he was preaching on ‘power to suffer’. I was in the midst of persecution. Tongues were clamoring. A persistent propaganda was being circulated that I was leaving the Methodist Church and going over to the Nazarenes, and that I was trying to turn Methodist money and students, through C.E.I., to that denomination. With all this load on my heart, I needed a special lift from God, and it came on that morning.”

She was especially strengthened at that time by Job 23:10, “But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”

That Mrs. Vennard needed this time of spiritual strengthening, God alone knew, for the coming days were not be easy ones for her. During the busy months of preparation for the opening of the new school, a calamity fell upon the entire holiness work in Chicago. The treasurer of the Board of Trustees of the Chicago Evangelistic Institute, as the new venture came to be called, died suddenly. Mrs. Vennard felt it keenly, for he had been one whose vision for the school had been the clearest. Then, in addition, the gentleman who was to have been the Dean of Men, accepted another position and, without these two, on whom she had relief for strength, she felt completely stranded. The words, “Be strong and of good courage, and do it…” were of great encouragement to her.

“No one,” she tells us, “Has ever guessed how much I craved a human arm to lean upon at this time, but God kept me shut off from such support.”

Throughout those early years of the new Institute, Iva Vennard went through many difficult periods.

“In my panic my faith ceased to function,” she writes of one such crisis. “This was a desert place for my soul. In November there was a revival service at the First Nazarene Church…My friend, Professor Yates, began singing to his own accompaniment, ‘I Will Pour Water on Him That Is Thirsty.’ An old, old song, but how the spirit of the living God applied it to my soul. I began to weep. The terrible numbness of my spirit was melted, and my faith once more took hold.”

Thus she continued to stand firm to her God-given convictions. Even those who did not fully agree with her had to admit that they never knew a woman with so much courage. As her biographer puts it, “Out of these bitter months she learned anew that no group is perfect, irrespective of what label it may wear. Even among the Lord’s people, selfishness is selfishness; bigotry is still bigotry; and fairmindedness and loyalty are jewels all too rare.”

But God did take her through these difficult years in triumph. He also gave her some stalwart friends to help her in the work. Yet God was the only One to Whom she could fully unburden her aching heart. At times she would shut herself away and wait until new strength was received. During one such experience, the Lord said to her, “Can you not trust My love? If you prove faithful in this fiery trial, I will make you a blessing to your students, and your living will testify to the reality of holiness more than all your teaching.” Out of a bleeding heart she answered, “My Father, it is absolutely committed to Thee. I’ll wait until the Judgment Day for my vindication, if that is Thy Will.”

This was perhaps one of the most outstanding spiritual qualities that this godly woman possessed. She had learned from God’s school never to resort to self-vindication. Not that it was always easy to wait in patient trust for God’s timing in the matter. For it was not until 1937, that Iva felt that, at last, the chill winds of criticism and entrenched unfriendliness towards the C.E.I. were beginning to abate. By this time, she was a widow, having lost her faithful husband seven years earlier. This had indeed been a great loss, made no easier by the fact that it came in the difficult years of the depression, when financial ruin threatened the Institute.

By this time, too, she had become Dr. Vennard, having been given the degree of Doctor of Divinity by Taylor University in 1923. To her students, however, she had remained the same warmhearted, spiritual counselor and mother. This tribute was indeed typical of the cordial affection and respect held by many who had been under her tuition. “Her messages were always a challenge to ‘our utmost for His highest.”…Her purity of heart and life, her devotion to God and to the work to which He had called her, her perfect love toward God and her fellow men, has been a lodestar throughout my life, and I shall ever praise the Lord for His love in permitting me to know one of the great saints of our day”, said one.

At last, strength began to fail and, in 1945, Dr. Vennard received her call home. The last years had been brighter ones for her. Her son and two adopted daughters were happily married and progressing spiritually. Her many children in the Lord surrounded her with love and grateful affection and, above all, her friendship with her Master had grown stronger and closer as, one by one, her faithful friends of former days had left her for their heavenly home.

Now she was about to follow in their steps. Her last word was indicative of her many years of implicit trust in the will of her Father. Now she was about to enter His presence forever - about to leave her beloved work in His hands. As she entered the gates of Heaven, the one word she had to oft repeat while traveling here on earth she uttered for the last time as she breathed her last. And that word? It was one simple, fervent, heartfelt “Amen.”

The great mistake of most persons in seeking for a deeper spiritual life is the attempt to become something themselves and have something which they can call their own holiness. On the contrary, God is ever seeking to withdraw us from ourselves, to lead us to realize our helplessness and nothingness, and to find our all in Himself continually and forevermore.

“The meek will he guide.” (Psalm 25:9) Be content to lose the idea of thine own importance; cease to be wrapped up in the contemplation of thine own claims and rights. Be not counting on honors rendered thee, hour by hour, from this man and from that. Give up the vain idea that every hour owes thee an ample tribute of manifold benefits. Shrink into non-importance, and take the position of a simple servitor, whose business it is to do, to suffer and to give thanks. When you have become thus inconsiderable in your own regard, and have relinquished the honor which cometh from man, and are cordially willing that the gifts that adorn this present life should be withheld from you, and abundantly bestowed at your right hand and at your left; then will you become conscious that another hand is locked in yours, a friendly hand, a gracious hand, a tender, considerate, careful hand; a royal, heavenly, nay, without disguise, a Divine hand. In surrendering all self-importance, you have become unspeakably important to the most exalted Being in the universe. You have entered the very path trodden by the Lord Jesus Christ. In that path you walk with God.

The secret of habitual meekness is the love of God habitually shed abroad in the heart. All pride, all avidity of worldly good, all insubmission, imply a grossly inadequate idea of the value of Christ’s love. Thou canst distain the riches that take wings, in the consciousness of unseen wealth – untold, imperishable.

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