When Helen Keller (1880-1968) was seven years old, she was visited by a young woman who had been hired by Helen’s parents to instruct the little girl who was both deaf and blind. It was a visit that Helen later called,”my soul’s birthday,” for Annie Sullivan brought language to the blind and deaf child. It was the beginning of a fifty year relationship between Helen and Annie, and it bore more fruit than anyone on earth could have predicted.

Eventually Helen, with Annie’s help, graduated with honors from Radcliffe Collage and authored books and articles . They also traveled the world, and Helen performed for audiences. She could dance and respond verbally to questions delivered in sign language into her hand. Helen became a great advocate for the deaf and blind, and she became a founding member of the American Civil liberties Union.

Annie Sullivan’s impact on the life of Helen was portrayed in the play The Miracle Worker, by William Gibson. The title of the play was a quote from Mark Twain after he had seen the play: “Helen is a miracle, and Miss Sullivan is the miracle worker.” Annie Sullivan’s gift to Helen cannot be denied. In a few months she successfully disciplined Helen to become receptive to being taught the “finger language” that would bring her to the person she became. The famous turning point occurred at a well near Helen’s house when Annie held Helen’s hand under the water while she spelled out the word “water.” Helen later wrote that she was moved by a dim but joyful memory, and as Annie “wrote” the word it occurred to Helen that Annie was communicating with her by naming the water, and the entire idea of all the finger talking opened up in her mind , and she grasped that in some vital way, she was genuinely communicating.

Annie never stopped communicating with Helen, and the magnitude of the change in Helen produced Mark Twain’s remark; but Helen had yet to meet the One she called her Savior: Jesus. When she was fourteen years old Helen Keller read in braille some of the works of Emmanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish scientist and mystic. It was in his writings that she discovered Jesus, and wrote, “I have always known that there is such a one, but I did not know his name.” “I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me.” (Isaiah 65:1)

Mark Twain was wrong. Annie Sullivan did amazing things for Helen, and Swedenborg opened her spirit to the Lord, but remarkable as both of these were, there was really only one “Miracle Worker,” and it was Jesus Himself.

Love in Him,

Prue