(Editor's Note: Alice McCabe is a parishioner of St. Patrick's in Norcross and a free-lance writer whose articles have appeared in numerous newspapers and trade publications.)

By Alice McCabe

If Job had had to endure what Betty Tillery of Chamblee did, he might have lost patience. Although millions of people are familiar with his trials through the Bible stories of his body sores, starvation except for crumbs from the rich man's table, etc., it is probable he did not have the instantaneous audience that Betty had when she was cured of her afflictions in view of millions.

Via satellite, millions watch daily broadcasts of the PTL ("Praise the Lord") Club coming from Charlotte, NC. In Atlanta, Channel 36 carries the show at 11 a.m. and again at 10 p.m.

Betty Tillery was never just an average person. She always had a lot of drive. When her father died young, Betty helped support a younger brother and went to college nights herself. She and her mother were never close so it was no great wrench when her mother remarried. Betty had the first of many angina attacks at age 25. She is now fiftyish.

Following her marriage, Betty had 14 miscarriages, two stillborns and one who died a few hours after birth. Finally, Betty and husband adopted Barbara, whose lack of progress soon revealed she was mentally retarded. The couple had an opportunity to renege before final papers were signed but decided the child needed them and they loved her and went through with the adoption.

Betty battled for better care for retarded patients at Georgia institutions, most of which she claims are so bad that she wouldn't put her dog in one. But Barbara had to go in and out of these places because, according to Georgia law then, anyone who could not pass an IQ test with a certain score was put into a State mental Hospital.

Barbara, now 26, can neither read nor write. She is prone to petit mal seizures. She recently fell, injuring her knee and requiring delicate operations on her leg tendons.

Betty's husband died of a malignant brain tumor.

Several years ago, disc problems in her back prevented Betty from working as a therapist and hygienist. The operation on her back was successful and she had some good years until a spoiled child, angry because Betty denied him her prize statue of Virgin and Christ Child, pushed her down a flight of stairs. Betty's right ankle was broken in several places and her back problems returned. That was five years ago next January. She had been in pain, unable to work and finally confined to a wheelchair since then. She could stand only with a cane or arm crutches. A stroke paralyzed her right leg.

In Tennessee last year, Betty was thrown in jail on a trumped-up charge, which a judge later apologized for. Her beloved brother was badly burned in an accident. The pastor of a church in northwest Georgia asked Betty and her daughter to leave because they were disrupting services with the wheelchair being pushed by a retarded girl.

After the humiliation of being ejected from church, Betty and Barbara began feeding their spiritual needs by watching services on TV on Sundays. They began to enjoy PTL Club, especially because it was available to them every day, not just on Sundays.

Soon, Betty was convinced that she would be healed if she could get to Charlotte and be in the PTL audience. An aunt lent her the money and the three drove to Charlotte, where PTL is building Heritage Village for Christian living, schooling and broadcasting.

The second night they were in the studio, guest evangelist Vicky Jamison asked everyone in the audience who had heart trouble to stand and put their hands over their hearts. About 10 people stood, including Betty.

"By the power of God, you are healed," cried Vicky. Betty has not required her nitroglycerine pills for heart pain since then.

The next session had Vicky showing enthusiasm for the many miracles of healing being performed by God.

"Right now," she said, pointing to her right, in Betty's direction. "Someone is being healed in the right foot! Who is it, please stand?"

Betty stood and waved her hand. The camera zoomed in while Betty smiled, delighted.

"It happened just like that -- God did it," she proclaimed. The following week, she told a meeting of Charismatics at Holy Cross Church in Tucker that she felt heat coming into her foot and ankle at that moment. She stood unaided for the first time in almost five years.

After the telecast, Vicky Jamison, who had never met Betty before, hugged her and said that God had something special for Betty to do, that Betty should come to Charlotte and serve the Lord and then He would call her home. This reinforced what a "Voice" had been telling Betty to do.

"Don't let anything stop you," Vicky warned. "The devil will put all sorts of obstacles in your path, but you come back anyway and work for PTL."

Returning to Atlanta, Betty and Barbara began to sort things out, preparatory to moving to Charlotte. They appeared at the Holy Cross meeting and were scheduled at the charismatic prayer meeting at St. Patrick's in Norcross, but the flu hit Betty -- she ran a fever and could barely talk.

The devil had started his campaign.

Betty's leg muscles were still weak from almost five years of immobilization, but she packed and made arrangements to leave. While carrying some things out the door, she mentioned that the throw rug ought to be moved before someone fell. Barbara, in her retarded way, decided to move the rug immediately.

Betty fell, breaking her left arm and three ribs. Several hours later in a hospital, she was taped and her arm in a sling. Then Barbara, entrusted with the key to the storage house, lost it. They had to call in a locksmith who charged $16 for a new key. This wiped them out financially until the Social Security disability payments arrived.

"Maybe God is telling you not to go," her friends suggested. But no.

"The devil hates to lose anyone," she explained. "And he knows he is losing me when I go to Charlotte to do the Lord's work." Their Social Security checks came on time.

Satan made one last attempt to stall them. When they arrived at the Atlanta motel where they had made reservations to spend their last night, the clerk could find no room available. Betty insisted, telling the clerk about their plan to move to Charlotte to work for the Lord at PTL.

"I've seen PTL on television," the clerk said. "But I'd always thought they were just actors. I didn’t know real people were being cured. And, tell me, what does PTL mean?"

"Praise The Lord," replied Betty. "That's what it means."

The clerk found a room for Betty and Barbara.

The two women were last seen pulling out of that motel in a cream-colored Volare loaded to the top, Betty driving with her left arm in a slink and Barbara holding their French poodle, Twinkie, on her lap. They didn't know how they'd make a living, how long they'll stay in Charlotte. All they knew is they had to do God's work and Praise the Lord.