from outside its conference as a pastor. Short though it was, the Toccoa detour had a lasting effect on Roberts and his family. It was there that their daughter Rebecca, then five years old, first met her future husband, Marshall. There were also reportedly two instances of healing, which Roberts would later look back on as his first realization "that I was approaching 'my hour'."

Until 1947, Roberts struggled as a part-time preacher in Oklahoma, but when he was 29, Roberts said he picked up his Bible and it fell open at the Third Epistle of John,