A testimony of salvation
Before reading the following account, there a couple things you must know. First, this is a true story about my grandmother. My family and I have been praying that God would open her eyes to His grace for the past seven years. After numerous failed attempts at witnessing to her, we were all beginning to think she would never turn her sin over to Christ and be born again. Even the mention of the Gospel or the Bible made her leave the room in disgust.
At the very beginning of October, my Grandmother suffered respiratory failure. After being admitted to a hospital, I was convinced she was about to walk off into eternity without Christ. The following is an account from my mother on how God used a series of events to answer years of prayer.
"On Monday, October 1, 2007 my mother was moved into a private room from CCU. This meant that the respirator was removed, she was more coherent, and it was time for me to have a talk about Jesus Christ while she was bedridden and unable to leave the room. The emergency room doctor that admitted her had just left the room and explained that he had not expected her to make it.
I opened the conversation by asking, "Were you scared?" She explained that she was very scared and was sure she was going to die before reaching the hospital. I asked her if she thought about what would happen if she died. She said yes, she wondered if my father would have trouble receiving survivor benefits from her retirement. I then asked her if she had thought about what is next, about eternity, or anything like that. She, knowing where I was going to take the conversation, told me to not bring up God or heaven ever again. "Everyone in your family has tried to talk to me over the years. I just do not want to hear it." She told me, "I mean it, do not bring it up ever again."
I apologized to her and dropped the conversation. That evening, when I arrived home, I started to cry and told my husband and son about the latest witnessing encounter with my mother. They agreed we would all honor her wishes, but would continue to pray that God would somehow reach her. She could not stop us from begging God to help her.
On Wednesday I went back to the hospital to spend some time with her. I was sitting on one side of her bed and my brother was standing on the other side. My father was sitting at the foot of her bed. We were just visiting and talking about baseball when my brother pulled out of his pocket a silver looking coin. He reached across Mom's bed, handed me the coin, and said he had received it in the mail at work that day from a hunter, and thought I would like to have it. You see, he works for the Fish and Wildlife Service in the bird tracking department. If a hunter kills a banded bird, he is supposed to send the band to the Fish and Wildlife Service with information about where the bird was hunted. To my horror, I glanced down at the coin and realized it was a gospel tract with the Ten Commandments on one side and a complete gospel presentation on the other. I quickly slid it into my pocket.
Mom saw the shiny object pass across her bed and asked, "What is that? Is it a collector's sports coin?"
I said, "No, it's not a sports coin. Don't worry about it, I do not think you will be interested in it."
She turned to my brother and asked if he had one for her. He said, "No, just one for Mollie."
She turned to me explaining that she wanted to know what it was. I said, "It is a gospel tract."
She then asked, "What is a gospel tract?"
I took a deep breath and explained it had all the information anyone needed to know to get to Heaven and have a relationship with God. I then added, "I know you are not interested in going to Heaven and do not want to hear it. I told you Monday that I would not bring the subject up again."
She looked at me with a puzzled look, "That is not true. God will not let me go."
Well, I could not let that pass. She was in her own way putting God down. I said, "Mom, I love you. That just is not true. God created the heavens and the earth. He created us to have a relationship with Him. He loves everyone, wants everyone to know Him, and wants everyone to spend eternity in Heaven."
She said that if He was so loving He would let everyone go to Heaven.
I explained, "Sorry, that is not true either. He is loving, but He is also just."
She said, "So, I cannot go to Heaven because I do not go to church even though I am a good person. Lots of murderers go to church."
I thought, "How am I going to tell my mom that she is not good enough to go to Heaven?" Then the Holy Spirit gave me the words. I asked her if she would admit that this world is too complicated to be random, that the world had to be created by God?
She said, "Yes, it is obvious that God created the world."
I then said, "Well if God is the Creator, then doesn't it make sense that He would get to define who is good enough to go to Heaven, not you or me?" She accepted this too. I said, "Alright, well let's use His test to see if you are good enough to go to Heaven."
We then went through each of the Ten Commandments. Mom realized that she had broken all ten. A tear rolled down her cheek as she told me, "I am not good enough to go to Heaven."
The conversation then turned to the gospel, and I shared with my mother one more time how Jesus Christ, who is God, came to earth and died on the cross for all of her sins. That day in her hospital bed, Mom finally understood that she is a sinner, doomed and lost. That she needed God, and that without him she would spend her eternity in Hell.
She admitted her sin, has faith that Jesus died for HER sins and resurrected on the third day, accepted His gift to her, and trusts her life to Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior. She knows that He is in Heaven right now, preparing a place for her, and marking her sins (past, present, and future) as paid in full.
This opened up a conversation with my father as well. He asked a question about me calling Jesus God. I explained the Trinity (using our three branch government as an example) to him. I explained how, if Jesus were simply a man, then His sacrifice would not be good enough to pay for our sin. Only God in all His Glory could be blameless and able to forgive sin.
Dad told me that he grew up in a Baptist church, said a prayer, and was baptized, yet never understood that Jesus was God, or that sin is the real reason some people do not go to Heaven. He bowed his head. I do not know what he prayed, but God knows. He told me that when he went home he would continue to get right with God. He also said that he could not believe that I basically told my mother she was not good enough to go to Heaven or that he let me tell her that. I explained that I was the messenger not the judge, God was the judge, and the Spirit convicted her.
When I got into my car to leave that evening, I thanked God for having that hunter mail that tract and my brother giving it to me. I thanked God for giving me the right words to say. I thanked God for giving Mom and Dad an open heart to hear the truth. And I thanked God for creating us and saving us, especially a wretch like me. The One and only true God is amazing. His timing is perfect.
That round, silver gospel tract with writing almost too small to read became a treasured possession of mine on Wednesday, October 3, 2007, a day of grace."
In Closing...
Before closing the newsletter this month, I would like to make a couple points.
First, in the seven years that my family had tried witnessing to my grandmother, this was the first time she had ever been taken through the Ten Commandments and shown her sin. For so long she had hardened her heart to Jesus Christ. But, after being shown her sin one time, she began to cry, because she realized that she had offended a holy, perfect, righteous, and just God, and it was then that she repented of her sins and turned to the Savior. Galations 3:24 says the Law is the "tutor" which leads us to Christ. The Law will work and break hearts in ways that other words never will. God gave us instructions on how to lead people to faith, let's follow Him. For more information on how to use the law in evangelism please click here.
The last point I would like to make is what started this conversation which lead to the salvation of both my Grandfather and Grandmother. Just two days earlier my mother had been told never to talk about God, and a simple gospel tract led to her being saved just days later. Tracts can lead people to Christ in ways we can't even dream of, so please be faithful and throw out as many seeds as you can. For more information on gospel tracts please click here.
I will probably never meet the hunter who was faithful and put that tract in the mail. And he will probably never know God used that tract to save my grandparents. But, I pray that one day my family will be able to thank him for what he did.