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What does it mean to be forgiven by God? Almost four years ago, a very troubled lady of seventy two years asked me a question.

If I was to take my life, she said; will I ever see my baby again? I knew Nannie’s spiritual condition, having been led of the Lord to minister to her husband, who at that time was suffering from terminal cancer almost two years. I said: no Nannie, you would never see the baby you lost at birth for you do not belong to Christ. Then God opened to me a door of utterance to breathe over the phone God’s wonderful plan of Salvation.

Nannie later told me that the night I called she had a handful of sleeping pills and a glass of water and was ready to end her life, but then I directed her to the cross of Calvary. I told Nannie how I was saved some thirty years ago, that I had reached rock bottom, an all time low in my life, and through reading a little Bible study magazine called The Berean Searchlight I suddenly saw, through it’s pages, God’s Word describing me and my lost and sinful condition. Totally depraved, filthy and undone (Hebrews 4:12; Ephesians 2:1-5). Then I read of the grace of God and the love of Christ who willingly went to the cross and died for me as my substitute (Romans 5:6-10)...the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit (I Peter 3:18 ).

I then and there fell on my knees, humbling myself before the foot of the cross to Him who died for me, and begged Him to forgive me and to save my soul (Ephesians 1:7). And Nannie, when I rose up I actually felt as if a weight had been taken off my shoulders, and I began to feel different about life, I began to see beauty in God’s creation that I had missed, I had begun to think of spiritual things, and for the first time in my life I began to be able to understand the Bible. I had realized that I had been saved and born again into the family of God.

My sins had been forgiven and I was now a new creation in Christ (II Corinthians 5:17). As we continued to speak, Nannie poured the pills down the drain and went into the bedroom, and called in her heart upon the Lord to save her also through the precious blood of Christ. Nannie is now with me and is our chief artist here at Appalachian Bible Plaques and Grace Campfire Ministries, and is a missionary at age seventy six. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works; lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8,9).