We have some really neat letters and emails that come into the ministry. This one is just off the charts. My mom was totally amazed when she read the letter. See what you think:
Dear Mr. Cahill,
In the back of my Bible there is a worn, coffee-stained copy of your booklet One Second After You It is precious to me, because it was the catalyst that God used for my 97-year-old father to trust in Christ for his salvation just months before he died.
Daddy was a self-made man who was a success in life and business. He was honest and trustworthy. He served our country in WWII and was raised in a Christian home. In fact, it was my grandmother who shared Christ with me as a child and gave me my first Bible! But Daddy never had time for church or for the hypocritical church-goers who tried to cheat him in business. So, he always avoided talking about the Lord.
When old age forced him into no longer living alone (my mom died in 2001), we convinced him to move from Florida to Texas and live with us. The last five years of his life were happy, watching grandkids and being with family, but he still avoided God.
One Sunday, he decided to go to church with us! We attended a cowboy church very casual and caring and he said he had never experienced anything like it. We had prayed for years and seeds were planted again and again as God was working to draw him into a relationship.
In the last six months of his life, his health deteriorated. He began to ask questions as he thought about death. So, when I saw your booklet sitting on the desk at a bank in Carthage, I asked if I might have one (there was a stack of them that were free for the asking).
When I read it, I knew it was perfect for my Dad. I gave it to him and asked him to read it. He sat in his recliner and read it from beginning to end and again the next day and the next. It stayed on the table by his chair as he read it over and over; thus the coffee stains and worn pages!
Friends came to visit and shared Christ. Then the Hospice pastor came, and Daddy cried and asked forgiveness for “all the bad things I’ve ever done. He trusted Christ for his salvation for eternity. It was an answer to years of prayers from our family, and we were so full of joy knowing that he would die in peace. He died in his sleep at 97½. I told him the reason he lived that long was because God knew it would take that long for him to be saved!
He had written a long obituary for himself that listed all his successes and accomplishments; but when he realized it was all about JESUS, and we are nothing without Christ, he tore it up and told me not to use it! He truly had a repentant spirit and was so grateful!
So, all this is to say thank you for your wonderful booklet that is packed with truth and explains what we need to know. God has put it on my heart to get this booklet out to others, and especially to the elderly, who need to know.
No amount of money can repay you for helping my dad find his way to Jesus at the end of his life. I just wanted you to know how God used the booklet. I will always keep it in my Bible, near and dear, as a reminder of our reunion in heaven and how urgent it is to witness to those who are without Christ.
As an EMT who has seen death many times and had people die in my arms, I know how important it is to be ready to meet the Lord at any moment. I think One Second After You… is the tool I want to share with others, as God leads, since my dad responded the way he did!
It’s a small world. I see you are in Stone Mountain. That is where I was born and spent the first 15 years of my life. My dad would take me to climb the mountain and have picnics there as a kid. There was just a dirt road around it then, and a rock quarry where the chain gang worked! I used to watch the men work on the carving as they stood on the scaffolding that was hanging down. I sat in a pasture full of horses and watched them with binoculars!
Thank you, Mark Cahill, for your teaching! May God richly bless you! I love you in Christ forever!
Nancy B.
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One more soul! Nancy knows the importance of one more soul. How about you? How about me? I think it is really a good time for all of us to pick up the pace with our seed planting. Too many lost souls are running around down here that are not ready for their move into eternity.
We have seen what physical floods and hurricanes can do to areas of the United States. It’s time for a spiritual hurricane and flood of Christian conversations and materials to spread all across the area where you live!
Until the nets are full,
P.S. I wonder who that person was at the bank in Carthage that had those booklets on their desk? Did they even have the remotest clue that God would use one of those booklets in a 97-year-old man’s life to become born again?
I had someone come up to me in a coffee shop the other day and say, “I am reading that booklet you gave me. Lots of truth is packed into not many pages, and so, people read these all the time.
Churches use them in the visitor packets they give out, businesses give them to customers, and some folks put them in plastic door hangers to flood their city with the gospel. There are all kinds of ways to get these booklets into the hands of the lost.
Printing prices are climbing up, so it seems like a good time to bring prices down! I know that doesn’t make any sense, but we Christians are supposed to be different and live differently from the world. Enjoy the sale prices on the suggested donation for the booklets, and look forward to finding out one day what God has done with the booklets you gave away!!
