Letter from Roger Burton

Mr. Elliott,

I’ve never met you but have worked with your son, Brian, since 2001. Brian has often talked about you, your wife and sisters in such a manner that I know y’all are a loving family. I also came from a family with wonderful sisters and great parents.

However, I carry a burden – I am a man of pain, a constant migraine that has greatly affected my life. Also I’m a man who has experienced much death in my life. The pain increases year by year and the best migraine doctors in the land haven’t found a cure, so I continue as a man in pain but I have great news and a feel compelled to share it with you!! God came into my life and has given me a hope that I never new existed. A hope that is beyond this natural world, a hope that I wouldn’t have believed could exist, a hope that defies my math, science and physics background. It’s a real and living hope based upon my personal relationship with God Himself.

The pain I bear isn’t gone, it continues to get worse but through these trials I have found that God’s presence & peace are real! He is trustworthy and is my sole source of comfort in pain. Only through God’s Son, Jesus Christ, can I bear another day.

Brian has shared with me how much he cares for you and that he would do anything to get you to believe how a personal relationship with God, Jesus Christ, matters more than anything in this world. There is nothing more important that accepting Jesus Christ into your heart, into your very soul, for this alone will give you eternal life and a sense of peace that words (or people) can explain.

Please don’t take that same path that my parents had taken. They were good people and believed that “things would work out” and they would get to Heaven because of their decency. My Dad died almost 20 years ago of Lou Gehrig’s disease, my mother died a few years later – in both cases I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye and I didn’t share with them about the free gift of eternal life that God offers. I still agonize about their eternal fate! Without eternal life there is only eternal death.

If I had the cure for all cancers and kept it to myself, the world would call me cruel. If I could eliminate pain – whether physical or emotional and didn’t share it, what would you think of me? Every one of us has a greater and more universal problem than pain or cancer. This problem is sin, usually in the form of individual pride. God offers a cure for our sin through the acceptance of Jesus Christ into you heart.

This cure may not remedy your physical pain, fix your problems or extend your earthly life but I can guarantee this – eternal life is more important than anything and it is only possible by humbling yourself before God, letting Jesus Christ into your heart and trusting Christ to redeem you from your sin. Your son, daughter-in-law, grandson and granddaughter all love you very much and I know the grief they experience seeing you at the end of life without a personal relationship with Christ.

I’m just an ordinary guy from a good family who cares for you with all my heart. Please take a moment and consider what I’ve had to say. All it takes is a momentary prayer through honest communication with God. What would keep you from doing this right now?

Hoping to see you in eternity,

Roger Burton