Table of Contents
Date: Sunday, 16th November 2025
Time: 7:00 p.m. (Doors open 6:30 p.m.)
Venue: Carryduff Free Presbyterian Church, Killynure Road
Speaker: Mrs Margaret Cameron
Podcast
🕊️ Testimony of Mrs Cameron
Introduction
I thank God tonight that I can give a word of testimony. I thank your minister and session for inviting me along.
I have to refer first of all to the Word of God, where it says in Romans 1:16:
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
Tonight, I stand to give testimony only because of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done in my life. I am a hell-deserving sinner saved by the grace of God.
Early Life
I was born into a Roman Catholic family. If you ever drive from Belfast to Londonderry and go over the Glenshane Pass, you’ll see a road on your right about halfway up called the Ranaghan Road — that’s where I was reared.
Our house had to be demolished to build the Glenshane Pass, so we moved in with my grandfather. My father was his only child, and when Grandad asked him to come back home again, he brought my mother and us three children — and before long, there were ten of us. You can imagine what a crowd that was in a wee country house!
But I thank God tonight for the family He placed me in. None of us chooses the family we are born into, but we do choose where we will spend eternity. Choose well — choose Heaven tonight.
Childhood Faith and Confusion
From my earliest memories, we were taught the things of Rome. My parents and grandfather were devout Roman Catholics. Each night we knelt around the fireside and said the rosary together. I never truly learned to pray until the night I got saved, because all I knew before were ritual words — rhymes, not real prayer.
We went to school young. My sisters started together, and I roared to go as well, so they sent me along when I was just three and a half — and they kept me! We received a good education, both in primary and secondary.
At home and at school, we were taught the sacraments — baptism, confession, communion, confirmation — as the path to become a “soldier of Christ.” Only later did I learn the truth of 1 Timothy 2:5, which says:
“For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
But at that time, I didn’t know any better.
Early Religious Experience
When I was six, I began confession classes. After months of preparation, the priest came to hear our first confessions. I was nervous and forgot everything I’d been taught, so I made up sins — told lies. My parents hadn’t taught me to lie, but sin came naturally because I was born a sinner like everyone else.
After confession, I received absolution and was told to pray the Stations of the Cross. I did so sincerely, believing that somehow these things would bring me to Heaven. But I was wrong.
I continued through the rituals — Communion, Confirmation — believing I was receiving the body and blood of Christ. Only later did I find in Hebrews 10:10–12 that:
“By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all… But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God.”
There is only one sacrifice, once for all, and only one mediator — the Lord Jesus Christ.
Loss and Questioning
When I was eight, tragedy struck. My beloved grandfather was killed on the Glenshane Pass — we later learned he was murdered. It devastated our family, especially my father. The coffin came home, and people paid for masses for his soul. Even then, I questioned — Where was he? Where do souls really go?
After that, my grandmother asked if one of us could stay with her on weekends to help out. I volunteered — being from a big family, I longed for space! That decision changed my life. Granny soon became ill and later died of kidney failure caused by medication. I saw the priest give her last rites — and yet she died with no assurance of Heaven.
I thought, If the priest couldn’t help my granny, he’ll never help me.
That thought never left me.
Teenage Years and Schooling
I stayed on to secondary school at the convent in Magherafelt, run by nuns. It was deeply religious, but not spiritual. I made my confirmation there, was told I’d become a “soldier of Christ”, yet I felt nothing had changed.
By fifteen, I had to decide my career. I wanted to be a policewoman, but my father said, “You’ll be a nurse like your sisters.” God used that decision for His purpose.
Nursing Training and Encountering Christians
I went to Magherafelt Technical College in 1975 for pre-nursing training. There, for the first time, I heard of being saved. One girl in class wore a badge saying “Jesus Saves.” I asked what it meant, and was told, “Stay away — they’re Bible-thumpers!” But I watched her. Her life was different — her words, her behaviour, her peace. She prayed over her books and meals. Her quiet testimony spoke louder than words.
Nine months later, I started nurse training in Muckamore Abbey in July 1976 — a mental handicap hospital. That’s where the Lord began to deal with me directly.
God’s Pursuit
My first day there, I unpacked my crucifix, rosary beads, and prayer book. A girl named Sharon knocked on my door and handed me a gospel tract. She told me Jesus had died for my sins. I was furious! Yet she remained kind and unshaken. Every day I met her — breakfast, classes, walking home. She would quote the Bible to me from memory.
I also met Mary Orr and Elizabeth Acheson, both born-again Christians. Wherever I turned, someone was speaking about Jesus. It was torture to my conscience, but God was closing in.
The Gospel Takes Root
Sharon invited me to the Nurses’ Fellowship. I resisted for weeks but finally agreed to go, just to “get rid of her.” That night, she read John 3:16:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
I had heard it before, but that night it was personal. Then she read Matthew 24:36–42 — about two in the field, one taken and the other left. I knew if Christ came that night, I would be the one left behind.
I wanted to be saved, but pride held me back.
Deep Conviction
Everywhere I went, God reminded me. A terminally ill man I admitted said, “I’m ready to meet my Saviour — are you?” A surgeon opened the man’s abdomen and said, “He’s saved and ready for Heaven. What about you?”
A few days later, a four-year-old child with leukaemia died in my arms. The Lord whispered again: You know not the hour I will come.
Conviction grew unbearable.
The Night of Salvation
On 25th March 1977, I could bear it no longer. I went to the fellowship again, then back to my room — miserable. In the early hours of the morning, I ran to Sharon’s room. She was already on her knees praying for me.
I knelt beside her and confessed that I needed to be saved. She read Exodus 20 — the commandments — and 1 John 1:8–10:
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
I realised that I was the sinner Christ died for. That night I confessed my sins and asked Jesus into my heart. He saved me instantly — completely.
I worried I’d never keep it. Sharon showed me Jude 24:
“Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.”
It wasn’t me who would keep my salvation — it was the Lord who would keep me.
Persecution at Home
When I told my parents, my father struck me and threw me out, saying, “Don’t come back until you wise up.” My mother refused to speak to me. For a year and a half I was cut off from home. But God gave me a new family — fellow believers who loved and supported me.
Marriage and Christian Growth
Eventually, I married Danny, the Christian joiner I’d met in hospital. His family welcomed me and taught me the Word. My mother-in-law was a godly woman — wise and gracious. I learned from her what a Christian wife should be and how to live according to Scripture.
What I once thought I had lost, the Lord replaced a hundredfold. He gave me peace, purpose, and joy.
Reflection and Scripture
Whatever your past, God can abundantly pardon you. Isaiah 55:6–7 says:
“Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”
He forgave and kept me, and He will do the same for you if you come to Him tonight.
My favourite passage is Psalm 103:3–4:
“Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;
Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies.”
And as Job 22:21 says:
“Acquaint now thyself with Him, and be at peace.”
Because everlasting peace is found in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Closing Words
Come to Him tonight — don’t put it off. Salvation is a gift. The peace I found through Jesus Christ can be yours too.
