Our Loss . . . Heaven's Gain

This week I join the millions of Christ-followers around the globe who mourn the passing of a humble, but outspoken saint who's life has touched them deeply. Ruth Bell Graham, the wife of well-know evangelist Dr. Billy Graham, now stands in the presence of her Savior after 87 on this earth. Her husband of 64 years and five children were at her bedside in the family home of Little Piney Cove, in Montréal, North Carolina.

In today's world of feminism and women's lib, Ruth Bell Graham stands as a unique example of the confident, interdependent female. A gifted poet and writer in her own right, Ruth authored or coauthored 14 books, including Sitting By Laughing Fire, Legacy of a Pack Rat, Prodigals and Those Who Love Them, and One Wintry Night.

Born in 1920 in China to missionary parents, Ruth Bell’s own ambition was to become a missionary and return to her beloved Orient. Yet, in God's wisdom, her life would touch more than just the Asian continent; it would be worldwide ministry through the young, blue-eyed Billy Graham starting on the campus of Illinois’s Wheaton College. After their first date, to a performance of Handel’s "Messiah," she got down on her knees in her bedroom and prayed to God: “If You let me serve You with that man, I’d consider it the greatest privilege in my life.” They were married in August, 1943.

(Years before, Billy's former fiancé at the Florida Bible Institute in Tampa, Florida had broken off their engagement because he was going to be "an unknown preacher-boy.")

When her husband's ministry sprang to national notoriety during California evangelistic crusades in the late 1940s, Ruth chose to raise their five children near her parents in Montreat, North Carolina. Some might say she sacrificed her dreams to her husband's ambitions, but Ruth was the first to disagree. Billy Graham biographer William Martin once said, "Ruth knows who she is, while Billy is always auditioning."

Shunning the national and international spotlight, she helped her husband craft and research sermons and even books. By his own admission, she was his chief confidant, friend, advisor, and soul-mate. It was Ruth who named the "Hour of Decision" radio program that began in 1950.

Dr. Graham always looked to his wife's intuition even in his role as spiritual advisor to multiple U-S presidents. "When anyone becomes so famous, so important, that no one dares to disagree, they're in a dangerous position," she once said. "I've met husbands who wouldn't let their wives disagree with them and they invariably suffered for it."

"Ruth kept Billy both loved and honest," said Leighton Ford, an evangelist and Billy's brother-in-law. Ruth was the one to discourage her husband's consideration of making a US presidential bid after the tumultuous Nixon presidential debacle…she threatened to leave him if he ran. "No one will tolerate a divorced president!" she said.

Characteristic of the Grahams' humble life-style in the presence of worldwide fame, Ruth was buried in a simple birch plywood coffin made by a convict-turned-Christ-follower. Prior to his own passing earlier this year, Richard Liggett, who was serving a life sentence for second-degree murder, was asked by Graham's son Franklin to build a matching pair of caskets for his parents during a visit to Angola prison in Louisiana. The prison has a Bible college and chapel near death row funded largely by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. According to Warden Burl Cain, many of its 5,108 prisoners are Christian and spend the weekend "preaching and praying and remembering the Graham family."

Even in death, Ruth Graham's legacy lives on in her adult children who all are actively involved in ministry. She may not be as worshipped as Princess Diana or have served the poor of Calcutta, but the impact of Ruth's promise to serve her Lord and Savior beside the dairy farm boy from North Carolina continues to live on through lives of us forever changed by the God of Dr. Billy Graham.

We have lost a mother, sister, writer, encourager. . . . Heaven has welcomed a saint.

Even the secular world could not ignore this godly woman. For an amazing CNN Tribute see:
http://edition.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/us/2007/06/14/phillips.ruth.graham.obit.cnn&wm=11 (Wait for the ad to play thru).