I somehow missed this last week: Ruth Bell Graham died last Thursday at home with her husband, the evangelist Billy Graham, and her children at her side.
Some curious tidbits from the article:
Ruth Graham had been bedridden for months with degenerative osteoarthritis of the back and neck - the result of a serious fall from a tree in 1974 while fixing a swing for grandchildren - and underwent treatment for pneumonia two weeks ago. At her request, and in consultation with her family, she had stopped receiving nutrients through a feeding tube for the last few days, said family spokesman Larry Ross. . . .
“My father would not have been what he is today if it wasn’t for my mother,” said her son, Franklin, who now heads the Billy Graham Evangelist Association.
“She stood strong for what was biblically correct and accurate. She would help my father prepare his messages, listening with an attentive ear, and if she saw something that wasn’t right or heard something that she felt wasn’t as strong as it could be, she was a voice to strengthen this or eliminate that. Every person needs that kind of input in their life, and she was that to my father.”
Though the wife of a famous Baptist minister, Ruth Graham declined to undergo baptism by immersion and remained a lifelong Presbyterian. When in Montreat, a town built around a Presbyterian conference center, Billy Graham would attend the Presbyterian church where his wife often taught the college-age Sunday School class.
Due to her husband’s travels, she bore major responsibility for raising the couple’s five children: Franklin (William Franklin III), Nelson, Virginia, Anne and Ruth. She endured her husband’s frequent absences, but once remarked, “I’d rather have a little of Bill than a lot of any other man.”
I never knew the Grahams had a ‘mixed marriage’!
They’re nearly universally loved and deservedly so.
RIP.
News to me. Ruth a Presbyterian and Billy
a Baptist. What about Franklin and his siblings?
Does anyone know? Baptists or Presyterians?
Frankly, I think that they are all non denominationalists.
They reach across every denominational barrier and
touch the hearts and souls of all who seek to find peace with God through Jesus Christ. Even now, when Billy
stands to speak with his shock of white-gray hair, he
is in my mind the epitome of a bold and brave,
spiritually annointed Old Testament prophet who gives
the Word of God to men as God has given it to him.
never wavering. never apologizing. never trying to be
politically correct. Just telling it as God tells it to him
based on Holy Scriptures. Demoninations don’t lead
anyone to God. Only through the Son, Jesus Christ, can one come to the Father. Only in Christ can one be
in Right Standing with God. Only in Christ can one be
pure enough to stand before a Holy Sovereigh God.
Billy’s simple message of God’s ‘Love demonstrated
by the Sacrificial Death of His Only Begotten Son
on the Cross never changed, even in this anti-Christian
era where any sign, symbol, or word of God especially
in the use of the Christian message encased in the Name of Jesus Christ is considered “politically incorrect.”
Billy, like his offspring, continues down the same path
of “Christ Correctness” never hesitating to call on the
Name of Jesus when praying or mentioning the Name
of Jesus when speaking of salvation and forgiveness
of sins. The entire Graham family are True Followers
of Jesus Christ and always stand, as does their father,
as did their mother, in Christ as the only Hope for Peace in our nation and in our world, stressing that the soul’s salvation comes through Jesus Christ and no other.
Ruth Graham is in heaven with Her Lord, for according to the Apostile Paul, a believer who is absent from the body
is present with the Lord. That same Reward awaits all who
believe in the Name and follow the commands of the
Lord Jesus Christ. What a peaceful and comforting thought, not only for the family of Ruth Graham but for all baptized believers who revere the name of Jesus Christ,
our Lord and our God.