Remembering Ruth Graham

Ruth Graham, wife of Billy Graham, passed away yesterday. She was 87.

I only have one Ruth Graham anecdote and it is a second-hand story. But I find it very meaningful nonetheless.

A few months ago I was having lunch with one of the Graham's grandsons, who is about my age. He told me about a recent visit to his grandparents' home in North Carolina.

His grandmother's eyesight had been progressively failing and when he went to visit her in her bedroom, he found the walls lined with scores of sequentially-numbered three-ring binders on shelves. He had never seen those there before so he asked about them.

She told him, "The worst thing about my eyes going bad is that I haven't been able to read my Bible every day. I especially miss being able to read the Psalms. So Billy has arranged to have every chapter in the Psalms printed out in gigantic type so I can still read them."

My friend looked around the room and realized he was looking at 150 three ring binders. One for each chapter of the book of Psalms. He said he walked away from there feeling a strange mix of admiration and shame. Admiration for his grandmother's love and commitment to the Word of God. Shame in the realization that he has a dozen Bibles lying around his house, a perfect set of eyes for reading them, and much less evidence of a genuine hunger for the life in the words on those pages.

As he recounted the story. I must admit, I felt it too.

Thank you Ruth Graham for the example. Well done. Now Billy Graham goes on alone for a season. But reunited soon enough.

Posted by David at June 16, 2007 04:52 PM