Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on September 5, 2009
In case you were wondering, the 90-year-old ailing evangelist Billy Graham may have trouble seeing, hearing and walking—but he doesn’t have a death wish. Nor is he depressed. So his daughter, Anne Graham Lotz, told Twin Cities radio station KTIS (which Billy Graham launched 60 years ago) in what seems like an answer to a question nobody asked.
“He struggles a little bit, I think, with a sense of purpose,” Lotz said.
On a positive note, she does add that he’s clear-minded, quick to pray about current events and deeply misses his late wife, Ruth Bell Graham who died in 2007.
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on March 23, 2009
“I realize that my ministry would someday come to an end. I am only one in a glorious chain of men and women God has raised through the centuries to build Christ’s church and to take the gospel everywhere.”
-Billy Graham
(Billy Graham: God’s Ambassador)
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on February 13, 2009
In 2007, Billy Graham’s wife of 63 years, Ruth Bell Graham, passed away at their home in Montreat, N.C.
“I am so grateful to the Lord that He gave me Ruth, and especially for these last few years we’ve had in the mountains together,” Billy Graham said in a statement released at her death. “We’ve rekindled the romance of our youth, and my love for her continued to grow deeper every day. I will miss her terribly, and look forward even more to the day I can join her in Heaven.”
As a continuing testament to their love, Ruth is never far from Billy’s mind.
An e-mail interview asked what life is like without Ruth, and Billy Graham responded: “Not a day, or even an hour, goes by that I don’t think about her and miss her. I rejoice that all the suffering she endured those last years is over, and that she’s safely in Heaven now with the Lord she loved and served almost her whole life. But I miss her very much, and I look forward to the time when we will be reunited.”
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Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on February 7, 2009
Billy Graham’s coffin is ready and waiting for the day the 90-year-old evangelist passes away. He’s been looking forward to heaven for a long time, and his earthly preparations have been made. The simple coffin is made of birch plywood, lined with a foam mattress pad covered with fabric, and is adorned with brass handles on the sides and a cross on the top. It cost $215, matches the casket Graham’s wife Ruth was buried in when she died in 2007, and was made with care by a convicted felon.
Serving a life sentence at Angola State Penitentiary for second degree murder, Richard Liggett handcrafted simple plywood coffins for his fellow prisoners. The simplicity of the coffins struck Billy Graham’s son, Franklin Graham, who saw the coffins on a tour of the prison and requested a pair be made for his parents. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association supports a Bible college and chapel at the prison. Liggett became a Christian while at the prison and was honored to build the caskets for the Grahams.
They were among the last caskets he made. Richard Liggett died of cancer in March 2007 and was buried in one of his own caskets.
Despite controversy over the burial site, when Billy Graham dies he will be buried next to his wife at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte.
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Filed Under: Death
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on January 29, 2009
“I would be very happy if the Lord would say it’s time to go home. I’m looking forward to it because the pressures of my particular life are very heavy and I get very homesick for heaven … But I don’t want to be a cop-out either. I want to stay and do what he wants me to do.”
-Billy Graham
(Texas Monthly, March 1978)
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on January 23, 2009
In 1952 Billy Graham hit a wall of exhaustion in his early 30s and wasn’t sure he could go on.
“I’ve always thought my life would be a short one,” Graham said at the time. “I don’t think my ministry will be long. I think God allowed me to come for a moment and it will be over soon.”
Yet Billy Graham continued to do crusade ministry until 2005, speaking to nearly 215 million people in live audiences in over 185 countries. While frail and mostly homebound today, he continues to minister.
“The New Testament says nothing of Apostles who retired and took it easy,” Graham said in a 1993 article about his 75th birthday. Graham turned 90 last fall and is currently writing a book about growing old.
“It doesn’t make me feel any different, turning 75, than when I turned 45,” Graham said in 1993. “But when I see pictures of my 19 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, I know some time has passed. I let days like that slip by and try to forget it. I’m not looking backward. I’m looking to the future.”
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on January 19, 2009
An assassin’s bullet killed the radical civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. Billy Graham heard the news on a golf course in Australia where he was holding a series of crusades. Journalists approached him with the news and asked for a comment:
“I was almost in a state of shock,” Graham wrote in his autobiography. “Not only was I losing a friend through a vicious and senseless killing, but America was losing a social leader and a prophet, and I felt his death would be one of the greatest tragedies in our history.”
Graham prayed there on the golf course with the journalists for King’s family and the healing of racial divisions. He tried to cancel his schedule and return for the funeral, but it wasn’t possible.
Billy Graham with Martin Luther King Sr. at the grave of Martin Luther King Jr.
