by Billy Graham
But most poignant has been the loss of some of our immediate family. Ruth’s brother, Clayton Bell, just hours after preaching in Montreat on the hope we have of Heaven because of Christ’s resurrection, was taken unexpectedly by a massive heart attack—not unlike his father a generation before. Just this past year her younger sister, Virginia Somerville, succumbed after a courageous battle with cancer. In 2001 the death of my sister Catherine’s husband, Sam McElroy—a man whose quiet devotion to Christ was always an example to me—reminded me of my own family’s passing years, and whenever I could I tried to spend more time with them. Nevertheless my only brother Melvin’s unexpected death from a stroke in 2003 still came as a shock; we had had lunch together only two weeks before. I greatly miss his humor and his wise counsel—but most of all I simply miss him. Three years later my sister Jean and I said good-bye to our sister Catherine, whom the Lord took to be with Himself after a period of declining health.
Yet with every loss, Ruth and I remind ourselves that our separation from those who have gone before us into Heaven is only temporary, and that someday we will be reunited with them forever. And most of all we will be with Christ, and we will join with all the heavenly host in singing, “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!” (Revelation 5:12).
This is our hope, and old age only makes it more real.
42
The Best Is Yet to Be
Looking to the Future
“I must be very honest with you,” the neurosurgeon said, “Ruth’s condition is life-threatening, and she might not survive. We need to do everything possible to save her.”
Dr. Ralph Loomis sketched out the main problems: rampant infection, soaring fever, electrolytic imbalance, physical debilitation. Most of all, the almost-certain diagnosis of bacterial spinal meningitis, a dangerous infection of the membrane surrounding the spine—an infection that could easily invade the membrane around the brain, causing disability or death. A generation or two ago, the diagnosis of spinal meningitis was a virtual death sentence; now, with new and powerful antibiotics, there was at least some hope.
We were sitting in a small conference room in Asheville’s Memorial Mission Hospital, an institution where Ruth’s father had been a physician and leader on the staff. Two of our five children were born there; our oldest daughter, Gigi, commented that evening that her oldest son, Stephan-Nelson, had entered the world there exactly thirty-two years ago to the day.
Was this also to be the place where Ruth would end her earthly pilgrimage?
“We’ll do all we can,” Dr. Loomis concluded, “but ultimately she is in the good Lord’s hands.”
Normally, Ruth was a person who dismissed questions about her health with a cheerful “I’m fine.” But for years she had been battling chronic back pain, caused by a gradual but progressive degeneration of the spine. In recent months, the pain had gotten worse. The medication was gradually increased in response, destroying her appetite and sending her weight plummeting below a hundred pounds.
In recent weeks she admitted that her pain was growing in intensity. Finally, in desperation, she submitted to an operation. An orthopedic surgeon who had been recommended by a friend implanted an anesthetic device capable of injecting small amounts of painkiller directly into her spinal area. Then infection set in. She was in agony and barely able to speak when we took her in to Memorial Mission. The only hope, Dr. Loomis stated, was emergency surgery to remove the source of the infection and counterattack the spinal meningitis.
As they wheeled her down the hall toward the operating room, I asked the attendants if we could pause and have a few moments together. I picked up a New Testament and turned to 1 Peter: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:3-5, KJV).
Those words reminded us of the hope we have in Christ, assuring us that whether Ruth survived the operation or not, God would always keep her in His loving care. Then we held hands and had a brief prayer before the doors closed behind her.
As Gigi and a few of my friends waited with me in the hospital conference room, my mind turned back to all the experiences Ruth and I had shared together during the fifty-two years of marriage God had given us to that point. How dependent I had become on her counsel and support and prayers! Our little group prayed together, humbly asking that God would guide the surgeon’s hands and that His will would be done.
It seemed like an eternity before the doctor returned from the operating room.
“She’s in critical but stable condition,” he said, “and the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours will be crucial. It’s encouraging she has made it this far.”
“But she is so fragile,” I said.
“Yes, Dr. Graham, I know how fragile she is. I personally carried her to the operating table. I held her in my arms, and I know she is fragile.”
Shortly afterward, I slipped into the intensive-care unit to see her, grateful that she had come through the surgery and overjoyed at her weak but brave smile. Ruth remembers nothing that happened during the worst of those days.
Her sister Virginia Somerville (a registered nurse) and our daughter Gigi took turns sitting with her. The CAT scan the next day showed no sign that the meningitis was spreading to her brain. That was cause for great rejoicing. As news spread of her condition, people all over the country were praying, and we sensed their prayers upholding us both. Former president Bush called to express his concern shortly before leaving for a trip to the Middle East; Ruth’s long-time friend June Carter Cash flew in to sit at the hospital and pray for several hours and was able to spend a few minutes with Ruth.
The day after the operation, Ruth’s condition was still critical, but it had stabilized. To me, the most encouraging sign was that her sense of humor had returned. When she heard I was coming to visit her, she whispered to Gigi, “Please get my hairbrush and lipstick.”
A day or two later, she asked for ice cream.
After a week, she was transferred out of the intensive-care unit and into a private room. Although her progress would be slow in the following weeks, we both knew that God had brought her through the crisis. One of the happiest days of my life was when she was finally released from the hospital a month later and came back to our home, which had seemed so empty without her.
This medical crisis, however, caused us both to pause and remember God’s grace and mercy, not just in this crisis but during our whole lives. One reason God allows times of difficulty and suffering to come into our lives is so that we will not take Him for granted but will remember in a deeper way His faithfulness to us and our dependence on Him. Repeatedly during those hospital days, Ruth and I recalled the words of King David: “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (Psalm 103:1-2, KJV).
As I write this, almost a dozen years have passed since Ruth’s crisis, and almost every day we thank God for giving us these unexpected years together. For much of our marriage we had to be apart because of my travels, sometimes for months at a time. Now I delight in spending time with her, often holding hands as we talk or watch a video, or simply sitting in silence and enjoying each other’s company. I tell our children that my love for her is deeper now than it has ever been—and they agree. It is a profoundly satisfying and joyous time of life for us, and I am grateful for it.
At the same time, these have not been easy years for Ruth. The pain from the bone degeneration in her spine and hip never entirely left her, and in recent years grew increasingly debilitating. In spite of this she refused to give in to her growing disability, writing several more books and t
raveling as her health permitted. One of her most memorable trips was to North Korea, along with our daughter Gigi and son Ned. In the late 1930s she had attended high school in North Korea at the Pyongyang Foreign School, and when the way opened up for her to visit the isolated nation in 1997, she jumped at the opportunity. Although she found that modern, postwar Pyongyang bore little resemblance to the quaint city of her childhood, she was overwhelmed by the hospitality of the people and their willingness to welcome her as a “daughter of Korea.” One highlight was an unexpected visit to the Diamond Mountains, an area of great natural beauty near the border with South Korea seldom visited by tourists. The North Korean government graciously supplied a Russian-built helicopter to take her from Pyongyang to a nearby city, from which the party was taken by car into the spectacular mountainous region. All in all it was an exhausting trip (and the last overseas journey she would ever take), but she wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
Ruth is an invalid now, unable to walk by herself or sit in a chair, except for brief periods of time. A dedicated team of nurses and other staff are on hand to assist us, doing their best to make Ruth comfortable and see after our needs. Our children come by frequently, sometimes to stay for a period of time. Recently Ruth’s older sister, Rosa, her only surviving sibling, has been able to be here with us, and they have spent many happy hours reminiscing about their childhood years together in China. In spite of her pain and her weakness Ruth remains upbeat, thankful that Christ is with her even when life’s joys fade. Ruth has on her wall a crown of thorns that came from Jerusalem, and hanging inside it is a slave collar given to her by Johnny Cash. Many times while looking at them she has said, “Christ suffered for me far more than I ever will for Him. How can I complain?”1
“What is the greatest surprise you have found about life?” a university student asked me several years ago.
“Its brevity,” I replied without hesitation.
While working on this book, many of the things I have recounted seem as if they happened only yesterday. Time moves so quickly, and no matter who we are or what we have done, the time will come when our lives will be over. As Jesus said, “As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work” (John 9:4). Life is short, and every day is a gift from God.
In a similar vein, old age has been a surprise to me.
“I’ve been taught as a Christian how to die,” my longtime friend Allan Emery once said to me, “but I’m discovering I haven’t been taught how to deal with old age—with the time before we die.”
Most of us, when we are young, think that we are never going to get old. I certainly admit feeling that way from time to time. In the 1950s, I recall telling reporters that I doubted if I would live too many more years; the pace I was keeping was sure to kill me, I said. As I approached my sixties, I felt the same way. I knew I was similar to my father physically as well as emotionally, and he had experienced the first of a series of strokes in his sixties.
And yet as I write this, God in His grace has granted me eighty-eight years of life, and I know my time on earth will not be over until He calls me home. I admit I don’t like the burdens of old age—the slow decline in energy, the physical annoyances and disabilities, the pain of losing loved ones, the sadness of seeing friends decline. But old age also can be a special time of life, and I have discovered that God still has lessons to teach us.
Certainly, one lesson is to remind us of our responsibility to be diligent in our service for God right now. I may not be able to do everything I once did (nor does God expect me to), but I am called to be faithful to what I can do.
Another lesson surely is to make us realize in a fuller way that this world is not our final home. If our hope truly is in Christ, we are pilgrims in this world, en route to our eternal home in Heaven. Old age should make us look forward with joyous anticipation to eternity. The apostle Paul put it this way: “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).
A few years ago, the passing of time came home to me in a special way. For some years, I had sensed something was wrong with me. I would tell Ruth about it in vague terms, but I was never able to put my finger on it. For example, one day in New York, T.W. and I were walking toward an intersection. As I approached the curb, my brain said Stop! but my legs kept going; I had to reach out and grab a light pole to keep from stumbling into the heavy traffic. I noticed also that my hands trembled at times and that my handwriting—admittedly, never very good—seemed to be getting worse.
Over the years, I’ve had a number of illnesses and surgeries, only a few of which I have recounted in these pages. Often they came just as we were about to embark on a Crusade or other project, and I could not help but wonder whether Satan was using them to attack our work in some way (and I suspect that was true). At the same time, though, God used them to teach me patience and to give me time that I might otherwise not have taken to read and contemplate.
Through those infirmities, God has also taught me to appreciate the great gift of modern medicine and doctors, several of whom became faithful friends and helpers. One was Dr. Roger James in Asheville, who acted as my personal physician until his untimely death; he was also a faithful member of the BGEA board. Another has been Dr. E. Rolland Dickson at the Mayo Clinic, who became, over a period of time, one of my closest friends and confidants, while Dr. Lucian Rice in Asheville has devoted many hours to both Ruth and me during our times of need this past decade. I have no doubt that their careful attention to my physical condition gave me added years of ministry.
At the conclusion of a visit to the Mayo Clinic several years ago, I got up to leave Dr. Dickson’s office. Immediately, Rollie asked me to sit back down and get up again. “Something looks not quite right about the way you’re getting up out of that chair,” he said.
He made an appointment with one of the clinic’s neurological specialists. After a battery of tests, the neurologist diagnosed a probable case of Parkinson’s disease. No one in my family had ever had it, as far as I was aware, and I knew little about it.
The neurologist told me that Parkinson’s, a progressive and incurable disease, slowly destroys the brain cells that deal with muscle control. At the same time, he outlined the new drugs that had been developed to slow its progress and control its symptoms. He was right; for several years the medications he prescribed reversed many of the symptoms I was beginning to experience, undoubtedly giving me additional years of ministry.
Nevertheless, as time went on my doctors began to suspect that something other than Parkinson’s disease might be at the root of my problems. They reminded me that Parkinson’s can be notoriously difficult to diagnose, and began searching for other possibilities. Further tests revealed hydrocephalus, a dangerous buildup of fluid in the brain that often produces symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease. After careful evaluation the decision was made to insert a permanent tube directly into my brain to allow the fluid to drain, and in the summer of 2000—shortly before our third major conference for evangelists was scheduled to begin in Amsterdam—I underwent a series of surgeries at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.
I had been warned in advance that any surgery involving the brain was risky, including this one. For several days I felt as though my life hung in the balance. One night a feeling of dread came over me, and I sensed that I was hovering between life and death. Was I ready for that final journey? It was almost as if Satan were attacking me (and he may have been), condemning me for my sins, and telling me I was not worthy of a place in Heaven. I asked the Lord to help me, and it seemed to me that there was a big screen, and on it appeared a list of all my sins going back to childhood. Then all of a sudden, under them appeared a verse of Scripture: “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7, KJV) and I had a g
reat peace that has not left me to this day. Since then I have met everything that might have become a crisis with peace, certain that God is in control. Slowly but surely the feelings of condemnation left me, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I were to die that night, I would go immediately into the presence of God forever—not because of what I had done for Christ, but because of what He had done for me on the cross. I will never forget that experience.
Although I was unable to make the journey to Amsterdam to be with the thousands of evangelists who had gathered there, I still was able to follow the events and also address the conference by satellite. Perhaps my obvious frailty underlined to them the fact that God was now passing the torch to a new generation of evangelists, calling and equipping them to take the message of the Gospel to the ends of the earth. I was in Rochester for over three months, first in the hospital and then as physical therapists helped me to begin to walk. I slowly regained strength and returned home. I have had four operations related to this problem, three of them at Mayo and one in Asheville, and was told by the neurologists that I would never be completely well again. From that point on, my pace of living and ministry had to decline. I continue to have neurological and other medical problems that must be monitored, including the recent onset of age-related macular degeneration (which has made it almost impossible for me to read, although a new medical breakthrough appears to have halted its progression). However, I am grateful for the measure of strength God gives me each day.
Someone asked me recently if I didn’t think God was unfair, allowing me to have various medical problems when I have tried to serve Him faithfully. I replied that I did not see it that way at all. Suffering is part of the human condition, and it comes to us all. The key is how we react to it, either turning away from God in anger and bitterness or growing closer to Him in trust and confidence.