Ponderings from Ruth Bell Graham

Ruth Bell Graham is one of my favorite people.

We've never met, and now we won't until I enter Heaven where she is enjoying the company of Jesus. She is (was) the wife of Billy Graham. I have long admired her: raising children with a man she loved deeply who was rarely home, doing what God called him to do. Her children have all gone on to serve the Lord in their various ways, and some are authors as well.

What I love most about her written thoughts are that they are real. Life was not a bowl of cherries (or as my closest friend Cheri and I say, 'A chair of bowlies,'), a life with all roses and no thorns. She reveled with joy in every day simple things, and didn't mind writing about her hard days either. But she always understood who she was as God's child. His beloved child. She knew her place in Him.

I long to do the same.

In this hard time stuck to a reclining chair or to a bed indefinitely while the lumbar part of my spine heals from long-ago injuries, I have been remembering some of her thoughts written in her book, Sitting By My Laughing Fire. Which ironically is what I'm doing in this southern hemisphere winter of Australia. The fire in the woodstove is blazing away, and my toes are warm.

I hope I'm not violating any copyrights. These are her words...they just strum the chord in my spirit that they must have in hers...and I'd like to share them with you.

I awoke heavy
and heavy I prayed,
face in the sun,
heart in the shade.
As smoke hangs low
on a sullen day,
my prayer hung there...
till I heard His Voice,
"This is the day
that the Lord hath made;
...rejoice." RBG

Dear God,
let me soar in the face of the wind;
up--
up--
like the lark,
so poised and so sure,
through the cold on the storm
with wings to endure.
Let the silver rain wash
all the dust from my wings,
let me soar
as he soars,
let me sing
as he sings,
let it lift me
all joyous and carefree
and swift,
let it buffet
and drive me
but, God
let it lift! RBG

Lord when my soul is weary
and my heart is tired and sore,
and I have that failing feeling
that I can't take any more;
then let me know the freshening
found in simple, childlike prayer,
when the kneeling soul knows surely that a listening Lord is there....RBG

(I added these last two stanzas to her verse myself...)
Lord, my aching soul IS weary
my heart IS tired and sore.
I can't shake this failing feeling
and I can't take anymore.
Where is the real refreshening
found in simple, childlike prayer?
DOES my kneeling soul know surely
that my listening Lord is there?

My soul MUST know the Lord is here
my heart must trust His grace.
The failing feeling lingers yet
but still I'll seek His face.
The real refreshening is His Word,
on that I will depend.
My kneeling soul rests yet on this;
His mercy has no end. HLW-C

"I will lift up mine eyes
to the hills;" (Psalm 121:1)
and when I fly
I will lift up my eyes instead
to the sky;
it is the same
sure,
certain thing--
this quiet lifting up,
remembering...

I leave myself awhile
to let my thoughts explore
all He had made
and More;
returning
to my small load
at length,
calm,
reassured: this is my strength. RBG

Lay them quietly at His feet
one by one:
each desire, however sweet,
just begun;
dreams still hazy, growing bright;
hope just poised, winged for flight;
all your longing--each delight--
every one.

At His feet and leave them there,
never fear;
every heartache, crushing care--
trembling tear
you will find Him always true,
men may fail you, friends be few,
He will prove Himself to you far more dear. RBG