Nearing Home - Billy Graham [60]
We see the results of committing God’s Word to memory in the lives of Simeon and Anna, who witnessed the presentation of the Child Jesus at the Temple (Luke 2:27). Because they knew the ancient Old Testament prophecies and believed by faith that a Savior would be born in Israel, the Holy Spirit revealed the Christ Child to them in their old age. Simeon, an old man who did not want to die before knowing the Savior had come into the world, took Jesus in his arms and blessed Him, saying, “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which you have prepared before the face of all peoples” (Luke 2:29–31 NKJV). Anna, “a widow of about eighty-four years . . . served God with fastings and prayers night and day . . . and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption” (Luke 2:37–38 NKJV). In the story of Simeon and Anna, we see these gifts of God’s Word, the Holy Spirit, prayer, fellowship, and service all working together to bring about remarkable blessings, and it all started with having their hearts and minds saturated with God’s Word.
My heart is always moved when I read in Scripture of the faith of the elderly. Are the truths of God nourishing your root system? We may retire from our careers, but we must never retire from being filled with the abundant gifts from God that bring hope and satisfaction.
10
THEN AND NOW
Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.
—2 CORINTHIANS 5:1
The last chapter in life can be the best.
—VANCE HAVNER
We never know at what stage, or age, we are living the last chapter of life. Some do not survive birth. Others are taken in their youth. Many are snatched from this earth in the prime of life.
I never thought I would outlive my wife of sixty-three years, my dear Ruth, who passed from this life of uncertainty to the place she was assured to see—the beautiful shores of Heaven and the blessed face of the Master she lived for and served. One of my saddest moments was when Ruth preceded me in death. I watched her suffer with dignity, with feisty humor, and with a gentle spirit ready to meet our Lord. She taught me so much about the last chapter of life. Knowing where she is, the One she is with, and the fact that I will be there with her soon are of monumental comfort to me.
When I preached my last stadium crusade in New York’s Flushing Meadows in 2005, I certainly did not dream that I would be living without Ruth two short years later. I truly believed that my declining health would not sustain many more years of life. In spite of the fact that we were apart for long periods of time over the span of six decades because of my intensive preaching schedule, I never contemplated living without Ruth. Throughout our marriage the telephone was about the only thing that came between us, and I was always grateful to hear her voice. Now to be without her in our home at Little Piney Cove would be more than I could bear if it were not for the fact that she left so much of herself behind. She oversaw the construction of our log house more than fifty years ago, and to this day, touches of Ruth are in every room. Missing her the past four years has taught me things I would have never learned, many from Ruth even in her absence. And because she wrote from the depths of her soul with strokes of her winsome personality, she still makes me smile.
This old house is empty now,
with mostly only me,
the trees are crowding up the hill
as if for company.1
This reflected her thoughts after all the children were gone, what is now called empty-nest syndrome. Ruth simply called it what it was: then and