Billy Graham’s bad romance
His marriage wasn’t exactly a love story
They met as students at Wheaton College in 1940. An official biography in 1966 tells the story. Ruth Bell heard a “remarkable preacher” had come to campus.
Walking through the halls one day, she overheard him praying. “I had never heard anyone pray like it before,” she’s quoted saying. “I knew that someone was talking to God.”
Then Billy Graham was talking to her.
Ruth was popular, with “many admirers.”
That was the story. Billy was the opposite, the bashful boy awed in the presence of a pretty girl. In Graham’s 1997 memoir, Just As I Am, he narrates the moments when he first saw her.
“Standing there, looking right at me, was a slender, hazel-eyed movie starlet! I said something polite, but I was flustered and embarrassed. It took me a month to muster the courage to ask her for a date.”
Their love grew, except for one problem. She felt ‘called’ to be a missionary in Tibet. But Billy was clear that he wasn’t. How were they to resolve God appearing to lead them in different directions?
