Its a winter night in Albany, NY. I've rented a room in a Jewish widow's home. She's in NYC so I am alone, knowing no one except at the practicum assignment for the quarter. Unbeknownst to me my department head had exiled me this remote assignment. 6 months later I learned he assigned me in an effort to break me up from my faculty boyfriend. No matter, that affair had ended without his manipulation. Humiliated, struggling to be grown up, I sat alone. In a night of lostness, confusion, and folding laundry; the TV was on and there is Billy Graham. My first thought is 'how corny'. The crowds where shown. The hymns were sung. Hey! those were familiar from church growing up. I sat down. With the sound of thousands settling into their seats a hush of expectation from the thousands gathered there and nothing better to do, I listened.
He came up to speak, even in 1969, Billy Graham was iconic. He spoke some words; but like watching shiny bubbles, the words were there and then gone. Pretty! Pop, pop. Pop. I was trying to grasp the words, but the more I grabbed, the bar of soap and the bubbles kept shooting away from me. My mind swirling, not grabbing the meaning. Inside however, something different was happening. My inner being began to melt. The words kept coming like a flow. Feeling welcomed in like going home, I breathed deeply. I sighed deeply. Tears welled up, hot and flushing my cheeks.
Drawn in and fascinated, gulping it in, I keep listening, mesmerized.
This is no corny hick. He was now the handsome man with kindness, wisdom, and caring words saying exact things about my life. At 20, in a city far from home, knowing no one, my facade of wholesome good looks is as thin as an onion paper. The naive soul unprepared for adult decisions underneath began to emerge. Sheltered but not adored, afraid, glib and sophomoric; I was a 'play acting student' who listened in class but had no coherent framework upon which to hang real world information, I was 'faking it and hoping to make it'. That recent shocking breakup had proved to me no one was going to swoop in and take me on. Bitter reality had started dawning. The real adult world required a currency to trade with; but I had nothing. Reality showed me I'm standing here with not a bus ticket of value, but all I want is to go HOME.
Back to the man on the TV.
Everything stops churning while he is talking. He gives a suggestion, no, a command. "Come" he says. "YOU, come", he says. "They'll wait" he says. "You watching on TV, bow down and repeat this prayer."
The inexplicable happened. I believed he meant me. Me. I hadn't totally disappeared. Suddenly something made sense and God, no Jesus, handed me my own ticket. It said YOU, I really mean it, yes you.
The world turned right side up again. I knew what was right. Its what I had always known was right. How had I forgotten that? I took a deep breath. I wrote down the address. I told them in a letter, I had accepted Jesus, when Billy Graham prayed for me. Watch below. Billy Graham, the same year I saw him on TV.
To think HE did all that for this no one. And Billy Graham was willing to do all this, how can I say thanks enough.
https://youtu.be/-BEa_DqbEYE
