Ruth Graham: Forgiveness (LIFE Today)

the following program is sponsored by friends of Life outreach international [Music] next on life today Ruth Graham opens up about her struggle with unforgiveness toward others and herself I had always looked at forgiveness as a way to get healthy emotionally right you know we've been told it's a gift we give ourselves as a letting go and at that point I realized that forgiveness was so much more than that it really was much more than that and I wanted to know more about it I wanted to have an experience of that kind of forgiveness where I was changed where I was transformed [Music] hello welcome to life today I'm Sheila Walsh and I'm so glad that you've tuned in to this particular episode I wonder if you have ever struggled with forgiveness you know you might be in a situation where you're like do not even ask me to forgive that's ridiculous that would not be fair what if it was wrong or maybe you're in a place where you think I can't forgive myself well I think today's guest is going to bring some much-needed light into any dark spaces so I just want to welcome Ruth Graham so great you're with us so happy to be here and this fantastic book is called forgiving my father for giving myself an invitation to the miracle of forgiveness I love to read so I usually get to read a lot of books but I have to say this one I read literally from cover to cover because I knew I didn't want to miss anything but I wonder if you take us to the beginning you start with this incredibly compelling account of an encounter you had with a man in Angola prison yes Ruth Graham and friends which was a ministry that the Lord had given me was a team of professionals psychologists pastors teachers and we were invited to go speak to the prisoners at Angola and Angola prison as you know is a place where people go for life they don't get out of Angola and they have their hardened criminals most of them and I didn't know what to expect I've never been in a prison and while we were there the warden royal came asked if I would go to death row and visit the prisoners there that our team would go and I said yes because I felt like I had to but I was scared to death I thought I have never been in that kind of a situation and what did I as a middle-aged white homemaker have to say to these hardened criminals and I just said Lord you're gonna have to take over so as we walked through the gates and they clanks closed behind us and the keys are rattled the guard going the other way and we faced a corridor of cells and concrete floor so our footfalls echoed and the first that we divided up so we could speak to as many prisoners as we could and the first prisoner I spoke to stuck out his hand the brown hand and he said I'm Michael and we talked a bit and we I asked about his family his hand of course of course and I knew as I knew I was safe I know what I say and brought cane would have haven't no other way but I just he had deep brown eyes and a warm smile and he said can I sing you a song Wow and I thought oh my goodness so he stood back and he took a deep breath and sang acapella it is well with my soul on death row on death row and and I knew it was well with it I could see it in his face in his appearance and then when we finished and I began to leave he said oh I have a gift for you and I thought what does this man on death row have to give me I wanted to give him something but he went and grabbed under his pillow and there was a little woven cross that he'd woven out of those threads from his bed sheet and he handed it to me and I sent my house now always a reminder to pray for those men on and going and we left said our goodbyes and I thought that was end of it and about three weeks later while I was there the national press picked up the fact that I was in Goa and carried it nationally and I got an email from a lady and she said did you really go to end goals death row and I emailed her back and I said yes she said did you meet so-and-so and I said I don't know I've met a lot of man I'll have to ask so I called burl Kane and I said yeah he said yes you did and so I emailed her back and said yes I did and she emailed me and she said is he a believer I said well I've got a Czech warden came that's how I called bro came back and I said bro is he a believer he said yes as a matter of fact he's scheduled to be executed this month and I thought oh my goodness so I emailed this person back and I said yes he is a believer why are you interested in this young person and they replied he murdered my granddaughter and in gross Way and I thought oh my goodness and she said I take no pleasure in his impending death but I want to know he'll be in heaven with me oh my gosh such grace and I can only picture cuz he was executed later that month I could only picture him stepping into heaven I'm seeing a little granddaughter they are welcoming him as a brother in Christ and just a powerful illustration to me of the miracle of forgiveness only God could do that what did that duty I mean you know obviously you are Billy Graham's daughter you've probably heard the Bible since you ER before I was but what did that particular story and the story of the grandparents how did that impact your own life well it did because I had always looked at forgiveness as a way to get healthy emotionally right I thought that it was you know we've been told it's a gift we give ourselves it's a it's a letting go and at that point I realized that forgiveness was so much more than that it really was much more than that and I wanted to know more about it I wanted to have an experience of that kind of forgiveness where I was changed where I was transformed like the the grandmother and the little girl the the prisoner Wow you tell an interesting story that I think a lot of people will relate to of when you were young and something happened and you ended up getting in trouble for something they didn't know heard from my son when he was growing up that's not fair what do you say to people who say you know you want me to forgive but it's not it's not fair it's not fair I agree with you and it's like William Astoria say if you break it you have to buy by it and it's some when we forgive it's like it's broken but we didn't break it but he has to pay for it and this doesn't seem fair but then if you look at the crucifixion hmm you know Jesus knows how unfair it was and he was bloodied beyond recognition and beaten and I mean really beaten until he was raw and then nailed to a cross and while he was being nailed to the cross he said Father forgive them they know not what they do that was unfair but that is holy that is sacred territory that is just that is more than healthy emotional right stuff it is it is holy and I and I just think that's important for people to realize yeah I think that's a powerful statement forgiveness isn't fair it's holy but you make another statement in the book that I found personally really helpful you talked about the fact that people will say that time heals wounds but if you don't deal with the wound and you just bury it you bury it alive it comes back you know if you don't deal with it and I and Sheila forgiveness is a lifelong process you know we can say oh I forgive and go on but within a couple of months emotions are kind of roaring back and we think we really didn't forgiving we begin to beat ourselves up again but you know emotions never tell the truth that's the brain that's right so they just are and so we have to get rid of the emotions and we can we can ex but we don't have to live with them yeah and I think it's important to know that but forgiveness is a lifelong process that takes time and I have worked through forgiveness on so many different levels so many different levels and found that when we forgive that's the doorway by which the Holy Spirit can enter that decision and enable us to truly forgive it's not gonna happen overnight it may take a lifetime but it will happen how can you tell when you have actually forgiven someone other kind of internal signals that would let you know that you actually have forgiven well it's maybe easier for me to tell you how we haven't to tell which everything's good when we see the person who's wronged us and that's the first thing we think of right or when their name comes up we want to tell people what happened where we can't get rid of what they've done to us that's a sign that we haven't forgiven and I think when we have forgiven then we're able to be around that person we're able to talk with that person we're able to bless those people pray a blessing on them and if we're not able to do those things then we need to go back to the cross and say okay Jesus that part of your book I mean honestly your legislation oh this is one of the best books unforgiveness I've ever read but that really got to me because I thought of a person who really wronged me a long time ago and when I began the process of forgiveness I would say Lord I forgive them but you know I don't I mean it I don't mean that was me just pray like through clenched teeth yeah absolutely but you're right it is a process and to me it's more about faithfulness than emotion yes you give a few really helpful things and what forgiveness is not you say it's and I'll let you pick up whichever one you want to talk to you say it's not natural it's not easy and it's not it's not necessary it's not forgetting what happened no no we we don't forget what happened my husband was unfaithful for a number of years and our marriage ended in divorce and I haven't forgotten that and to be perfectly honest with you I was very bitter and very angry and it wasn't until after his death that something else happened to me wrong and I I was weeping and I was asking the Lord to forgive me and then I said lord please go back to Ted and tell him that I asked his forgiveness and I know that's not theological like that but I thought you know God can handle that and I had to leave it there and so I'm trusting that the Lord did tell Ted that I was very very sorry and ask his forgiveness Wow one of the things I found fascinating you talked about the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation because forgiveness is to do with the one who was offended against but reconciliation what is that about that demands a change in the desert yes forgiveness is unconditional reconciliation is conditioned on the changed behavior of the one who's done the wounding and your if you're the one wounded you're the one that knows the change you can't have someone go he's changed he's changed or he can't come and say oh he's changed you've got to know that and sense that in your bones and with counseling with a pastor's help then if you want to try to reconcile take it very slowly and very carefully I'll have to be honest I was a little surprised when I opened the book to chapter 4 we had to read my glory and I mean I'd love you to talk a little about that but honestly it it made me kind of heartbroken for you and you don't present it in a way that but but it just tell me what that was all about well it was interesting because when I got the book and I started reading it I did not this is my book to me and I had no idea that that wound was there and I began reading and I began to cry Lord what is this amount and I was so emotional that took me weeks to write you a note but mother treated you so well and was so gracious and so loving and she loved you and she till the day she died she loved you and I felt like she loved broken people but she didn't want a broken daughter and she certainly didn't want her broken daughter talking about it she wanted all covered up and it really was hard it was very hard I thought well she gave that to Sheila why couldn't she give that to me and she had died since then so we never got to talk about it but I know mother loved me she just did not know how to relate to me do you think some of that was a generational thing or a personality thing I think both I think mother was very good at relating to young people but I think it was a personality she and I I was terrible thing to say I'm very much like my father and maybe that drove her crazy I don't know and I was more honest I used to say even a cat know some things need to be covered I thought well but I have found Sheila that when I've told my stuff now I'm not telling my sibling stuff and I'm not telling my mothers or my father stuff telling myself this is not a tell-all book no no but I find that when I tell my stuff and I make myself vulnerable that's when ministry takes place yeah you talk about making ones sacred which is something I love that I have a chapter in a different book on celebrating your scars as tattoos of triumph what do you mean by making you one's sacred when we give them to God and we say God I don't like this I'm hurting like mad I don't know how you're gonna make anything out of this but I give it to you for to use for your glory and I remember after my divorce from Ted I was so wounded and so hurt and I was just I was acting out and everything was a mess and I had a rebound marriage that was just a mess and I remember saying to God if you can ever use this mess for your glory you are welcome to it never dreaming he would never dreaming he would but he has and after I wrote in every piece it's a broken heart now it had such an impact and people related to me in a different way yeah and I'm very grateful God's called me to be vulnerable and I have not people have not always liked it no I totally honestly relate to that I remember when I went back on the 700 club after spending a month in a psych hospital and I basically went on to say goodbye and they said don't tell people where now this was not pat pat was really kind to me but the producer said don't tell people where you were they'll never trust you again and when I said I want to share about this and they said well it's your funeral but in that week 10 days after - I had over 5,000 letters from people saying I've never heard and they tell my story before that you're right it's to me that's real ministry that's right that's where it's that's where the rubber hits the road you know we want company along the journey and when somebody knows that they have experienced the same thing and they've walked this journey with us and that's what I wanted to do in this book I wanted people to see the journey that I went through and what was right what was wrong what was ugly what was messy and what was biblical and what wasn't biblical and I wanted to say all right come along with me yeah I remember I loved when I got to the part where you talked about your dad's funeral because I was there that day and I was so blown away by what you shared at your dad's funeral which tell us that story and what that must have felt like that day as you were driving back to Montreat well I was driving home I had entered a rebound marriage ill-advisedly against my parents suggestions and counsel my mother called me from from Seattle my father called me from Tokyo and said why don't you wait let's get to know this man better but I was so hurting and I wanted someone to take care of me soon I really wanted somebody to take care of me and to make the pain go away so I entered into this second marriage and within 24 hours I knew I was in big trouble and I stuck around for a little while and then I became afraid of him and I thought no I'm not gonna stick around for this and so I left and I knew I had to go talk to my parents it was a two-day Drive and fears multiplied with every mile what was my life going to be like what was I kind of say to them what were they gonna say to me I didn't know what my future life was gonna be and I was at that point I was willing to work at McDonald's and smell like french fries for the rest of my life in there and so when I round up if you've been up to the house it's up on mountainside and around the last driveway right last bend in the driveway my father was standing there waiting for me and when I got out of the car he wrapped his arms around me and he said welcome home there was never and I told you so there was never any blame or shame my father was incredibly forgiving gracious man and I told that start the funeral I didn't want to and I told the Lord I don't want to tell the story I'm tired of telling it but the Lord said is clear as a bell to me I gave you your story for my glory and I want you to tell the story so I did and the world's press was there that day I remember just seeing the bank so but honestly for me personally it was the most powerful part of the whole my father was like that was his essence yeah and how much he loved you you know it's interesting we started by talking about your experience in angola prison but there's another angola that you are very familiar with as we are here life today you've actually been in angola with mission feeding which is a huge passion of that was wonderful wonderful trip that we had and to see those children line up with their little red dishes yeah and stand in line in the hot Sun and the Flies and out yeah waiting for their for their gruel really and realizing that was probably the only meal they'd get that day maybe that week and what a lifeline that is oh I'm so important and so critical to these children and their little bellies are hanging out and their blonde hair and you don't think an affray they're bonding that means they're malnourished and these children desperately need that yeah and it's something that we are committed to here at life so let me just show you a little bit of how you can make a difference would you watch this manda Lena is weary for years she has battled an enemy that thrives in the environment she calls home despite her most desperate efforts to protect them five of her children have lost their lives upon defeating Diageo Angela Ruane je puis lebanon una muchacha Rahm Emanuel FISA vas are upon mojo Baron Nicaraguan nanny a girl acapella Paolo one when a woman Joe LeMond and their Go Go keep on going the most recent victim in her home was her four-year-old daughter a dearly loved girl whose greatest joy was helping her mother manda Lena clings to those memories even as her grief threatens to offer take her this chicha Morada Mariah Mundi Fasano Holly Utley up on July been really pass around but you would do what they are and do the visa in the face of such a relentless enemy manda Lena continues to fight all the while caring for her children who have fallen ill because of malnutrition again and again and again cell Simba wind our way later this shadow of death has loomed over manda Lena's family and so many others like them for far too long with your help we can provide a daily bowl of food for all the children in Magdalena's village the darkness can be rolled away and a bright future can be revealed [Music] you know the thing that struck me most intensely on my last trip to Africa was sitting with these mothers and realizing there is no difference between this mother and between me as a mom I just happen to have been born in Scotland and they happened to be more in Africa I was born into a family where there was always breakfast and dinner at night and that mom did you see she's literally sold everything she had and the other thing I saw on our last trip is that these are not mothers sitting around wishing somebody would help them most of the women I met get up at 4 o'clock in the morning to try and scramble for food or to try and find water to cook something and they worked so hard all day but to bury five children and then to bury a little four-year-old girl you know we had the privilege as a team to walk with some of these women to the places where they had buried their children honestly I felt like I was on holy ground and we put these women but the great news is this is not one of those national disasters where there's little we can do we can change this and that's our commitment through mission feeding and if we can do it together you know no matter what your your budget is if 30 dollars will feed three children for three months I mean what can you do with 30 dollars you go to a movie and it's it's gone but 30 dollars would feed three children for three months fifty dollars would feed five $100 feeds ten and if you've been blessed if if God has placed you where you are able to do more a thousand dollars feeds a hundred children now for any gift at all I'm gonna send you Ruth's book because honestly it's one of the best books I've read in a long long time and I believe we'll have a significant impact on your life in the life of your family but what we're asking is would you just join with us that mother she said when I look to the future it is bleak but you and I can change that we can be the answer to her prayers so that they're given a future and a hope so please would you go to your phone would you give the if possible you can only give what you've got but if we all do that we will change the lives of entire villages in Africa it's our commitment this year to continue to feed thousands of children as betty has often said we never want that line to be longer than the food we have to give them they're waiting with their little Red Bulls let's feed them in Jesus name please call just give the best gift you can possibly give mission feeding began with a promise to be there in times of crisis for thousands of hurting and hungry children in their time of need now more than ever we need your help to save lives by feeding and caring for children across the continent of Africa with food reserves gone and many areas experiencing severe famine we urgently need to replenish our supplies to reach the 400,000 children who are counting on us your gift of love can be the miracle answer to a desperate mother's prayer call now with your life-saving gift of 30 50 or 100 dollars that will help feed and care for three five or ten children for three full months with your gift will send you the altered worship CD by Anthony Evans this powerful full-length album includes unique versions of some of today's most cherished worship songs that are sure to uplift and inspire you with your gift of $100 or more please request a filled with faith and joy travel mug sets these twelve ounce mugs are crafted with large handles double layered insulation and vacuum sealed lids to prevent spills each mug includes a message to remind you of God's blessings and faithfulness finally with your gift of $1,000 or more to help feed and care for 100 children be sure to request our commemorative bronze sculpture safe and the Shepherd's Arms please call write or make your gift online today [Music] this is just the beginning of the hungry season and yet already we're seeing a line here that is way longer than what we're used to see far more mothers and children here than what I've seen for a long time they're terrifies me because what that means is that many of these children may well lose their life and that's why we have to get mission feeding out there into the villages you see if we get to the villages where these mothers are if we can meet them there with mission feeding we can solve this problem where we can guarantee life yeah we fight the battle of life and death out in the village with mission feeding we guarantee life please do whatever you can do partner with us to help us continue to expand mission feeding and continue mission feeding in the areas we are so that we can God against mothers and children having to be malnutrition clinics keep calling if the lines are busy just persevere and honestly this really is an is an amazing book was it a hard book to write a very hard book to write and it's taken me or hear your ears to write it Wow but very happy to be able to finally write it and to know that God will use it I believe absolutely because honestly if you're struggling to forgive anyone if you're struggling to forgive yourself there's so much wisdom in the pages of this book so for any gift at all that you send to help us with our mission feeding this year we will be happy to send you for giving my father for giving myself an invitation to the miracle of forgiveness there's so much to talk about I would just love it if you would stay and we could do another day you think you might do they love to thank you thanks Ruth thanks so much for being with us we'll see you next time on life today [Music] [Music] he walks up to me with his hand outstretched and says hi I'm Victor how are you a homeless man a broken woman and the decision that made them battling tomorrow life today is made possible by the supporters of Life outreach international your gift will be used exclusively for the exempt purposes of life the ministry features specific outreaches as examples of the programs it supports and conducts gifts are considered to be without restriction as to use unless explicitly stipulated by the donor the ministry is a member of the EC FA you

Channel: lifetodaytv

Views: 18,953

Keywords: life today, james, robison, christian, television, tv, interview

Id: f04bqe0xZIA

Length: 28min 45sec (1725 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 01 2019