My connection with Billy Graham

By Ron Watts

Home.

There's no sweeter word in the English language. Now that our four children are married and living on their own, nothing brings us greater joy than to welcome them back home. Have all four of them, their spouses and grandkids all at once? Why, that's almost heaven on earth.

Home.

I think it's one of the reasons I love baseball so much. After all, getting home is the object of the game.

Home.

Something within us longs for a place to call home. From the dawn of human history, deep within we've had this sense that we're not there, that we're living in exile. It's the theme of many a song and story. Dorothy enjoyed Oz, but all along she just wanted to get back to Kansas. For, "There's no place like home."

Back in 1974 a man named Billy Graham came to St. Louis. I didn't understand why there was such a buzz about it. My mother decided to go. I had better things to do. Afterward, she told me with much joy she had "gone down front to receive Jesus." Immediately, I threw cold water on that joy. "You go to church, mom; that wasn't necessary."

My mother was a hot-headed daughter of Italian immigrants. I'll never forget the day she marched down to our neighbors' house on the corner and got in a shouting match and how embarrassed I felt. Yet, something changed in my mother after that night. The hard shell was replaced by a softness that only grew more pronounced over the years.

A year later, they replayed that Billy Graham St. Louis crusade on TV. It was August and I was deep into a season of angst and searching. My restless teenage soul began to wonder if life was even worth living. Speaking under a banner with the words, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," it was like Rev. Graham was speaking to me in my living room. I was mesmerized. At the end, he turned to the cameras and spoke to us watching on TV and said that we could find Jesus right where we were. We could be forgiven. We could know life and find meaning in Jesus Christ. We could get Home. I prayed with him and found that night what my mother had found a year earlier.

This week, following the death of the Great American Evangelist, there have been many accolades and tributes, as there should be. His was a life well-lived. There are many things I could say about his integrity and his worldwide influence. For now, I'm simply grateful. Grateful my mom went to that crusade. Grateful they televised it and replayed it a year later. Grateful Billy Graham led us Home.

I have to believe Ann Watts was one of hundreds of thousands who welcomed Billy Graham this week. And, when he crossed over, he met the One he proclaimed face-to-face and heard Him say, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Welcome Home."

Watts is the senior pastor at La Croix United Methodist Church.