A Kindred Heart

Now I know why we need such a diverse body of believers! I am finding fellowship with a woman with whom I have never spoken, but who could, if I could speak to her, completely understand the grief my heart feels over my son Nathan, who has moved far from us, although he lives just a block away. Ruth Graham, Billy Graham's wife, wrote a beautiful book that reads like a balm to a hurting parent's heart, PRODIGALS AND THOSE WHO LOVE THEM. I wrote away for this book months ago, and had only given it a cursory glance here and there before two weeks ago. Ruth Graham uses scriptures, her own reflections and beautiful poetry to express the agony she went through as several of her own children went through pretty long prodigal seasons. This one I really relate to:

Had I Been Joseph's Mother
Had I been Joseph's mother
I'd have prayed
protection from his brothers
"God, keep him safe.
He is so young, so different from
the others."
Mercifully,
she never knew
there would be slavery
and prison, too.

Had I been Moses' mother
I'd have wept
to keep my little son:
praying she might forget
the babe drawn from the water
of the Nile.
Had I not kept
him for her
nursing him the while,
was he not mine?
--and she
but Pharaoh's daughter

Had I been Daniel's mother
I should have pled
"Give victory!
--this Babylonian horde
godless and cruel--
Don't let him be a captive
--better dead.
Almighty Lord!"

Had I been Mary,
Oh, had I been she
I would have cried
as never mother cried
"Anything, O God,
Anything...
but crucified>'

With such prayers importunate
my finite wisdom would assail
Infinite Wisdom.
God, how fortunate
Infinite Wisdom
should prevail.

By Ruth Graham