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<\/a>She also wants to hear what her readers are enduring. In fact, she’s willing to make a very personal promise: If you’ll write to her, commenting on her column \u201cSafe Place: Being Authentic in an Inauthentic World,\u201d<\/a> she’ll write you back.<\/p>\n “I want to hear from you. I want to know what’s going on in your life,” she says, “I want to create a safe place where people can come and share anonymously.”<\/p>\n Why does she\u00a0see the need for\u00a0a \u201cSafe Place\u201d<\/a> where readers can share their own failings and doubts?<\/p>\n She knows what it\u2019s like to have to put on a false smile. The third of Billy and Ruth Bell Graham\u2019s five kids remembers having\u00a0to pretend nothing is wrong \u2013 even\u00a0when her world was falling apart. All preachers\u2019 kids endure that, but a famous evangelist\u2019s kid has to be especially careful. Stepping out of line can result in a front page headline in the National Enquirer<\/em> \u2013 and bring shame upon a beloved dad.<\/p>\n And there are other pressures that ordinary celebrities\u2019 kids don\u2019t suffer. If a famous clergyman\u2019s daughter isn\u2019t spiritual enough for the ever-gawking public, she had better know how to fake it \u2013 or endure constant witnessing, counseling and opportunities to come to Jesus offered by the well-meaning.<\/p>\n That wasn\u2019t Ruth\u2019s problem, however. She had a deeply spiritual experience at a very early age\u00a0\u2013 and her parents kept the Graham kids out of the public eye. Little Gigi, Anne, Ruth, Franklin and Ned met\u00a0scores of\u00a0famous people who enjoyed her father\u2019s friendship: Johnny Cash, John Wayne, Martin Luther King and every President from Eisenhower on \u2013 \u201cbut those were Mother and Daddy\u2019s friends,\u201d Ruth recalls. \u201cWe met them, but that was all.\u201d<\/p>\n And as a girl she\u00a0never had\u00a0to fake spirituality, \u201cI really did have a genuine relationship with the Lord,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI gave my heart to Jesus when I was seven, kneeling beside my bed with my mother. At age 11, I made that commitment public by going forward at the altar call at a church revival held by a friend of my father. Daddy went with me.\u201d<\/p>\n As a 15-year-old, she left home for an exclusive boarding school in New York. There, \u201cI came down with mononucleosis and I was miserable.\u201d All alone, it was just her and God. \u201cI just had to claim my faith as my own. At that point, it was no longer Mother or Daddy\u2019s faith, it was mine.\u201d<\/p>\n She avoided teenage rebellion \u2013 didn\u2019t smoke, drink or do drugs. Although it was the height of the 1960s-70s counter-culture, she had no desire to join a hippie commune or hitchhike to San Francisco.<\/p>\n \u201cI went to college and married and had children.\u201d But in the 1990s, her world fell apart when her husband was unfaithful. After 18 years of marriage, Ruth was devastated. They went through months of counseling before admitting defeat. Then just a few months after the divorce, she remarried \u201con the rebound\u201d but knew within 24 hours that she\u2019d made a terrible mistake. Her life a shambles, she loaded up everything and\u00a0sought refuge\u00a0with her parents.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought, ‘What are they going to say to me?’\u201d she remembers. \u201cAs I rounded the last bend in my father’s driveway, Daddy was waiting for me. He wrapped his arms around me and said, ‘Welcome home.’\u201d<\/p>\n What followed was a time of turmoil. At age 40, she was in personal, emotional and spiritual crisis. \u201cI sort of went off the rails,\u201d she admits, \u201cI decided I was tired of doing it God\u2019s way. But that just made things worse.<\/p>\n \u201cI had thought I was doing everything perfectly. I was a good wife. I was a wonderful mother. I was active in the church and I was teaching Bible studies. So, why didn\u2019t God take care of me?\u201d<\/p>\n Her children suffered, too. One daughter developed an eating disorder. Her son entered a drug abuse rehabilitation program. Another daughter\u00a0gave birth to\u00a0two babies out of wedlock while still in her mid-teens.<\/p>\n How did Ruth deal with such a collapse of her world? She says she felt abandoned. \u201cIt was really a crisis of faith. How come\u00a0the Lord\u00a0didn\u2019t intervene?\u201d Why didn\u2019t God protect her \u2013 keep her from having to go through the fire?<\/p>\n The answer is simple, she knows now: \u201cHe had something to teach me about the difficulties of life: to show me that none of us are exempt, that we all have hardships. We all have things that happen to us that we don\u2019t ask for, but we have to endure.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd it\u2019s OK. It\u2019s all part of God\u2019s plan. I didn\u2019t like having to go through that \u2013 none of us do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut it was very important for me to have that experience \u2013 and to grow from it. I\u2019m still growing. The story is not over. But that\u2019s OK, God gives me grace. And God is a covenant-keeping God. He is faithful even when I am not. Now I\u2019m living life. I am just living in the grace of God.\u201d<\/p>\n Recently she was at her father\u2019s bedside\u00a0after he fell at home and had to be hospitalized. Has it been difficult watching such a great man, who she still lovingly calls \u201cDaddy,\u201d retreat from public view now that he has slowed down \u2013 and is well into his 90s? Does she ever wish she could miraculously restore him to the fiery young preacher who filled stadiums worldwide for 40 years?<\/p>\n \u201cI told Daddy not too long ago that I am much more warmed by the embers than I ever was by the fire. I hate to see the physical disabilities that he has endured, but I have enjoyed this special time in his sunset years. He is not as distracted. He is gentler.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s always been a wonderful person. It was hard for him that Mother went first, but God knows what He\u2019s doing. Always before, we kids went home to see her. If he was there, that was well and good. But now that she\u2019s gone, we go home to see him. And he loves it. And I love being with him.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember one day when I was really beating myself up and taking responsibility for my marriage falling apart \u2013 just pouring my heart out. Daddy said, ‘Quit beating yourself up. We all live under God\u2019s grace and we just do the best we can.’<\/p>\n \u201cWhenever I go home, there\u2019s always a bouquet of flowers in my room with a handwritten note that reads, \u2018Welcome home. Daddy.’\u201d<\/p>\n What has she learned through her personal ordeal?<\/p>\n She says she will never again attempt to live up to other people\u2019s expectations. \u201cFor years, I was very good at fooling myself. I don\u2019t know if I fooled other people \u2013 I certainly never fooled God.<\/p>\n \u201cI have realized that I have an audience of One. As long as He\u2019s happy with me, then that\u2019s OK. You can\u2019t please all those other people anyway. There\u2019s always going to be somebody who doesn\u2019t think you measure up.<\/p>\n \u201cAt each stage as I went through this, I knew I loved the Lord. There was no question of that. At each stage, He has taken me deeper. And I don\u2019t like the fact that the deep things of God are taught in suffering.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a result, I know God\u2019s grace in a way that I never would have otherwise. I\u2019m learning to tell myself the truth. \u201c<\/p>\n She wants others to enjoy that freedom, too.<\/p>\n “Transparency is so lacking today,” she says. “You and I feel like we can’t be honest. We have to protect ourselves, especially to hide any flaws that we have. We feel we have to put on our masks and say ‘Everything\u2019s OK and I\u2019ve got it all together and I\u2019m doing just great.’<\/p>\n \u201cBut, people aren\u2019t doing just great. They aren’t OK and they don’t have it all together.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, we hide it. We don\u2019t feel we can be honest. We can\u2019t take off that mask and be real. We fear that if we do, we\u2019ll become targets — marginalized, criticized, victimized.”<\/p>\n \u201cI finally decided that I was going to admit that I don\u2019t have it all together \u2013 but God does.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to share that and also to\u00a0dialogue with my readers \u2013 so they can unburden themselves \u2013 making my column a confessional of sorts. And they will find no condemnation from me. I am not into shaming people.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe in passing along God\u2019s grace.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>