Mustard Seed

Changing Plans

Love often leads people to do strange things. Couples who "fall in love" make decisions that change their lives and impact the lives of many future generations. That was certainly the experience of one young woman named Ruth Bell.

Ruth was born in China, where her father, Dr. Nelson Bell, served as chief surgeon and administrator for a Presbyterian mission hospital 300 miles northwest of Shanghai. At the age of thirteen, Ruth began her high school education in Korea while her parents continued serving in China. She finished high school in the United States and then enrolled in Wheaton College, near Chicago. Ruth planned to earn her degree and then go to Tibet as a missionary.

In one of Ruth's letters to her parents she described a 21-year old freshman whom she called "Bill." What impressed Ruth about Bill was that he had the same love for Christ and commitment to serving Him that she saw in her own father.

While Ruth was evaluating Bill at a distance, Bill had already noticed Ruth and he already decided that she was the one he wanted to marry. However, it took time to work up the courage to ask her on a date.

The College Glee Club Christmas concert of Handel's Messiah provided Bill with the perfect excuse to invite Ruth on their first date. That date had an interesting effect on both of them. That night Ruth wrote in her diary, "Bill is a real inspiration -- because, I suppose, he is a man of one purpose, & that one purpose controls his whole heart & life. He is dead in earnest yet richly endowed with the fruit of the Spirit... Humble, thoughtful, unpretentious, courteous." Later that evening when Ruth knelt by her bed for prayer, she said, "God, if you let me serve with that man, I'd consider it the greatest privilege of my life."

Bill, on the other hand, was more convinced than ever that he was unqualified for her favor. Friends told him to dampen his enthusiasm so he wouldn't scare her away. For the next six weeks Bill completely avoided Ruth. She finally took the initiative and invited him to a party scheduled for Friday, February 7, 1941 -- an evening on which Bill already had a commitment to preach at a church in Chicago. If he couldn't attend her party, would she be interested in coming to his meeting? She said, "Yes!"

As Ruth sat alone in the pew while her "date" preached, her admiration for him grew. That night after Bill drove her home and walked her to her door, he hesitated and then said, "There's something I'd like you to make a matter of definite prayer. I have been taking you out because I am more than interested in you and have been since the day we were introduced last fall. But I know that you have been called to the mission field, and I'm not definite." If Bill had spoken more truthfully, he would have told her that he felt God's clear call to evangelism, not foreign missions.

That night Ruth couldn't sleep. She wrote in her journal, "Something big has happened." Yet, Bill was right. For Ruth to become Billy Graham's wife, she must give up her dream of returning to the mission field in exchange for sitting alone at home or in the pew while Billy preached. So they both continued to pray for God's clear guidance.

Back in China, war with Japan was beginning to heat up. The American consul urged all Americans to evacuate immediately. So Nelson and Virginia Bell reluctantly left their beloved friends at the hospital to return to life in America. Their first chance to meet Billy came when he stopped by their temporary home in Waynesboro, Virginia, on a trip north from a preaching engagement in Florida. Dr. Bell relieved Billy's nervousness by warmly welcoming him into the Bell family.

After graduating from Wheaton, Ruth and Billy were married on August 13, 1943. Two years later Billy became an evangelist for Youth For Christ, and the couple settled near the Bell's permanent home in Montreat, North Carolina. For the rest of Dr. Bell's life, Billy Graham regarded his Presbyterian father-in-law as his most influential mentor.