Mourners in NC mountains remember advice from Billy Graham — and a regret
Spring was beginning to touch the mountains on the day that the Rev. Billy Graham died, and the mourners who came to pay respects a few miles from his home carried the bittersweet aura of a warm day in the depths of winter: tears at his passing mixed with the joy of his having lived.
At mid-afternoon Wednesday, hours after his death was announced, the stone chapel of the Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove was opened to the public. A trickle of visitors began to arrive almost immediately.
Kelly Petty of Rock Hill whipped out her cell phone to show a photo of her family gathered around the white-haired lion of evangelism, who sat in an easy chair by the fireplace, during a 2011 visit to his Montreat home. The grandfather of Petty's husband Jim had gone to Wheaton College with Graham decades ago, and the families had stayed in touch ever since.
Graham was gracious and strikingly humble, Petty said, as he led them through the small kitchen of his simple log home into a den with a picture window framing the mountains.
“The most profound thing he said, his only regret, this man of God, was that he had not memorized more Scripture” to repeat as his eyes failed past reading, Petty said. “He encouraged me and my family to memorize more Scripture to keep it in our hearts. And it's one thing we continue to do.”
The chapel was built in 1986 under the guidance of Graham’s late wife, Ruth, who specified that its 87-foot steeple topped with an eight-foot cross be tall enough to be seen from Interstate 40 a half-mile away. It is built of stone quarried on the 1,200-acre site, which nestles between mountain ridges as if in the palm of a mammoth hand, and trails wind through Ruth’s Prayer Garden just up the slope.
“It’s kind of bittersweet,” said Barbara Mitchell, who is coordinator for The Cove’s visitors center. “He’s not here, but it’s a celebration time. He’s where he wants to be.”
Graham never seemed to put much stock in his fame, Mitchell said. “He was just the most humble person you’ve ever met,” she said. In his later years, he would sometimes be driven, unnoticed, to the turnaround area near the chapel, then pop open a window to shake hands with surprised volunteer greeters.
Inez Horne Wolfe of Hendersonville was an 11-year-old girl in Charlotte when two life-changing events occurred: Her father died, and she heard Billy Graham preach on TV. She went to a local church and, through tears, gave her life to the Lord.
“I missed my daddy, and Billy, I adopted him,” she said. “I’m 72 years old but all those years, I have looked up to him — I guess I worshiped him — as a father. And I thought that if my father had lived, he would have been like Billy Graham.”
Wolfe collected all of Graham’s books and was able to see him preach once at the Charlotte Coliseum. At Christmas, she stuffs shoe boxes with supplies for the world’s poor at Christmas for Samaritan's Purse, the aid ministry led by Graham’s son Franklin.
“He made me feel whole, the emptiness was gone,” Wolfe said. “I think it was the Lord that filled the hole, and Billy was the messenger.”
Interdenominational ministers Amanda and Darin Shiflett wept over the the chapel’s heart-pine floors in front of a display of Graham photos and quotations. The Atlanta couple had been at a business meeting in nearby Hendersonville when they heard of Graham’s death and knew where they had to go.
“I don’t think we know, or can know, how much impact he’s had,” Amanda Shiflett said. “It just meant a lot to come and pray.”
Darin Shiflett saw in Graham’s ministry a message of hope to the many people who seem “lost and hopeless.”
“My desire is to see a new generation rise with light and hope to give those lives,” he said.
Added his wife: “People will rise up and take that message and carry that torch. My husband and I are ministers, and that's what we did.”
This story was originally published February 21, 2018 at 6:26 PM with the headline "Mourners in NC mountains remember advice from Billy Graham — and a regret."