DESTIN — Ruth Graham, nationally acclaimed motivational speaker, author and Bible teacher, is the featured speaker March 17 at the 9 a.m. contemporary services in the Destin Life Center on the United Methodist Church campus at 200 Beach Drive.
She is the third of five children born into the family of the Rev. Billy Graham and his late wife, Ruth Bell Graham.
Ruth Graham will be in the area to give the keynote addresses March 15 and 16 at the Shine On Women’s Conference in the Emerald Coast Convention Center.
She founded the nationally popular Ruth Graham & Friends Ministry in 2006 which is aimed at ministering God’s grace and restoration to those who feel marginalized within the church, and to better equip churches to address the needs of the hurting in their midst.
Audiences throughout the nation have found her to be a warm and articulate person who speaks openly of her own pilgrimage through her husband’s infidelities, her divorces, her teenage daughter’s two unplanned pregnancies, another daughter’s bulimia, her son’s battle with drugs, and, at age 40, returning to school to obtain a degree.
“We are pleased to have Ruth Graham in our church because she is widely known as a dynamic motivational speaker,” said Dr. Barry K. Carpenter, the lead minister. “We expect a full house so an early arrival for the 9 o’clock service is recommended.”
Graham has written several books including the best sellers “Step into the Bible,” and “In Every Pew Sits a Broken Heart.”
A popular “go-to person” for media interviews, Graham has appeared on “Good Morning, America,” “Fox & Friends,” CBN, “The Hour of Power,” NBC’s “Today,” Moody Broadcasting and CNN.
She graduated cum laude from Mary Baldwin College in 2000 and received the college’s Outstanding Adult Student Award. She also has an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from Eastern University.
She has three grown children and eight grandchildren, and makes her home in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.