[Sermon version]
Even pastors can have rotten marriages:
He was known as a gifted preacher, eloquent, intense, captivating in his deep, booming voice. He was a trustee of one of the largest seminaries in the country and had the honor of preaching the convention sermon for Southern Baptists in Alabama in 1993.
At home, though, he says now he was “the great pretender,” whose life was unraveling as he guarded the secret of a crumbling marriage. The evil was not infidelity, not the so-called “pressures” of the ministry. The real causes, he says today, were his “pride and stubbornness,” years of anger and bitterness toward his wife that led him to despair.
On February 26, 1995, Don Graham, age 54, stepped up to the pulpit to make a confession and resign his position.
“At the end of January, the Lord found me a bitter, angry and defeated man whose family was crumbling and whose spiritual life was disintegrating,” he says. “I lost all joy of service, of ministry, and the joy of salvation. Driven by pride, I ignored my wife’s appeals over the years. I refused to value her opinions and disregarded her.”
“Many is the time,” Graham said, “that I let the sun go down on my wrath.” A marriage counselor was brave enough to ask the tough questions, unimpressed with Graham’s reputation. He made Graham fill in a list of all the things he had done to wound his wife. “After 31 entries, I could hardly stand it any longer,” he says.
That same Sunday his wife, Jean, also read a confession that described her as lacking any hope that the wounds would heal. In her statement, she confessed to a self-centered and judgmental character: “I had a master’s degree in critical spirit, and I was not submissive,” she said.
The congregation immediately expressed its forgiveness but the resignation was final. The pastor and his wife said they were uncertain of the future but certain “God wants us to focus on rebuilding our marriage.”
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Original article:
CENTER POINT, Ala. (BP) — He was known as a gifted preacher, eloquent, intense, captivating in his deep, booming voice, a doctrinal mentor for younger pastors, and a spiritual model for his congregation. Out of the pulpit, though, he says now he was “the great pretender,” a private man, a closely held pastor, whose life was unraveling as he guarded the secret of a crumbling marriage.
The evil was not infidelity, not the so-called “pressures” of the ministry. The real causes, he says today, were his “pride and stubbornness,” years of anger and bitterness toward his wife that led him to despair.
So when Don Graham, 54, stepped up to the pulpit on Sunday night, Feb. 26, his pockets “full of Kleenex,” to make a confessional statement and resign his pastorate at First Baptist, Center Point, after 11-and-a-half years, he knew the confession must be complete.
“At the end of January, the Lord found me a bitter, angry and defeated man whose family was crumbling and whose spiritual life was disintegrating,” he says. “I lost all joy of service, of ministry, and the joy of salvation.
“Driven by pride, I ignored my wife’s appeals over the years. I refused to value her opinions and disregarded her. Pride had caused me to talk much further down the road than I had been walking. The word for it is hypocrisy.”
His congregation voiced its forgiveness that night and did the same for his wife, Jean, 48, who also read a confessional statement that described her as lacking any hope that the wounds would heal. But the resignation was final, and they will leave their pastorium and relocate to another home in Birmingham, Ala., uncertain of the future but certain “God wants us to focus on our marriage and on rebuilding our marriage.”
“I feel a perfect peace about it,” he says. “I am not qualified for spiritual leadership, according to 1 Timothy 3:5. If God chooses us for ministry in the future, that’s his doing. It would be like raising beauty out of ashes. If not, we will continue to serve him in the best way we know how.”
Graham’s prominence among Southern Baptists — currently serving as a trustee of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky, having preached the Alabama convention sermon in 1993 and having served as a frequent preacher around the state — led him to make a public statement, he says.
“I didn’t want the forum to sound self-serving in any way,” Graham says. “I have no desire to preserve any vestige of a reputation. My one, singular motive is to clear my conscience with my church, with Alabama Baptist pastors and church members, to humble myself and ask their forgiveness for my pride and pretense in preaching at a time when my marriage was in deep turmoil.”
In an interview, the Grahams chronicle the years of a self-destructive marriage: “While we know and the church knows there is no immorality involved, our sins of the spirit in the sight of God are just as despicable as the sins of the flesh,” Jean says. “It was not the pressure of the pastorate; it’s the pressure of any husband and wife. We neglected the biblical model, and somehow we thought it would work out.”
Instead, they grew further apart. Their private life was marked by anger and resentment. “Many is the time,” says Don Graham, “that I let the sun go down on my wrath.” Jean even stopped attending her husband’s church, worshiping elsewhere. To his confused congregation and to pastor friends, Don indicated Jean was having emotional problems. “By my silence and my words, I was willing to let the congregation think I was a poor, helpless victim living with a sick wife,” he says. “That was wrong. Jean wasn’t sick. I was the sick one.”
Jean found her only solace in her private prayer sessions where she released her own bitterness and anger. In her statement, she confessed to a self- centered and judgmental character: “I had a master’s degree in critical spirit, and I was not submissive,” she said. She was convinced nothing would work, and last year, she said she gave up: “I realized I couldn’t save the home and couldn’t save the church.”
As a last attempt to save the marriage, Don and Jean accepted the invitation of Life Action Ministries to attend a two-week crusade in Fort Worth, Texas, and undergo counseling by members of the ministry team.
“We were at the point of utter, final desperation,” Don says. “We were merely co-existing in the same household. January 29, 1995, was a dark day. When we got to Fort Worth, we didn’t want to be there. I was bitter, angry, depressed. We were drowning persons, clutching at straws.”
Finally, a counselor was brave enough to ask the tough questions, unimpressed with Graham’s reputation. He made Graham fill in a list of all the things he had done to wound his wife. “After 31 entries, I could hardly stand it any longer,” he says.
“I prayed for God to show me how he saw me and how others saw me. God obliged. He shamed me with the rot and the filth of my life. God drove me to brokenness and repentance. He broke my spirit and my will.”
Eventually, after extensive and exhaustive counseling and their own separate resistance, the Grahams reached a state of “brokenness,” they said. “We date February 3 as the day God began to turn our spirits toward each other,” Don says. “He began a work in my life, and the key word is ‘began.’ I asked for forgiveness, and the Lord began to restore our marriage. He revealed to me that I had no right to go to the pulpit of any church and preach when my family was in such a disarray.”
They began to confess “from the inside out,” to their children, their family first, and then to the congregation, in the middle of a two-week revival by that same Life Action Ministry. They emphasize they take full responsibility for their actions and that the road back is still beginning: “The mask is off,” Jean says. “I desperately need an ambulance load of grace.” Neither wants the confession to make “a hero or martyr out of sin.”
Yet they say they believe they have started the process of reconciliation in earnest: “We are more one in the Spirit now than at any time since we met in 1964,” Jean says. “There is a warm feeling of being forgiven and freed,” says Don, “freed to share with each other, to open up to her to tell her where I’m hurting.” They also intend to fulfill the definition of a clear conscience, when they are able to say: “There is no one alive that I have ever wronged, offended or hurt in any way that I have not gone back to and made it right with God and with them.”
“Jesus said, ‘Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted'” Don says. “Right now we are on the mourning side of that beatitude. I have asked God to not stay his hand on me until the mourning process is complete. One day real soon, I hope to be on the comforted side of that beatitude.”
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Copyright (c) 1995 Baptist Press
[Twenty years after this article was written, they were still married; see < http://www.dongraham.org/dongraham1.html >]