Mark Elliot Graham
A Beloved Son
January 3, 1981 - December 23, 2023
Mark, our second child, was born in Bellefontaine, Ohio during my pastoral service to the Belle Center, RPCNA congregation. He spent his first four years often playing quietly in my study in the sunshine of the morning hours. A vivid memory haunts me of our family physician showing us Mark’s umbilical cord tied into a knot by his restlessness in the womb. I’ve often revisited that memory, thinking that this was almost prophetic of his nearly 43 years of life. As an infant when he struggled to calm his soul our kitten would hop into the crib, snuggling with the baby and wonderfully settle him down in quiet rest.
During our move in December of 1984 to what would be a 13-year pastoral ministry in Minneola, Kansas, at his persistent request, Mark and I sang Christmas carols over and over in the U-Haul truck! These early years were spent under Mom’s homeschooling instruction. His artistic interests were awakened as he made poster-boards for our family’s Psalm-singing memory efforts. As a boy Mark loved to sing Psalms in Church worship. He could sing heartily, loudly and joyfully!
He also did well in 4-H, little league baseball, and especially enjoyed model rocketry with Dad who was project leader for several boys. Please browse our memory-table display in the Quonset area and sign and comment, if you wish, in our memory book. Mark was a gifted son and, even as a young boy, was possessed of an entrepreneurial spirit. His first, major business venture was mowing yards in Minneola. Elder Reed Hindmansold him a used riding mower and kindly trained him in mower maintenance. Mark paid him with borrowed money from Grandpa Edwards, which he repaid dutifully. He later had a web design business called Frontier Webs. Beginning in November, 2002, he cranked out website templates for Pixel Mill, a web template company, receiving regular royalty payments for almost four years. Check out the invoice he prepared for Rev. Dennis Prutow’s The Sterling Pulpit &Westminster Evangelistic Ministries. This week I found invoices and other mementos of such business efforts, which usually suffered from failure to follow through for the long haul. He was an extraordinarily apt sketch artist. I’ve placed some of them on the memory table. At age 14 he won correspondence art lessons by entering a drawing contest, but never finished the course due to his aversion to structured instruction. And he was a gifted pianist, which he sadly abandoned after his first and only recital.
Mark enjoyed hunting and exploring with his best friend, Samuel McKissick, a fellow church member, who lived on a farm south of Minneola. Sam’s father, Dr. McKissick, kindly and generously provided a 4-H calf for Mark, which was a highlight of those halcyon days. They could spend hours in their rural wonderland, even camping out overnight in the pasture on the lookout for coyotes. Mark excitedly reported that one night a coyote charged them and jumped right over them in their defensive dugout. On another, more infamous, occasion those two friends found and feasted on wild onions! This, of course, was to their sisters’ chagrin! These girls were distressed by the happy boys’ pungent odors for the remainder of the day, especially in the closed quarters of our automobile.
Mark was an intelligent, gifted, sensitive soul with a life-long affliction of social anxieties and increasing, tormenting, physical and mental health problems. Mark was a kinesthetic learner. The traditional academic path was not for him. He was self-taught and even learned computer programing languages. Alas, he was never able to launch a successful business career. He dropped out of High School after one semester due to being sentenced to the Juvenile Detention Center in Garden City, Kansas. During this month-long incarceration he not only honed his criminal skill-set by acquaintance with fellow inmates, he earned his GED. During his adult years he was increasingly plagued by “voices” in his head which seemed never to give him respite for long.
It behoves me to emphasize that he was just ONE of our five, gratefully-cherished , covenant children. Five, distinguished pastors who invested in our lives in various ways baptized each of them. Rev. Stan Copeland baptized Mark as an infant in Ohio, but he never made a profession of faith in the RP Church. Later, during a six-month, court-ordered stay in San Diego, California in “New-Hope House,” Mark became actively involved in a Baptist Church, made a public profession of his faith in Christ and was baptized as a believer. Mind you, it is not sacramental or ritual baptism, but Christ alone by Spiritual Baptism who sovereignly saves as He wills. Living union with Christ is our only hope of peace with God andeverlasting life.
After he returned home to be with us again, he discovered that we had accepted a pastoral call to Clay Center, Kansas where we labored for 18 years. The initial years there were filled with great expectations. Sadly, however, it wasn’t long before Mark was back into trouble. In the summer and fall of 2016 we initiated and completed our move to Colorado Springs. Gay and I have been blessed by our fellow Church members and many other friends who have supported us, wept with us, and prayed with and for us faithfully. Our District 20 Transportation family has richly blessed us with a fulfilling work environment and, of course, much laughter and joy as well! “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine!” WE THANK YOU ALL for your love and friendship in Christ. We praise God! “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17, KJV)
Mark was preceded in death by grandparents who loved him unconditionally as they did all their grandchildren. His Uncle Joey also recently passed away. My brother, Joey, knew well the anguish of mental illness in his own life.
I often reminded myself and others when Mark was center stage, unfairly stealing the spotlight, “We have FOUR other, precious and beloved children in whom we delight with pleasure beyond words; WORDS, which can never adequately express our immense pride and joy in THEM!“ At this moment we continue to thank our blessed, triune God for His “good and perfect” living gifts of four beloved sons and four beloved daughters: Jes & Laurisa, Jeremiah &Emily, Daniel & Anna and Samuel & Madi. I pray daily for each of you by name and for our ten, delightful grandchildren: Justis, Lily, Knox & Kellen; Adelyn, Charlotte, sweet Lucia & Ezekiel; Benjamin & Ceilidh. As our tribe increases and as long as I am of sound mind, I pledge to pray for you, to love you and everyone who walks along side us during this pilgrim journey heavenward; sharing the mundane and the breathtaking, mountain top experiences as well as the deep darkness of the valleys of death. For each one of you and for all the saints and for every dear friend, near and far, in the Apostle Paul’s words, “I want you to know how great a contest [in prayer] I have for you.” (Colossians 2:1, ESV). MORE IMPORTANTLY, PLEASE KNOW that “...we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:15 & 16, KJV)
GAY AND I THANK YOU FROM THE DEPTHS OF OUR HEARTS FOR BEING HERE WITH US TODAY, WHETHER IN BODY OR IN SPIRIT! Earlier this week our daughter, Emily, shared these words of encouragement from Samuel Rutherford, a seventeenth-century Scottish pastor and theologian:
What God layeth on, let us suffer, for some have one cross, some seven, some ten, some half across - yet all the saints have whole and full joy, and seven crosses have seven joys. Glorify the Lord in your sufferings, and take his banner of love, and spread it over you. Others will follow you, if they see you strong in the Lord; their courage shall take life from your Christian carriage. The weightiest end of the cross of Christ that is laid upon you, lieth upon your strong Savior.
MAY GOD BLESS YOU ALL