Messages by Ruth Carter Stapleton

Messages spoken at various Camps Farthest Out by Ruth Carter Stapleton.

Ruth Carter Stapleton

About Ruth Carter Stapleton

Ruth Carter Stapleton was a woman whose deep faith and gentle spirit touched countless lives…

Ruth Carter Stapleton was a woman whose deep faith and gentle spirit touched countless lives through her healing ministry. Born in 1929 in Plains, Georgia, she grew up in a close-knit family and was the younger sister of President Jimmy Carter. But long before the world knew her as the president’s sister, Ruth was known for something else—her remarkable gift for spiritual healing and inner renewal.

In her thirties, Ruth experienced a profound personal encounter with God that changed the course of her life. From that point on, she dedicated herself to sharing the message of emotional and spiritual healing through Christ. Her ministry focused on helping people find forgiveness, release from past pain, and a new sense of wholeness through prayer and faith.

She began holding “healing of memories” conferences and retreats across the country, where she gently guided people through the process of inviting God into their deepest hurts. Ruth had a calm, compassionate way about her—she believed healing wasn’t just physical, but emotional and spiritual too.

Ruth also wrote several books, including The Gift of Inner Healing and The Experience of Inner Healing, which helped make her message accessible to thousands more. Her ministry crossed denominational lines and reached people from all walks of life who were searching for peace and restoration.

Even though her life was cut short when she passed away in 1983, Ruth Carter Stapleton’s message of hope and healing continues to inspire. She left behind a legacy of grace—a reminder that true healing begins within, through the love and presence of God.

Messages Given By Ruth Carter Stapleton

Like a Game of Fruit Basket Turnover

Ruth Carter Stapleton describes a moment when her home Bible class at Fort Bragg broke into spontaneous prayer for one another, an experience she likens to a game of “fruit basket turnover.” She also recounts a fulfilled prophecy, and a prayer partner who quietly interceded in tongues for the movement while teaching piano lessons back home.

Better At Your Worst Than Your Best

Ruth Carter Stapleton tells listeners at the camps that Christian growth is a process of being transformed into the image of Christ. She recounts how her sister was dialing for a prayer meeting when a quiet voice asked, “do you love me,” and was told to go iron her husband’s shirts first. She then leads a guided prayer of forgiveness reaching back to birth and early childhood.

The Pencil Sharpener Three Little Boys Returned

Ruth Carter Stapleton teaches on prayer that lets go instead of demanding. She tells the Kentucky CFO in 1968 how a friend’s stolen pencil sharpener was returned by three neighborhood boys once she prayed Luke’s words and stopped trying to get it back. She adds her own story of preaching through an abscessed tooth that healed overnight once the ordeal was over.

The X-Ray That Showed Nothing There

At the Kentucky CFO in 1968, Ruth Carter Stapleton opens with a camper’s report that her doctor found nothing left to operate on after prayer. She then traces how surrendering her own marriage to Christ transformed her husband. He came home from his conversion saying “Ruth, I know Jesus,” and then “Ruth, I know you.”

The Luncheon She Was Too Scared To Give

Ruth Carter Stapleton recalls being pushed to speak to a hostile ladies club luncheon of neighbors who knew every one of her faults, though she had been in tears the night before. She uses the story to teach that becoming a full son of God means daily choosing to decrease so Christ can increase. She brought that lesson to the 1968 Kentucky CFO.

I Gave Up My Name For Ten Weeks

Ruth Carter Stapleton preaches on Paul’s image of a treasure carried in a common clay pot. She then tells how ten weeks spent campaigning for her brother taught her that she had lost her own name and identity in his. At the 1976 Kentucky CFO she asks listeners whether they too have lost themselves in Jesus.

Praise God, I Have Been Born Again

Ruth Carter Stapleton recalls interviewing a skeptical Newsweek reporter who interrupted his own questions to declare that he had been born again. She argues that faith, not feeling, must carry a Christian through the flat seasons of the walk with Jesus. She points to a small kindness from the camps: a fellow camper was embarrassed over the same mix-up at the milk carton, so she quietly brought her the sweet milk she had wanted instead of buttermilk.

The Ring That Already Had His Initials

Preaching within the movement, Ruth Carter Stapleton takes up love from the third chapter of John’s first epistle. She illustrates trust in God’s provision with the Christmas she needed a signet ring for her son. She found one in a pawn shop, already engraved with his own initials.

Nearly the Most Normal Child He Ever Saw

A doctor once said Ruth Carter Stapleton’s young daughter needed intensive psychiatric care, then later pronounced the child nearly the most normal he had ever examined. Stapleton credits the change to prayer, and she traces her own slow surrender to Jesus through her husband’s dramatic conversion. She urges campers to accept God’s healing the way a child does, without needing to understand it, just as she says she learned to at the camps.

Go Wash Those Dishes

Ruth Carter Stapleton outlines five stages of spiritual growth she has traced among believers at the camps. They run from a first awareness of Jesus to daily obedience in the smallest tasks. She closes with her sister’s account of praying in the garden, where Jesus answered her declarations of love with, “well then go in there and wash those dishes.”