Gov. Bill Lee shares how his faith guided him after wife's death, how he first met Jelly Roll at Nat'l Prayer Breakfast
Quick Summary
- Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee discussed his wife's death at the 74th annual National Prayer Breakfast.
- Lee shared how his Christian faith helped him cope with grief after his wife, Carol Ann Lee, died in 2000.
- Lee recounted meeting Grammy-winning singer Jelly Roll, who was an inmate at the time of their first encounter.
At the 74th annual National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday morning, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee shared how his Christian faith helped him get through the suffering and grief that he and his children felt following the tragic death of his wife.
Lee gave the keynote address at the annual gathering in the nation's capital, where he recounted how he and his children struggled with deep sorrow after his first wife, Carol Ann Lee, died in July 2000.
He recounted thinking that he was “the most blessed man ever” shortly before his wife unexpectedly died in a horse riding accident, saying that his life “took a very dark turn” that day.
Lee talked about “the staggering grief” of his children, which included tough questions from a 4-year-old and his oldest daughter later attempting suicide with a gun, thankfully surviving.
“The days of my life had become chapters of grief, brokenness and sorrow,” he recalled.
Lee recounted ordering a marble grave marker for his wife in the family cemetery, and being left alone with the marker engraved with a Celtic cross and the Bible verse Proverbs 31.
“I knew that I would have a tombstone right there beside her. Might be 40 days, might be 40 years,” he said. “As I stood there contemplating that, I had this thought that went through my brain: ‘I wonder what she would say to me standing right here?’”
“The thought came to me that what she would say is what God would say and is saying: ‘There are very few things in life that matter and we should be about them.’”
Lee noted that, as he was walking out of the cemetery, “I didn’t know what the days held for me ahead, but I knew that I would ask God for the steps to move forward.”
“Sometimes following God doesn’t always mean that it’s going to work out the way that we want it to,” he continued. “After all, Jesus did say that ‘in this world, you will have many troubles,’ but He also said, ‘I will overcome the world.’”
“In my life, that truth then became real, and He became real to me, like He had never been. Oh, I had known Him, but now I began to know Him in a way that I had never known Him before. He became a healer and a redeemer, and a dispenser of hope.”
Lee told those gathered that “the most tragic days of my life were strangely becoming the most transformational days of my life,” noting that “what was happening to me, I would never trade.”
“For the first time, I really believed I understood the brevity of life,” he added, noting that he and his children began to do a series of missions and charity work that ultimately led him to pursue a life in public policy.
As time passed, Lee’s family was “restored,” his business “flourished,” and he remarried, noting that his life, “filled with pages of certainty and a belief in God’s goodness that was forged not only in prosperity, but through adversity.”
Lee also talked about granting pardons as governor to deserving individuals and meeting one such man on the day of his pardon.
That man later became the Grammy Award-winning singer Jelly Roll, who told Lee about how the two had met several years earlier, in 2008, when Lee spoke at a prison ministry event.
According to Lee, Jelly Roll, an inmate at the time, told him that he “cried all the way” through the governor’s testimony about his life and that he had “never forgotten it.”
“It struck me as a reminder that there are very few things in life that matter and we should be about them,” said Lee, getting a lengthy applause from prayer breakfast attendees.
“The pardons that I give as governor are earthly pardons. … We all need a pardon. And there is only one Who can grant that pardon, and He has to be asked. And His name is Jesus.”
Lee’s remarks were part of the annual prayer breakfast, an event that featured national and world leaders, as well as music from contemporary Christian singer Michael W. Smith.
In addition to Lee, other people giving remarks included President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
