BILLY … YOU INSPIRED ME
I have been a Christian for quite a long time. I’m twenty-one years old and have been listening and watching the Billy Graham Classic crusades on television. As I was watching a crusade several years ago, I became convicted about my lack of effort in reaching the lost for Jesus Christ. I became convicted about the fact that I had so many simple opportunities to share, and yet I would not. Yet, here on the television was a man named Billy Graham, whom I believed if given the chance to deliver the message of Christ to the millions watching on TV would do anything. I have seen that Billy was willing to do anything to make Christ known to as many of the millions watching as possible, even if it inconvenienced him at the time.
I want to commend Billy for his service, and also to tell you that Billy has inspired me to reach the lost for Jesus Christ, just as Billy Sunday inspired a young Billy Graham. I now share my faith whenever and wherever I am able. I don’t know if I will follow in the footsteps of Billy Graham, but I know one thing, I want my entire life from beginning to end to be devoted to nothing less than Jesus Christ. Thank you, Billy, you have inspired me by your messages, put a smile on my face, and encouraged and exalted me to do God’s will whenever and wherever.
I STILL WATCH THE CLASSICS
Now a grown man of forty-four, I have been involved with Billy Graham since I was a kid. My parents had us watch his crusades on TV, and we read his books, too. I still watch the Classics, and so does my mom. It is good to see the old ones, since I understand things better now. I am glad and am reminded of my walk with the Lord, and the sermons and songs have helped me every week. Thanks for your kind words of encouragement and for your love! May the good Lord continue to bless you in your work
THE LASTING DIFFERENCE
I want to say thank you for your ministry to my life. About a year ago, I first started watching the Billy Graham Classics on TBN. I watched the first one, then the second one, then the third one, and started crying. I prayed and asked God to forgive me for forgetting about the tremendous impact that you, Dr. Graham, have had on my life. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve had a love for God that burned in my heart from the preaching I heard from you and from the letters I received and the encouragement you sent to me to go to church. I know that God’s message reached me early in life, and I am so very thankful to you, Dr. Graham, for your obedience to preach the Gospel.
Whenever the Billy Graham Classics come on TV, I always call my mother to see if she is watching. The programs continue to inspire me—much to my amazement. When I watch them, God speaks to me so much, and I remember so many of them as if it were yesterday. Your message on wholeheartedly following God forever changed my life, and that message has a continuing effect on my life today—in my thinking, emotions, and heart, and in what I say and do. I’m so challenged by it, and as I stay in prayer, God so directs my life in the most amazing ways.
Thank You, Billy Graham … for Helping Me Deal with Death
ETERNALLY THANKFUL
I was saved by grace and childlike faith at a church camp when I was ten years old. I never really understood the meaning of being saved, or why Christ took my sins to the cross and died the physical death that was truly what I deserved, but I believed. I longed to understand what the pastors were preaching.
Years later, after I was married and became a young mom of three girls, I joined an in-depth Bible study. I would watch your crusades and cry when people went down to confess Christ. I knew by experience that their lives would not be an easy journey but that God would always make a way, even when there seemed to be no way. Dr. Graham, thank you for being the voice and the living role model for my husband and me. We’ve been through many difficult, impossible situations, but you never changed. For my husband and me, seeing a Christian who walked the talk made a huge difference in our journey of choices. Your excitement and never-ending energy gave us so much strength.
When your book Just As I Am came out, I gave it to my husband “just because,” and I wrote inside the cover: “Dear Dave, I thank God everyday for you! I hope you enjoy Dr. Graham’s life story. The Lord has used him in a mighty way, as I know He is using you. Psalm 91.”
One night in 2003, Dave came into the kitchen for a dish of chocolate ice cream and saw the Billy Graham crusade I was watching on TV. Your longtime friend George Beverly Shea was singing and Dave could not believe his amazing voice, still so good at his age. Dave loved music and especially Mr. Shea. Then he said jokingly, “He will probably outlive me!”
Dave went to the den, eating his chocolate ice cream and thinking about Billy Graham and George Beverly Shea—and then he suddenly went to heaven. I have found comfort in knowing what his last thoughts were before seeing Jesus and that I will see my Dave again someday.
MY GRANDMOTHER IS IN HEAVEN BECAUSE OF BILLY
You know the Lord puts a desire in your heart and then brings it forward to glorify God. A month ago, my grandmother was blessed at ninety-two years of age to go home. I was sitting watching the sunset on the beach, thinking of her, her life, and the things you do when you get word that someone has passed on, and I rejoiced in my heart for Billy Graham. You see, my grandmother had been exposed to different faiths and was still seeking truth when she began watching a Billy Graham crusade. It took three years of watching every crusade that was televised before she would yield and ask Jesus to be her Savior. Several years ago, I was able to spend some uninterrupted time with her. It was during this time that I wanted to know if she knew what awaited her when she died. She shared her story with me and I rejoiced with her.
I am so blessed to know that I will see her again, which has made such a difference in how I deal with her passing. Thank you, Billy Graham, for being obedient to your call, for being willing to follow God’s direction for your life, preaching the truth and sharing Jesus…. Great is your reward in heaven, and I know you will hear from our Father, “Well done, my faithful servant!”
WALKING WITH MY GRANDFATHER THROUGH THE SHADOW OF DEATH
In June 2006, my grandmother went to be with the Lord after being diagnosed with melanoma with bone mets. She said, “What is so bad about being eighty-three and going to heaven to be with Jesus?” She was an amazing witness. When she died, and even now, my grandfather struggled a lot. They were married for sixty-four years. They were childhood sweethearts, who grew up on the same street and never dated anyone else. A wonderful grace for my grandpa was your book The Journey: Living by Faith in an Uncertain World. I am thankful for the comfort he received through reading the book. The chapters about Ruth’s illness were particularly meaningful to him. Thank you for putting your experiences on paper and sharing the love and peace of God with him through this terrible time. I love him, and he has been a model of Christ’s love for me. It is nice that he has someone to look to, even through the pages of a book. May God bless you and comfort you as well.
Melissa
HIS PRESENCE
My dear husband and I, a young mother at the age of twenty, lost our firstborn after only eight days. We were completely bewildered as to why we had to suffer this loss. I could not find peace in anybody’s words. I was so lost and spent a lot of time alone. One day, it was raining, and I felt my baby was in the rain. I fell to the floor and asked God to please help me. I felt God’s presence right there in my heart. Then I began watching a Billy Graham crusade on television. I feel his teachings led me in my Christian walk.
I have had a life with many blessings, and a share of losing loved ones. However, I now know life is a journey we all walk, and being a Christian is the answer to how we witness for God. Thank you, Billy, for all of the messages I’ve heard over the past fifty years. I still watch the older reruns and live that era again and see that the world is closer to the coming of our Savior. Thank you for the witness of your family, and for your son Franklin for carrying on the message of God’s love.
MY SONYA
It was September 21, 1980, a day much like today here in North Caro
lina, when I heard a loud knock on my back door. My neighbor was pale and frantic as she told me about an automobile accident down the street from my house. My only daughter, Sonya, sixteen years old, was killed in that accident. That was the worst day of my life.
Through the years, I had listened to you on television, had read your writings, and felt a deep respect for you, but I never knew you like I would get to know you over the next years ahead. You taught me that it was okay to be honest with God, that He already knows my thoughts and feelings. It was because of your teachings that Jesus Christ became my personal friend.
I had been a Christian since 1958, but I did not really know Him until I began that journey. I remember thinking, Where was God when my daughter died?, and I heard the answer—the same place He was when His Son died. My faith was tested over and over as I hungered for your sermons on television and your writings, including Decision magazine. I dwelled on your message of salvation and forgiveness. I had to forgive the person who had caused my daughter’s death, and it was not easy. During this time, I received her death settlement, and I wanted to tithe the money. I asked God to give me the wisdom to know where I should give it. He spoke to my heart, and I have never regretted tithing it to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. God has richly blessed me just by knowing that my gift was used to promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ around the world.
Without you and Jesus Christ in my life, I never would have survived. Everyone knows how much I admire you. For the past five years, I have had a large picture of you on my refrigerator. The Christmas cards of you, Ruth, and your family decorate my refrigerator. You are like family, because you have inspired me to survive a lot of lonely, low times in my life. You are a reflection of the love of Jesus Christ. Seeing your picture on my refrigerator every day has given me strength when I was at my weakest point. I thank God for you.
GOD IS GOOD, SO GOOD
My name is Angela, and I am thirty-two years old. I went to the Billy Graham crusade at the Carrier Dome at Syracuse when I was twelve years old. God used Billy Graham to save me, and after that day I was never the same. I had blocked off my past because it was full of abuse by my parents. But God used Billy to touch me and help me remember the things I had survived by the grace of God. My mother died, and I had been praying and standing in faith that she would be healed from cancer and live longer, but God had other plans that He carries out for a reason. When my mother died, I got angry at God for a while. However, I ended up reading an article that Billy wrote in the newspaper, and God helped me understand her death. After that, I started attending church again, and I was at peace with my mom’s death. Billy is a man filled with the Spirit of God, who has touched and changed my life. Thank you, Billy Graham!
MY HUSBAND IS IN HEAVEN BECAUSE OF BILLY GRAHAM’S TV CRUSADE
My first husband and I were married for twenty-five years and four months before he passed away from cancer. When we first got married in 1965, I was a Christian, but my husband was not. In 1968, when our second child was six weeks old, we watched Billy Graham on TV, and he was on several nights in a row. At the end, my husband knelt down in our living room and gave his heart to the Lord. He was later baptized. He went on to serve the Lord all his days on earth. He was a leader in our church and had Bible studies in our home.
A few days before he went to be with Jesus, he saw Jesus. He asked me if I had seen Him, too, and I said no. My husband told me to look hard, but I still didn’t see anything. It was about midnight, and a friend who was staying with me came into the room and wanted to know what was the matter. I told her, and then she said, “I came into the room because I thought you turned the light on.” I looked around and the room was bright and my husband’s face was glowing. He saw Jesus, but we saw the Light. He died a few days later, but we will never forget the presence of the Lord.
My husband kept saying he needed to fight and win over cancer to take care of me. A couple of days before he died, he told our son that he wanted to know when his chemo was. My son said, “Where are you going, Dad?” When my husband replied that he was going to be with the Lord, my son asked, “How do you feel about that, Dad?” He told him that he was happy and wanted to go.
Sometime after he saw the Lord, he found peace about me, and that I would be all right. As a widow in my forties, I saw God do many miracles for me. I felt my husband prayed for me, even on his deathbed. Then God brought me a Boaz, and I remarried. God has given me another incredible marriage. I have now been married twenty-one years to my Boaz.
I will always be grateful for God’s gift of Billy Graham in our lives. My first husband is in heaven because Billy preached the Gospel through the TV in our living room, and my husband was saved for all eternity! Thank you, Rev. Graham!
MY SISTER-IN-LAW JUDY
Dear Billy, what a great treat and honor to be able to tell you my story. However, my story is not really mine, but it belongs to my husband’s family. You see, my mother- and father-in-law were Christians a few years before any of their children were, and they were and still are prayer warriors. My husband and I came to the Lord in January 1981. My husband’s three sisters knew we had changed, but they did not desire to follow in our footsteps—that is, until 1983. You see, my sister-in-law Judy was watching one of your crusades on TV in December 1983. We had a five-month-old son at the time, and Judy and her husband had a one-year-old. My husband, David, and I were watching your crusade also, and stringing popcorn for the Christmas tree. Well, the phone rang and it was Judy. She was crying and pouring her heart out to David. She had just accepted the Lord while watching you on TV. From that day forward, our lives were never the same.
Judy lived about ten miles down the road from us, and when she passed our trailer she would either toot her horn or stop in to see us. We saw her more in that one month than we had for a long time. Well, Judy had a birthday on January 3, and three days after her birthday, on January 6, she was brutally murdered in her home. It was a tragic event, and our lives have been shaped by that awful night. But there is good news. We have the comfort of knowing that Judy is with the Lord, in part from your ministry.
Through Judy’s tragic death, David’s two other sisters came to know the Lord. Two other brothers-in-law did also, but have backslidden since. Many people heard the Gospel through this event. The murderer wasn’t caught until October 2006. The man is in jail, and at the time of this writing, we are still waiting for a trial. The trial is expected to start after the first of the year. It will be a tough time, because most of the family are witnesses of that day in 1983, but it will be good to put this to rest. Thank you for your years of faithfulness and answering the call that God has put on your life. Our lives have been changed for eternity, as I’m sure many others have also. Blessings to you and your family.
Jackie
MY SON IS WAITING FOR ME IN HEAVEN
My son, Clayton, was fourteen years old when he was watching a Billy Graham crusade in his bedroom. He later came out and told me and his dad that he had just accepted Christ as his personal Lord and Savior. I cried and told him (as I had many times before) that accepting Jesus was the most important decision he would ever make in his lifetime. Little did I know that only three years later he would be home with the Lord. You see, on January 1, 1997, Clayton died protecting me from his father. (They both died on my bedroom floor—an unbelievable story.) Today, I am still as crushed and as brokenhearted as I was on that day, for losing a child is the worst possible thing that could ever happen to a mother. The only thing that gets me through each day is that I rest on God’s promise that one day Clayton and I will be reunited, never to be separated again. Praise the Lord! Thank you, Jesus, for shedding your precious blood at Calvary, so that Christians don’t have to say “good-bye,” but, “See you later.” Thank you, Billy Graham. Because of your message that night, Clayton is waiting for me in heaven.
FEAR OF DEATH GONE
For almost thirty-two years of my life, I was afraid of death and dying. I had been
sent to Sunday school by a moral and religious mother, so I knew the popular stories from the Bible. From my earliest years, I believed there was a God and that Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, had died on the cross for the sins of the whole world. Yet, when I prayed, I had no sense that God was really hearing me. And when I read the Bible, I understood the words on the page but none of the spiritual truths in it. So, through my growing-up years, and twelve years into my marriage, I was continually seeking peace of mind and heart.
By 1970, I had a wonderful husband and was the mother of four beautiful children. We lived in the suburbs of Washington, DC, and had a “good life” filled with things that are supposed to make one happy. Yet I was empty and continually searching for satisfaction in life and assurance that I would end up in heaven when I died.
And then Dr. Billy Graham came on the scene for me! As I had done often, I watched one of his telecasts in August 1970. In it, he asked the question, “If you should die tonight, do you know for sure that you would go to heaven?” He went on to say that he had absolute assurance of heaven and that anyone can. How? For the next two months, I searched diligently for the answer. Finally, on October 20, 1970, after I had listened to a Gospel program on the radio, the truth suddenly dawned on me. I was a sinner. This was something I had never seen before. And when Jesus shed His innocent blood on the cross, it was not just for “the world,” it was for me! The radio preacher shared that “as many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become the sons (and daughters) of God.” So, in childlike faith, I got down on my knees, confessed my sin, and invited the Lord Jesus Christ into my life. That was the beginning of a new life for me!
Thank You, Billy Graham Page 12