THANKS, BROTHER GRAHAM
I never got to go see him in person. I used to watch him on TV as a child and then as an adult. If he was on, I was watching. Brother Graham, you have helped me many times with the Word of God. When you spoke, a child could understand. Thank you for all the times that you were away from your family. God has blessed you and your family.
Pauline
INTEGRITY
Having been raised in the turbulent sixties, I saw firsthand many, many young people who rejected God and destroyed their lives. I also unfortunately saw many ministries fail and be reduced to shame. In the midst of it all, I would always watch Billy Graham every chance I got. His simple Gospel message and humility truly spoke to me. His message was always simple—“Jesus saves”—and yet at the same time profound. Seeing his invitation calls would many times reduce me to tears as the hundreds would come forward to receive Christ as their Savior. It was clear the precious Holy Spirit was working in a mighty way through Billy Graham and his entire godly team. I personally thank God for sending this world a Billy Graham. Thank you, Billy Graham.
THE HUNGER STILL BURNS IN MY HEART
In December 1968, while watching Dr. Graham on television, the simple Gospel message burned in my heart. I knelt down in our recreation room and recited the sinner’s prayer. The presence of God flooded the room, and for the first time in my life, I felt the forgiveness of God. To this day, the hunger to know Him in greater measure still burns in my heart. The years have been exciting ones, seeing and experiencing the Word of Life, being baptized in the Holy Spirit, and interceding for those God shows me in dreams and visions. To this day, I still hand out Dr. Graham’s booklet Steps to Peace with God, thus sharing the Gospel wherever I am sent. I owe Dr. Graham a million thanks for introducing me to such an awesome God as found in Christ Jesus. I praise God for the evangelistic outreach his organization has had worldwide. May God’s richest blessings continue to be given to the Graham family as they follow Him, just as Dr. Graham has all these years.
THE CLEAR, SIMPLE GOSPEL
As a little girl, I would listen to every crusade, and after each message I would ask Jesus to save me. I went to church every Sunday but never heard the clear Gospel like you preached. I would beg God to “know” Him. At thirteen, I finally accepted Jesus as my Savior publicly; however, I had already accepted Him personally at a Billy Graham crusade.
As a little girl, I tried to preach a message like you did, and after a few years I realized that the clear, simple Gospel is the best message to speak. Thank you for staying so clear all these years. I always say that when I get to heaven I want to look back at all of the spiritual children and grandchildren I was able to lead to the Lord. But Dr. Graham, it will be accounted to you, because you cared enough to preach the simple Gospel to a little girl hungry for the Lord. Thank you … to my spiritual dad.
Thank You, Billy Graham … for Planting Seeds of Faith
BILLY PLANTED A SEED
One day, as I was painting my front porch, an older man drove up. (I live about a mile from the highway.) He said he wasn’t sure why he was there. I replied, “Maybe God led you here.” After his response, I asked if I could get my Bible to share a few things with him. He invited me to sit in his truck. As I shared the Gospel, he began to cry. You see, his wife had passed away some time before, and she had always wanted him to go to church. The previous night, as he had scanned the TV, he ran across your show, and it planted the seed needed to bring him to my house. He invited Christ in that day, and that was many years ago. Thank you, Billy.
MEMORIES
My mom passed away this past week. We had a memorial service just yesterday. She had been ill for a while, but she was always optimistic and concerned about her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren’s futures. Her life was difficult as a child, and her first marriage to my father was tough due to the drinking of both her parents and my father. Yet she never spoke ill of others and gave everyone the benefit of the doubt.
She always had a simple faith in God and his plan for our lives. She would never miss a Billy Graham crusade when I was a child. I was always drawn to them, and in time the seeds that were planted in those days took root and I gave my life to Christ. If it had not been for the TV crusades, I would not be able to say good-bye to my mom, who has been my rock for so many years. She brought hope when so much pain was in my life.
Because of her faith in God, and the seeds Mr. Graham continues to plant in our lives, I have learned that God is there for all people, no matter what their status in life. I thank you for the opportunity to share in this time of sadness and joy. And my best wishes for the Graham family as their father may also soon be called home.
I FINALLY OPENED THE DOOR OF MY HEART
I was probably ten when I attended an outdoor revival featuring Billy Graham. I remember it like it was yesterday. I wanted to go down at the end and accept Christ, but the church group I was with wanted to leave and beat the traffic. Many years of pain later, I finally opened the door of my heart to Jesus again. I believe that the Lord has always been watching over me and waiting for me to return. I believe that the Lord will use the pain from my past to help others. I believe that Billy Graham planted a seed in my life that could never be washed away. Thank you for giving yourself to draw others near to our Lord, Billy.
THE LONG JOURNEY BACK
I was raised in the Methodist church from when I was a preschooler, but I never really had any idea of what it truly meant to give my life to Christ. When I was twelve years old, my mother took me to a Billy Graham crusade. It was the first time I felt the tug of God on my heart.
From that point on, it seemed that my family and I were under severe spiritual attack from “the adversary of our souls.” When I turned thirteen, Dad became distant and rejected all my affections. Mother became so ill that it affected her personality. She was constantly losing her temper, yelling and screaming at Dad and me. She would throw dishes at my dad or just pull them out of the cupboard and smash them. She’d whip and beat me with whatever was within reach. Mother’s condition was incorrectly diagnosed as mental illness. It adversely affected our family.
One month after my fourteenth birthday, my dad died while having an asthma attack. A year later, my mom had a hysterectomy, at which time the true cause of her illness was found—endometriosis (a massively infected cyst attached to her uterus). It took her two years to regain her health, and her emotional recovery was never complete. The damage done from the illness and the electroshock treatments they had given her based on the misdiagnoses had taken their toll.
By age sixteen, I could no longer tolerate conditions at home. I felt betrayed and abandoned by the God I had grown up with. From age thirteen, I had been told by my mom that I was enough to make a preacher cuss and that I was destined for a life of imprisonment. I had calluses on the backs of my legs and buttocks from all the beatings with belts, hangers, and tree switches. Nothing I did was ever good enough. I was under constant physical and emotional abuse.
Feeling unloved and unwanted, I attempted suicide. When that failed, I ran away from home and went looking for the “free love” I had seen on TV and heard people sing about in the music of the time. But instead of “peace and love,” I discovered “sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll.” By the time I turned eighteen, I was well down the road of alcoholism, recreational drug abuse, and relationship addiction. On June 30, 1971, at the young and immature age of eighteen, I married. It was the year I should’ve graduated from high school. Instead, I was pumping gas in a small town in the Rocky Mountains.
Within the first year of marriage, I fathered my only “legitimate” child. But the marriage broke up shortly after the birth of my son, due to my infidelity, alcoholism, and drug abuse. I ended up living on and off the streets (Denver’s notorious East Colfax Avenue) for a number of years. I played at jobs and women, but booze and drugs were my true love. Occasionally, I would sober up for a month or two because some “Christian�
� girl I lusted after was trying to convert me. But after a brief respite, I’d always go back to my old friends, “Bud Weiser” and “Mary Jane” (booze and marijuana).
When I exhausted all known means of support, I entered a two-week “alcohol awareness” program. It was near the end of that program that I met my current wife, Susan, at a nightclub. That was the only time I was sober and she was drunk. For the next twenty years, she was “a good little codependent” and tolerated my alcoholic lifestyle. If you have any questions about what hell is like, just ask her. Lord knows I put her through all kinds of it. But then, she stuck around for it, so in her own way, she was just as sick as I was.
On July 10, 1999, I began my journey down the road to recovery. I called a man I had met in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and asked him if he would be my “sponsor.” When I asked him what the next step was, he told me, “Ninety meetings in ninety days and start going to church.”
On August 12 of that same year, I quit smoking cigarettes. On December 29, I quit smoking marijuana, as well. So, for all intents and purposes, I celebrate being clean and sober each New Year’s Day—starting from January 1, 2000. Since that time, my wife and I have been actively pursuing a greater understanding of God’s grace and His plan of salvation through Jesus Christ. I have come a long way, but I still have a long way to go. It’s been said that “God works in mysterious ways.” I hold that it’s only a mystery if you don’t know God! For, without God, one can never know true peace and joy. Therefore, I strongly encourage you to set aside any prejudices you may currently have about God and take the time to read God’s Word—starting with the Gospel of John in the New Testament. Prayerfully ask Him to open the eyes of your heart to His love and kindness. The only thing you’ll regret is that you waited so long. Thank you, Billy, for planting a seed in a young boy’s heart.
Karl
A SEED OF FAITH
When I was eight years old, Pastor Graham planted the first real seed of faith in me. I accepted Christ from a TV crusade in the 1960s. I can remember that day well, because my mother and father had a verbal fight about his desire to change the channel on the TV. Yet my mother saw that I was completely glued to the TV. I know this was the day Jesus came into my heart. No church. We never went to church. It was twelve years later, after many unwise decisions, that I realized that God had a hand in everything I was doing.
Over the years, I have never forgotten the faithfulness of Brother Billy Graham. I love him deeply, and I know that God is allowing him to stay long enough to see a special miracle, one that will change the events of the world. Although just a man, Brother Graham is a friend of God’s. Thank you, my dear brother, for your faithfulness and your unyielding compassion. Thank you for your years of prayers and commitment to the Body of Christ. I will cry and miss you when you leave this earth. But I will remember all of your words of God’s faithfulness to his Body and wait for our Lord’s return.
Just one sister in Christ who truly is grateful for your faithfulness
JESUS IS THE ONLY ANSWER
I first was saved as a young teen. I had been raised in a home where my mom was abused, and sometimes us kids as well. (My dad is a very changed man today.) I went to a crusade when I was thirteen or fourteen that was so awesome. I stayed with the life for a time but later got wrapped up in drugs, etc. Well, no seed sown can stay dead. Finally, in my early twenties, the seed sprouted. I am now forty-nine and married to my true love, a wonderful Christian man, for twenty-nine years. I am so thankful to Jesus for allowing wonderful men like Billy Graham to be born. He is one of a kind; none other like him. And one more thing I need to mention: my husband and I have five children, and they are all following Jesus. So that one seed planted grew into twelve more seeds out there planting more seeds (including our grandchildren). Thank you, Billy, for being such a wonderful servant.
SEEDS SOWN
I was a boy of fourteen or so when the Billy Graham crusade came to Columbus, Ohio. I went with the local church youth group because there were girls there. I heard Rev. Graham’s words, and I felt the tug on my heart. I went forward, but I must admit it was because everyone else in the group had already gone onto the ballfield.
Eight years later, and many miles down the road—after moving to California in the 1960s and serving in the army during the Vietnam era—I made a heart and mind connection to give myself to Christ because He was who the Bible said He was.
As a pastor now for more than thirty-three years, I trace my spiritual fruit to the seeds sown by Billy Graham. They may have taken awhile to grow, but they were planted simply by this great servant.
Doug
MY WANDERING LIFESTYLE
I was a sixteen-year-old, pregnant, drug-abusing teenager when I walked into the Billy Graham tent on the beach in Southern California. I listened to Billy Graham and heard something that was a far cry from what I had learned in my Lutheran upbringing and in a home of child abuse and neglect. I went forward at the altar call and gave my life to Christ. A former prostitute with mascara running down her tear-streaked cheeks counseled me at that time. I left wondering what had just happened to me.
In two weeks, without any follow-up, I quietly turned off that new, vibrant part of me. But there was a new determination in me to “make it.” The seeds of the Billy Graham crusade had been planted deep within me. I went on to have my baby, relinquished him for adoption, and began to live and work on my own, completing high school at night while living in a roach-infested, tiny apartment.
Soon my wandering lifestyle found me on a commune farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Once again, God tugged on my heart as I grew weary with cohabitants who just wanted to take LSD and walk all over the mountain proclaiming that they were God. God blessed me with a job and a new place to live, but the devil had his plans, too. The humidity of Virginia caused me to become extremely ill, so I once again headed to California. This time, I took God with me. I found a similar church and began attending. The pastor was a shouting, judging, unkind man, rude to his wife and children in public, and demeaning to the hippies I convinced to come to church with me. I fled once again.
The following years were tumultuous, to say the least. In and out of colleges, biker gangs, relationships. There was always that still, small voice in my deepest parts, but I tried to bury it in rebellious living. I was successful almost to the point of death; deep despair and heartache drove me to the very edge of suicide. Was Satan going to win?
Once again, my merciful heavenly Father orchestrated a situation in which a room opened up in a house of Christian women just as I needed to move out of my previous location. I heard of this room from a coworker in the work/study program at the local junior college where I was again a student. I moved in and the callus around my heart grew stronger as the love of these new friends tried to penetrate. I isolated myself, tried to be rebellious. I think God was saying, “Your mouth says no-no, but your heart is saying yes-yes.” And it was true, because the ever-present, never-ending love of God finally captured me, once and for all, and dragged me kicking and screaming out of the hand of Satan and into the Light of Jesus.
It has not been an easy thirty years, especially the first five or ten, but with healing and mercy and patience, as only God can have, my life is awesome. I have three great children, plus the adopted child from my teenage years, with whom I was reunited by his choice when he was twenty-two. I am a missionary to Rwanda and soon to Thailand.
So … it’s all good as only God can make it, because He is all good all the time. His plans and purpose are sure. He never wastes a hurt. His love is never ending, and His mercies never fail. His patience and faithfulness are my safety net. And it all began in a tent on a beach forty years ago when I listened to a man named Billy Graham.
FIRST SEEDS
In 1960, I attended a crusade with three other high school friends. At the altar call, I really wanted to go forward, but I was too shy. I felt my friends wouldn’t wait for me, and we were forty-five mil
es from home that night. Back in the car, my date turned to me and said, “Did you want to go forward?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Me too,” he said.
But we didn’t.
My life was stormy until 1992, when I accepted Jesus into my heart. How different life might have been if I had answered the call when I was sixteen. I tried life the world’s way, then my way, and finally … His way. I will never look back. The peace I have now is amazing. I still remember the pull I felt back then and wish I could have been bolder. God has sent me to Chad, Africa, three times, and maybe I will go again on a medical team. Who knows what God has in store for me?
SAVED IN SWEDEN
Take yourself back to your preteen years. Now see yourself as an American preteen living with your family in beautiful Stockholm, Sweden. You’re trying to learn the language and adjust to being far from home. And occasionally you get to experience a slice of the good old USA. I encountered two remarkable Billys while in Stockholm: my first concert (with Billy Joel) and my first crusade (with Billy Graham). Both were All-American joyous occasions. But only one of them changed my life … Rev. Graham’s crusade.
The opportunity to worship in English was welcome. Suddenly I was in a place full of love, listening to Rev. Graham describe the simplicity of coming forward to begin your personal journey with God. I remember a stadium filled with people, the music, and then the call. We were sitting pretty far back, and I’d never seen anything like it. But the tug of the Spirit at my heart couldn’t be ignored. To this day, I can see myself getting out of those chairs, walking up front … and being surrounded in a circle of prayer and love.
Thank You, Billy Graham Page 17