by Billy Graham
I have been asked hundreds of times in my life why God allows tragedy and suffering. I really do not know the answer totally, even to my own satisfaction. I have to accept, by faith, that God is sovereign, and He is a God of love and mercy and compassion in the midst of suffering.
The Bible says that God is not the author of evil. It speaks of evil as a “mystery.” In 2 Thessalonians 2:7 (KJV), it talks about “the mystery of iniquity.” The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, NIV). He asked that question, “Who can understand it?” And that’s one reason we each need God in our lives.
The lesson of this event is not only about the mystery of iniquity and evil, but secondly, it’s a lesson about our need for each other.
What an example New York and Washington have been to the world! None of us will ever forget the pictures of our courageous firefighters and police, many of whom have lost friends and colleagues, or the hundreds of people standing patiently in line to donate blood.
A tragedy like this could have torn our country apart, but instead it has united us and we’ve become a family. So those perpetrators took this on to tear us apart, but it has worked the other way. It’s backfired. We are more united than ever before! I think this was exemplified in a very moving way when the members of our Congress stood shoulder to shoulder and sang, “God Bless America.”
Finally, difficult as it may be for us to see right now, this even can give a message of hope—hope for the present, and hope for the future.
Yes, there is hope. There is hope for the present, because I believe the stage has already been set for a new spirit in our nation.
One of the things we desperately need is a spiritual renewal in this country. We need a spiritual revival in America. And God has told us in His Word, time after time, that we need to repent of our sins, and we’re to turn to Him and He will bless us in a new way.
There is also hope for the future because of God’s promises. As a Christian, I have hope, not just for this life, but for Heaven and the life to come. And many of those people who died this past week are in Heaven right now, and they wouldn’t want to come back. It’s so glorious and so wonderful. And that’s the hope for all of us who put our faith in God. I pray that you will have this hope in your heart.
This event reminds us of the brevity and the uncertainty of life. We never know when we too will be called into eternity. I doubt if even one of those people who got on those planes, or walked into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon that Tuesday morning, thought it would be the last day of their lives. It didn’t occur to them. And that’s why each of us needs to face our own spiritual need and commit ourselves to God and His will now.
Here in this majestic National Cathedral we see all around us symbols of the cross. For the Christian, the cross tells us that God understands our sin and our suffering, for He took them upon Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. From the cross, God declares, “I love you. I know the heartaches and the sorrows and the pains that you feel. But I love you.”
The story does not end with the cross, for Easter points us beyond the tragedy of the cross to the empty tomb. It tells us that there is hope for eternal life, for Christ has conquered evil and death and hell. Yes, there is hope!
I’ve preached all over the world and the older I get, the more I cling to that hope that I started with many years ago, and have proclaimed in many languages to many parts of the world.
We all watched in horror as planes crashed into the steel and glass of the World Trade Center. Those majestic towers, built on solid foundations, were examples of the prosperity and creativity of America. When damaged, those buildings eventually plummeted to the ground, imploding in upon themselves. Yet, underneath the debris is a foundation that was not destroyed. Therein lies the truth of that old hymn, “How Firm a Foundation.”
Yes, our nation has been attacked, buildings destroyed, lives lost. But now we have a choice: whether to implode and disintegrate emotionally and spiritually as a people and a nation; or whether we choose to become stronger through all of this struggle—to rebuild on a solid foundation. That foundation is our trust in God. That’s what this service is all about, and in that faith we have the strength to endure something as difficult and horrendous as what we have experienced this week.
And in the words of that familiar hymn:
Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.
My prayer today is that we will feel the loving arms of God wrapped around us, and will know in our hearts that He will never forsake us as we trust in Him.
We also know that God is going to give wisdom and courage and strength to the President and those around him. And this is going to be a day that we will remember as a day of victory.
May God bless you all.
Acknowledgments
Over three and a half centuries ago, John Donne penned the familiar words “No man is an island, entire of itself.” Among other things, he was reminding us of our need for each other, and that we are dependent on others for anything we truly accomplish in life.
Certainly, that has been true of this book. As I stated in the Preface, I doubted that I would ever write an autobiography because I knew I did not have the ability or time to do it on my own. I knew I would need the help of others, and God has more than supplied that help through the gifted men and women who have assisted me with this project.
Back in the 1960s I had dictated a number of autobiographical notes and then set them aside, assuming I would never be able to complete an autobiography. Ten or eleven years ago I wrote to John Pollock, the noted British Anglican clergyman and author (who was considered a leading biographer in Britain of religious figures), and asked for his help and advice on starting my autobiography. He had written several biographies about me and was of great assistance in the early stages of planning for the book, and his memory-joggers and time lines about our ministry were important in getting us started. It was soon clear that the task was greater and more complex than we had anticipated, however, and could not be finished as quickly as I had hoped.
As Ruth and I talked about the actual writing of the project, one of the first people who came to mind was Dr. Mel Lorentzen, professor of journalism at Wheaton College. I was delighted when he agreed to collaborate with us on the project. An able and experienced writer, Mel had the right blend of scholarship and personal understanding to tackle this task. I’ll always remember the many delightful weeks we spent together while he interviewed Ruth and me and many of my associates. A serious heart attack limited the time he was able to give to the task, but without his diligence in helping me produce a first draft, this project might never have been possible.
Several years ago, I invited Jerry Jenkins, a well-known Chris-tian author and writer for Moody Monthly, to work with us. He brought to the project his own fine gifts as a writer. He devoted considerable time to researching additional aspects of our ministry, checking the accuracy of details, and editing much of the first draft. He spent many hours asking me questions, and I recall with pleasure the times we were able to spend together (although it was a busy period in my ministry).
Over the years, Ruth has kept diaries, and she always wrote long letters home to her parents when she was traveling with me. These letters are a gold mine of stories and descriptions. In addition, I had kept diaries (more, actually, than I realized) on a number of our special trips and written letters and reports back to Ruth, with no thought that I would ever be using them in a book. There also were a number of films and other records documenting our ministry. All of these have refreshed my memory of events and people that had dimmed with the years. Team members and longtime friends have also contributed stories and helped refresh my memory. In shaping those stories in
to a narrative, I’ve consulted with other writers and solicited their help from time to time.
By the time the book began to take shape, I had clippings and writings all over my house and office, so I asked two of my associates who lived in Montreat to take charge of the project. I needed someone who could hold all the pieces together and keep the various people working, and I knew there was no one better qualified to do that than my personal secretary of many years, Stephanie Wills. Her meticulous attention to detail and her ability to keep track of countless sources have been invaluable. How she has kept up with this project in addition to all of her other responsibilities I do not know. But I am indeed grateful.
On the editorial side, I asked my friend and colleague Dr. John Akers if he would be responsible for helping me to fill in many of the gaps and to rewrite certain sections. I was delighted when he said yes.
During this time, two of my daughters, both with experience in writing and publishing, urged me to consult a friend of theirs in New Orleans, Bill Griffin, for the additional help we would need. Bill is a publishing professional with thirty-five years of experience as an editor with several major New York publishers and as religion editor of Publishers Weekly for a dozen years; he also has written a biography of C. S. Lewis. I was surprised when he indicated that he had been following our ministry for many years and would be more than delighted to help in editing what my staff and I were doing. He and John Akers became the project’s editorial coordinators. They worked together as a team to bring the enormous amount of written material down to manageable size and to fill in the gaps that had not been covered.
Perhaps one of their greatest accomplishments was doing what I found it almost impossible to do: cut the manuscript down. Because my mind and heart kept overflowing with more memories of people and events, my tendency was to keep adding material rather than to take a red pencil to what we already had done. Several people (including Ruth) were even of the opinion that we needed at least three volumes—and that’s certainly where we were headed— but I was afraid that if we did that we wouldn’t finish the project in this lifetime!
Unfortunately, we had no choice but to leave out a number of people and events that were extremely important during our more than half-century of ministry. I apologize especially to those staff who have worked with us with such dedication in our various offices and ministries, and to all those who have been our close friends and supporters, whom we simply could not mention by name in these pages. I think especially of our directors and other staff who have labored tirelessly in setting up our Crusades, only a few of whom are mentioned here. The countless people who assisted in each city we visited—including the executive committees, the finance committees, the volunteer helpers, and so forth—likewise deserve a special word of appreciation. I hope they all will understand and will accept my deepest gratitude for all they have meant to me and to our work over the years.
Many others have helped in significant ways as well. Most of our archives are kept in the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, so a great deal of the material that we needed for this book was already available there. Bob Shuster and Paul Erickson have been a tremendous help to us in searching our archives and verifying or correcting facts.
Diane Holmquist and Nina Engen in our Minneapolis office, and Wanda Kiser and Elsie Brookshire in Montreat, not only have done an invaluable job in collecting and saving background material about our ministry, but have spent many long hours in researching our files to help us complete this manuscript.
I want to thank the staff in my personal office in Montreat, including Dr. David Bruce and Maury Scobee, for the many hours they have labored to help me on this book and for enduring the many changes I have made in my schedule and plans. That is one of my weaknesses, I know (and occasionally, perhaps, one of my strengths)!
I am indebted to Dr. John Corts, president and chief operating officer of our organization, for taking the responsibility as liaison with Clayton Carlson and others at HarperCollins; and to Russ Busby, who took most of the photographs you see in this book. Terri Leonard and her staff have also gone far beyond the call of duty to ensure the accuracy of the final text.
I am especially grateful to all those unsung helpers who have labored behind the scenes for many years—those who have followed the ministry faithfully with daily prayers and frequent financial support. This effort to document our work is as much their ministry as it is ours.
Most of all, without my wife, Ruth, there would have been no autobiography to write, for she has been vital to my life and an integral part of our ministry.
I have read that Johann Sebastian Bach ended each composition with these words: Soli Deo Gloria —“To God alone be the glory.” Those are my words as well, at the end of this project.
Photo Insert A
My embarrassing experience on the White House lawn after meeting with President Truman, July 14, 1950. Jerry Beavan, Cliff Barrows, Billy Graham, Grady Wilson.
Pyongyand, North Korea, April 2, 1992: presenting a Bible to President Kim Il Sung. my son Ned.
My first known photograph at six months, with my mother, Morrow Graham.
With my father, Frank Graham, and my sister Catherine in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, August 20, 1925.
I was born on November 7, 1918, in the downstairs bedroom of this frame farmhouse outside Charlotte, North Carolina.
With my sister Catherine in our goat cart.
On extreme left, in black robe: At age six, graduating from Sunday school primary department.
The main milking barn on the Graham farm, where I milked cows twice a day.
Morrow and Frank Graham in later years.
The Graham family in Florida during Christmas, 1936, shortly before I enrolled in Florida Bible Institute.
The W. F. Graham family in 1962, shortly before my father’s death. With mother and father are Catherine, Billy, Melvin, and Jean.
Perhaps the earliest photograph of me preaching, about 1939, at Lake Swan Bible Conference, Melrose (near Palatka), Florida.
At Florida Bible Institute, with Dean John Minder and visiting friend Jimmie Johnson.
Ruth and I pictured at Wheaton College, Illinois.
With Ruth on our wedding day, August 13, 1943, Montreat Presbyterian Church, Montreat, North Carolina.
The young pastor and his wife, Western Springs, Illinois, about 1944.
As Youth for Christ’s first full-time evangelist (at $75.00 per week).
Planning the first Youth for Christ trip to Europe, 1946, with fellow evangelist Chuck Templeton and YFC founder Tory Johnson.
America’s youngest college president with vice president T. W. Wilson, Northwestern Schools, Minneapolis, Minnesota, about 1949.
The young couple on a picnic near Montreat.
Ruth and the newborn Nelson Edman Graham (Ned), with Franklin, Bunny, Gigi, Anne, and Billy, 1958.
Leaving on another trip and saying good-bye to Ruth as Bunny looks on, mid-1950s. Back then, my trips often lasted several months.
With my sons, Ned and Franklin, in the yard of our home, 1965.
Gigi, Anne, Bunny, Ruth, and me at home with Belshazzar, our Great Pyrenees dog.
Relaxing with a game of baseball. I always batted left-handed but played golf right-handed.
The Los Angeles evangelistic campaign, corner of Washington and Hill Streets, fall 1949, was the beginning of our national press coverage and recognition.
Preaching to 40,000 people at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, September 1967.
The closing meeting of the sixteen-week New York Crusade, Times Square, September 1, 1957.
Leaving Number 10 Downing Street after meeting with Prime Minister Winston Churchill, following the 1954 London Crusade.
Preaching in Harlem, New York, August 1, 1957.
Enjoying lemonade and a lively discussion in an English pub with newspaper columnist “Cassandra,” during the 1954 London Crusade.
With Presiden
t and Mrs. Eisenhower at National Presbyterian Church, Washington, D.C. At right is the Reverend E.L.R. Elson, the church’s pastor.
Putting on a flak jacket before preaching to American troops in Korea, Christmas day, 1952.
The Team, 1953. George Beverly Shea, Billy Graham, Cliff Barrows; Grady Wilson, Paul Mickelson, Tedd Smith, Lorne Sanny.
Live from Atlanta, Georgia, Crusade, the first radio broadcast of The Hour of Decision, November 5, 1950.
Monitoring the first broadcast of The Hour of Decision, 1950. George Wilson, Walter Bennett, Fred Dienert.
With the associate evangelists, 1964. Grady Wilson, Joe Blinco, Howard Jones, John Wesley White, Akbar Abdul-Haqq. Roy Gustafson, Billy Graham, T. W. Wilson, Leighton Ford, Ralph Bell.
With my father-in-law and mentor, Dr. L. Nelson Bell, 1972.
Photo Insert B
Final 1962 Chicago Crusade meeting at Soldier Field, where 116,000 people gathered in over 100-degree heat.
With President John F. Kennedy in West Palm Beach, Florida, for a game of golf, January 1961. In the backseat is Florida Senator George Smathers.
Discussing my impressions of her country with the Prime Minister of India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, 1973.
In Israel, 1969, with Prime Minister Golda Meir.
Arriving in Chicago with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1962, after a plane trip together from Florida.