Anne Graham Lotz

I'll tell you what, I love my daddy. And he's so special. He's meant so much to me, so it's not a thorn in my side to be known as Billy Graham's daughter. It's a privilege. ”

Abraham is such a fascinating figure. Three world religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - all claim him as a patriarch. He was raised in a religious home. And yet he rejected religion in order to pursue a personal relationship with God. ”

When life is good and we have no problems, we can almost let ourselves believe we have no need for God. But in my experience, sometimes the richest blessings come through pain and hard things. ”

When the storms of life come, if they come to me personally, to my family or to the world, I want to be strong enough to stand and be a strength to somebody else, be shelter for somebody else. ”

In the Bible, ordination - I don't see that in the Scripture. In the Bible, it's whether you're filled with the Holy Spirit, whether you're anointed by God, whether you're called by God, whether you're obedient to Him. I want to be those things, but I don't see any purpose for me in being ordained. ”

It was when my children were 5, 3 and 10 months old that I just felt the desperate need to get to know God through the pages of my Bible. And as a result, I started a Bible class in my city for the primary purpose of being in it. ”

Around 1998, I went through lots of pressures and struggles. My children got married within eight months of each other, my son was diagnosed with cancer and went through major surgery and radiation, my mother had five life-threatening hospitalizations where I stayed with her, my husband's dental office burned to the ground. ”

One misconception is that if we follow God in the life of faith, and that means obedience - that we read His Word, we're obedient, we pray, we go to church, we do the right things - that somehow His blessing means we're going to be okay. ”

When I put my faith in Jesus Christ as my savior, and I asked him to forgive and to come into my life, and He does - from that moment forward I have established a personal relationship with God that I have to develop, you know, through Bible reading and prayer, and living my life for him. ”

Every time I see my brother, I just praise God for God's grace in his life. Because if God can change Franklin from a prodigal into a man of God, he can do it for anybody. ”