From the start, Billy and Ruth Graham could see that raising their son Franklin would be a challenge. When he was born in 1952, the Grahams were already raising three daughters: Gigi had been born in 1945; Anne in 1948 and Ruth (nicknamed Bunny) in 1950. One more son, Ned, would follow in 1958.
“Franklin was the first son, and a strapping one at that,” Ruth wrote in her book It’s My Turn. “I knew he would be a handful.”
She believed he would grow up to be someone who could be depended on. But there would be long years of waiting, praying and agonizing before that would come to pass.
The challenges began early.
“Franklin, at 3, managed to get into everybody’s hair,” Ruth wrote. “I never knew one small boy could be so omnipresent. He was lovable and stubborn, reserved, surprisingly tender at times, and an incorrigible tease. I have seen all three sisters in tears and Franklin still laughing gleefully.”
There’s a comical sweetness in that description—at least for those who weren’t the target of the teasing! But Ruth had one supreme desire for all the members of the family: “That we be men and women of God.” And her prayers took on increasing urgency as Franklin grew.
When he was still a young boy, she wrote in her journal: “Little Franklin has never, to my knowledge, put his trust in Christ. Nor do I believe he has rejected Him. And he will not be pushed, nor do I intend to. But my heart would rest easier if I knew that those small, rough hands were in His.”
In his teen years, Franklin’s rambunctious ways turned to outright rebellion: partying, smoking, drinking, brawling in a high school classroom, driving fast and reckless on the streets of Montreat, North Carolina.
Those examples may not seem as sordid as some people’s stories, but the situation was just as dire—Franklin’s heart was in rebellion against God. He explained to an audience years later:
“Growing up, I heard the Gospel. I knew the Gospel. But I didn’t want to surrender my life to Jesus Christ. I felt that if I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ, I would be in a spiritual straitjacket, and I wanted to be free. I wanted to party. I wanted to have fun. It’s not that I did not believe in God. I believed that God existed, but I just didn’t want God running my life. I wanted to run my life.”
Franklin’s parents knew his outward actions were only symptoms of the deeper issue. They feared for his soul. In a heartrending poem, Ruth wrote:
If
I could stand aside
and see
him walking through
those Splendor’d Gates
thrown wide,
instead of me—
If I could yield my place
to this, my boy,
the tears upon
my upturned face
would be
of joy!
Still, as Franklin began his college career at LeTourneau College, a Christian school in Longview, Texas, his parents could see signs that God was pursuing him. There, in addition to earning his pilot’s license, he sat under Christian instructors and rubbed shoulders with godly people like his roommate, Bill Cristobal, who was aiming to become a missionary pilot.
And in 1971, Franklin met Roy Gustafson, one of Billy Graham’s associate evangelists, whose role with BGEA was to teach the Bible in the land of the Bible. That summer, Roy took Franklin under his wing and had him help with the Holy Land tours he was leading. In addition to learning a great deal about logistics and international travel, Franklin began to see that maybe he had not given enough attention to the Bible.
He recalls: “Roy had the incredible ability to bring some of the most difficult passages of Scripture alive. The highlight for everyone on the tour was to gather each night for a Bible study when Roy would intriguingly set the stage for what we would see the next day. I found myself clinging to each word. The Bible was becoming a more interesting book to me.”
Roy also introduced Franklin to two missionaries who would have an immense impact on him—and become dear friends ever after. Dr. Eleanor Soltau and nurse Aileen Coleman operated the Annoor Sanatorium for Chest Diseases in Mafraq, Jordan. Their clinic specialized in treating tuberculosis among the nomadic Bedouin people.
“I was impressed,” Franklin wrote. “These two didn’t match my old stereotype of missionaries. They were gutsy and tough as nails, much like my grandparents. Yet they were warm, gracious, and every inch Christian ladies.”
Franklin learned that the missionaries were building a new hospital and also were in desperate need of a reliable vehicle. That sparked an idea. Back home, he suggested to his father that if BGEA were to purchase a Land Rover, fully equipped for the desert, he would be willing to “sacrifice” his education for several months to drive it to Jordan and then stay on to help with the hospital construction.
Mr. Graham agreed after Franklin said he could convince Cristobal to make the trip with him. Their six-week journey from England, where BGEA purchased the Land Rover, to Jordan—and the time Franklin spent helping to build the hospital—allowed him to see firsthand the resolve and faith of the missionaries, and some astonishing answers to their prayers.
But he was still unwilling to give God control of his life. And although he became more serious about his studies at LeTourneau, he was kicked out in 1972 after flying a girl to Atlanta and being forced to spend a night in Louisiana when the weather became too dangerous for them to fly back to campus. Although he notified the school and believed he had satisfied the rules, the fact that he had been away “overnight from the school with a co-ed” was too much. He was expelled.
Over the next two years, Franklin attended and graduated from Montreat-Anderson College, just down the mountain from the Graham home. He raised money to help the missionaries in Mafraq, and he became acquainted with Bob Pierce, the founder of both World Vision and Samaritan’s Purse.
But in 1974, as he traveled to Lausanne, Switzerland, to work on logistics for the BGEA-sponsored International Congress on World Evangelization, he was still holding out on God—and feeling ever more miserable for it.
During the conference, he turned 22, and his parents took him to eat at an Italian restaurant near the conference center. Afterward, Mr. Graham asked Franklin to walk with him along the boulevard on the shore of Lake Geneva.
“Franklin,” his father said, “I want you to know your mother and I are proud of you, and we love you.”
“Thank you, Daddy, I appreciate that,” Franklin replied.
They walked a bit farther, and Mr. Graham said, “Franklin, your mother and I want you to know you can always come home, whatever you do in life. You’re always welcome home.”
Franklin had never doubted that, but he was glad to hear it.
Finally, Mr. Graham came to the point: “Franklin, your mother and I sense there’s a battle for the soul of your life, and you’re going to have to make a choice. You’re going to have to choose to accept Jesus Christ or reject Him. There’s no middle ground. There’s no riding the fence. Either you’re going to live for Him or not. And we’re praying that you’ll make the right choice.”
Though he didn’t show it, that made Franklin angry because he knew his father was right.
Immediately after the conference, Franklin and a friend headed to the Middle East to join Gustafson on another tour. Franklin was under heavy conviction of sin. Reading from John 3 one night, he knew that, like Nicodemus in that passage, he needed to be born again. And in a Jerusalem hotel room, he put out his cigarette, got down on his knees and poured out his heart to God.
“God, I have sinned against you, and I’m sorry,” he prayed. “I believe Jesus Christ is Your Son. I believe that He died for my sins, that He was buried and that You raised Him from the grave. I want Him to come into my heart, into my life, and take control. I want Him to be the Lord of my life. If you can take the pieces of my life and make something out of it, You can have it.”
That night—as he often says in his Festivals—God forgave Franklin Graham. And the 50 years since then have shown how God can change a rebel’s heart and use it for His Kingdom and His glory. ©2024 BGEA
Photo: Shealah Craighead / ©2022 BGEA