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Kathie Lee Gifford: Inspired by Rev. Billy Graham
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Faith isn't a topic that comes up every day on Kathie Lee and Hoda's segment of the TODAY show, but last week, Kathie Lee Gifford gave a tribute to the Rev. Billy Graham. His evangelistic crusades changed her family's eternity and hers, as she answered an altar call in a movie theater following the Billy Graham Evangelical Association's production of The Restless Ones as a teen in 1965. Last week, she exposed her personal struggles and faith life to hundreds of thousands of viewers as part of TODAY's week-long #InspiredBy series in which anchors shared their inspirations.
"I've never met in my life a more powerful man who is as humble as Billy is," Kathie Lee said.
Kathie Lee opened up last week about how Graham (the founder of Christianity Today) deeply impacted her faith life, and brought her mother and sister to Christ during one of his television crusades in the 1950s. She recalls coming home to her mother and sister sobbing in front of the television at the age of 12:
"I thought maybe the president had been killed or something terrible had happened . . . it turns out that no, they had both just watched a Billy Graham crusade, and both of them had come to faith by watching the power of his message through a television screen."
A few weeks after that, Kathie Lee came to faith in a similar fashion to her sister and mother. She recounted her response to an altar call at the conclusion of a showing of The Restless Ones in a theater in 1965:
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Allison J. Althoff is Today's Christian Woman's online editor. Follow her on Twitter @ajalthoff.
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