I Wanted To Run From God, But I'm Glad He Caught Me

You could say it’s in the family, but Cissie Graham Lynch, granddaughter of the great Billy Graham, is very much a woman of God in her own right. Pete Wooding talked to her

- Pete Wooding

How would you deal with growing up under the shadow of being part of the most well-known family of preachers in the world?

Throughout her late teens Cissie Graham Lynch struggled to cope with the pressure of being the granddaughter of Billy Graham as well as having Franklin Graham as her father.

“Growing up as a Graham I was often in the spotlight, and in my late teens and early 20s I would try to run from that,” Cissie tells iBelieve.

“I didn’t want to have the title Graham. I didn’t want to have the expectation that came with that because I knew I would fail.”

Cissie and her three brothers grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. Even though her grandfather was often away, by the time she was 18 she’d also had the chance to travel the world with her dad, Franklin Graham.

What kept Cissie and her three brothers so grounded, she says, was having her mother at home. She kept them on a regular routine driving them to school and taking them to sporting events.

“Most importantly,” she adds, “my mum made the Scriptures real. She would talk about real issues with us. She kept an open line of communication. She always wanted us to feel comfortable talking to her.”