But Gigi Graham, the oldest daughter of the Rev. Billy Graham, said there’s still a lot left to be learned from these life experiences.

"My mother used to try and teach us that we can’t look to anyone or anything to be to us that only Jesus can be," she said in a recent phone interview from her home in Florida. "I think that throughout my life, marriage and the children and raising kids and all the things we’ve gone through, you just have to realize you have to rely on the Lord."

Graham will be speaking Feb. 28 at Gainesville Care Center’s annual fund-raising banquet at the Georgia Mountains Center. Reservations for the event are required by Feb. 22.

The event’s title, "Leaving a Legacy," was selected for two reasons, said Gainesville Care Center Executive Director Ann B. Gainey. First, it reflects the legacy left by the Graham family, which continues today through their children. But the theme also reflects the many babies who are alive today through the efforts of the center.

Gainesville Care Center is a nonprofit organization that offers pregnancy testing and counseling, along with STD testing.

"This is Gainesville Care Center’s 21st year of being open, and as we age as a facility we realize that we are actually leaving a legacy for the future of Hall County as well," Gainey said. "Then you also piggyback that theme with all the babies whose lives were allowed to live because Gainesville Care Center has been here, we are leaving a legacy of human potential."

Graham said throughout her life, if she realized she had made a wrong choice it was because she had put material things before her relationship with God.

"When I look back on my life now, every time I have made a mistake or a wrong choice or done something, it’s because I was looking to someone else or to something else to give me only what I could find in Christ," she said. "You just realize, ‘I think this thing ... is what will fill up what I need right now’ — or this person or that friend or that church even — and you realize you cannot look to someone or something to be to you only what Christ can be."

Growing up in the Graham household, she said there were many things her father taught her over the years. Although he did it in actions rather than words.

"I can’t think of one time he sat me down and gave me some words of wisdom. It would have been over the years and by example," she said. "He’s the same person when he preaches as he is at home — that is very important."

Humility, graciousness and nonmaterialism are some of the qualities she said her father passed on to his children. And spiritually, she said, he is constantly thinking about how his actions would have an effect for eternity — not just the short term.

"I’ve seen that happen sometimes when he was making a decision and it was really because he would pray about it and then he would change his mind because, from eternity’s point of view, the other thing seems more important at the time," she said.

Graham has written seven books, and more recently had been working on editing books with her mother, Ruth, before her death. She will be available to sign copies of her books during the Feb. 28 event along with motivating the crowd in words and spirit.

"I’m going to do everything I can to encourage people to give," she said. "But hopefully I can do it in such a way that people will be encouraged to support this group and will be willing to give, not just with their money but with their time and efforts and whatever."