In the following year, Kathie Lee’s personal life also hit a new low. Kathie Lee had married Frank Gifford in 1986, and after more than a decade of marriage and two children, Frank was caught in a humiliating and public affair. Tabloids seized upon the story and printed pictures that brought agony to Kathie Lee.
“It was devastating to me,” she says. “But I was able to stay in my marriage and have God heal it. I’ve heard from hundreds of thousands of people since then who got courage from [my experience], courage to stay in their broken marriages and forgive their husbands and wives. They got courage to keep their families together. Not everybody does. I didn’t do it on my own. God gives us everything we need every day.”
Kathie Lee’s journey with God began as a child when Jesus called her name in a dream.
“It’s vivid to me to this day,” she recalls. “In the dream I’m outside in the front yard helping my daddy rake the leaves. We used to play in them. I looked up. There was Jesus sitting on a cloud. He smiled at me and He said my name.”
A few years later, as a twelve-year-old, she walked into a movie theater featuring The Restless Ones, a production of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. The movie has been widely panned for its stiff dialogue and overt religiosity, but for many the truth at its core outshone any artistic inadequacies. It told of a young girl on the cusp of womanhood making the choice between going down the road that led to death or one that led to life.
“I could hear the voice of the Lord in the movie,” Kathie Lee says.
“Kathie,” she heard Him say, “will you trust Me to make something beautiful out of your life and go down my road? It’s harder. It’s going to be lonely at times. It’s going to be tougher than the big wide road over there. Ultimately it’s going to be a much more beautiful life, but you’ve got to trust Me.”
After the movie, as with all Billy Graham events, someone rose in the front and asked if anyone wanted to come forward and follow Jesus. The movie, cheesy as it was, served a function for the more than 120,000 people who’d said yes to that question during the time it ran. Kathie Lee was in that number.
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life since then,” she says. “I will make a lot of them before this day is done. But that is one decision I made that I have always been deeply, deeply grateful for. I listened to the voice of Jesus. I heard Him tell me He had a purpose for my life, that He loved me. He wanted to make something beautiful with my life.”
Kathie Lee has Jewish ancestry, and as a Christian she has discovered great significance in a Hebrew word that is found in Jewish greetings, teachings, and scriptures: shalom. The word touches upon the idea of perfection and wholeness.
“Shalom doesn’t mean just peace,” she says, “like it’s come to mean in our world. It means all of the aspects of God. It means justice, righteousness, faithfulness, unfailing love, and, yes, peace. It’s a peace that passes all understanding. That’s what we’re here for. Look around. Do you see the chaos? You’re supposed to be part of the shalom, the peace. That’s what every human heart longs for — to partner in that and know you matter.”
The Bible calls Jesus the Prince of Peace. He’s the one who brings peace and wholeness to the world. But He didn’t sit on that peace and hoard it for Himself. He stepped out of Heaven and got dirty with His people. He lived with them, ate with them, hugged them, and talked with them. He taught His followers to join Him in this work of getting out and bringing peace to the world.
Kathie Lee finds inspiration in Jesus’ example. Jesus got out into the world and confronted the cultural norms of His day. He insisted on spending time with the poor, the sick, the sinner, and the outcast.
For fifteen years on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, Kathie Lee lived her life publicly, discussing family, marriage, and raising children on a morning talk show for the world to see. People saw her cry, laugh, and ask the deeper questions. After leaving Live, she took some time away from television, then rejoined America’s morning routine in 2008 as cohost with Hoda Kotb of NBC’s fourth hour of Today. For the next decade Kathie Lee continued to follow Jesus’ example of getting out into the world.
“We are supposed to get out and be the sweet fragrance of Jesus to this world,” she says. “Love your neighbor as you love yourself is what Jesus taught. Don’t live in a selfie world. Live in a selfless world. Don’t walk over homeless people on your way to get someplace. We’re supposed to get down and dirty like Jesus did. We’re supposed to wash AIDS patients’ feet. We’re supposed to adopt children who have no home.
“God is perfecting us. Not a physical perfection or personal perfection, but God’s perfect love. He is perfecting love in us. That love leads to perfection in a world yet to come. It’s something to look forward to.”
