I Am David: The Resiliency of the Human Spirit

“I Am David” is a film adapted from Anne Holm’s internationally acclaimed novel North to Freedom and is one of my sentimental favorites.

It’s about a 12-year old boy who escapes a Communist concentration camp in Bulgaria sometime after WWII where he has spent his entire life. He sets out on a risky journey across Europe trying to reach Denmark in hopes of finding freedom, facing imminent danger and uncertain people along the way. Since he was locked in a camp all his life, he is calloused with no emotions and doesn’t trust anyone.
It becomes a spiritual voyage of discovery where David slowly loses his instinctual mistrust of humanity and begins to smile, share, trust and ultimately, love.

This film awakens so many emotions in me, eerily taking me back to the emotional prison I experienced in my childhood while subject to the abuse of a calloused father. The story is one of inspiring hope for anyone feeling ‘trapped’ in a psychological or emotional prison.

David depicts the resilient, unbreakable spirit of a youth who overcomes traumatic circumstances and insurmountable odds to experience restoration, redemption, and a stirring reunion with someone special in the end… (not to give anything away).

Perhaps the most touching scene in the movie is a conversation about trust David has with his new friend, Sophie.

David: Why do people do such terrible things?
Sophie: Like what?
David: Like beat people, and kill them, and make them prisoners.
Sophie: Most people don’t do that, David.
David: My friend Johannes always used to tell me, “Trust no one.”
Sophie: Oh, life wouldn’t be worth living if you did that, David.

The tragedy of this story is that so many people never experience David’s resiliency. Living in an emotional prison, they have been hurt by another person’s cruelty and spend an entire lifetime learning to reject trust, consequently returning the misfortunes of cruelty on others in the same manner it was inflicted upon them. They never learn to love.

Without love and trust, there is no resiliency to the harms done to us.

Ann Landers once said, “If you have love in your life it can make up for a great many things you lack. If you don’t have it, no matter what else there is, it’s not enough.”

Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.
It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
I Corinthians 13:4-8

To experience life as a fully alive Christ follower, we must learn to love, trust, and rebound from the harms inflicted upon us.

If not, life really wouldn’t be worth living.