Last month I had the opportunity to attend a screening for the upcoming Soul Surfer film. The movie is based on the true to life story of Bethany Hamilton, a champion surfer, who is the victim of a tragic shark attack which leads to her left arm being amputated.
Amazingly, Bethany fights through unbelievable challenges to one day get back on a surfboard and ultimately become a pro surfer. You must see this film when it is released in April.
AnnaSophia Robb stars as Bethany, with Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt starring as Bethany’s parents. Carrie Underwood also makes her acting debut in this film that is power-packed with inspiration.
I won’t give much away here, but I do want to share two moments that really brought the film home for me.
One is when Bethany tells a group of journalists that she has been able to “embrace more people with one arm than she ever would’ve been able to embrace with two arms.”
The film depicts Bethany’s initial struggle with having her dreams shattered by the shark attack, to her maturation process of coming to embrace her suffering as an instrument God can use for his glory and to think outside of herself when it comes to having big dreams and lifelong pursuits.
Jesus didn’t suffer so that we wouldn’t have to suffer, but He suffered so that through suffering we could come to know him more intimately and be identified with him more acutely in compassion for others.
The other mesmeric moment for me came after Bethany faced her adversary (a rival surfer), looked her squarely in the eye, and genuinely thanked her for never taking it easy on her. There was a time after Bethany first got back on the surfboard that others, including those closest to her, felt sorry for her disability. In their pity for her, they tended to lower their expectations for her comeback. But Bethany didn’t appreciate their pity. She didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for her or to fall prone to feeling sorry for herself. She knew that a victim mentality wouldn’t serve her “redemption story” well at all.
On the contrary, her bitter rival never felt sorry for her.
In fact, her rival competed against her with dirtier tactics than ever before. And it was this opposition that gave her more grit and determination to overcome than any amount of pity she gathered from her empathetic family and friends.
In the end, it was her adversary who played one of the most critical roles in inspiring Bethany to succeed, along with her necessary spiritual formation process in learning to surrender her suffering and her personal tragedy over to God’s sovereign plan.
The film proves that suffering and tragedy doesn’t have to define us… And neither will our ADVERSARIES.
Ultimately we will be defined by how we respond to suffering and hardship in our lives as well as our willingness to let God shape us in those painful chapters of opposition.
And the takeaway for me:
Adversity may be uncomfortable, but one day you will want to look your adversity and adversaries squarely in the eye and be able to thank IT or THEM for never taking it easy on you… for their role in God’s redemptive story of your life has been indispensable to your being conformed to the IMAGE of JESUS.
And for that – it’s ALL GOOD!
Get back on that board, Soul Surfer – enjoy the WAVES!
Soul Surfer Trailer