Tonight I went to see the movie Soul Surfer. First of all let me just say, great movie!!! It just goes to show you that producers and directors can make movies without any cuss words and they are still worth watching. Well now that I am off my soapbox :).
I vaguely knew the story of Bethany Hamilton, I knew that she loved to surf and I knew that she lost her arm in a shark attack when she was I believe 13 or 14 and I knew that she worked hard to get back on the surf board because it was important to her. However, what I didn't know about her story, is the most important part, her faith. (I was very excited to see how many youth were in that theather as well :)) In the movie, her youth director recites Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to proper you and not to harm you, plans for a future and hope."
Just before the attack she told her youth leader that she couldn't go on a mission trip because she had to train for her surfing competition. After the attack, Bethany was struggling with how this was God's plan for her life and what she was going to do with her life if she couldn't surf. She tries to get back in the water and surf some and then she realizes that there is more than just surfing. She decides to go on a mission trip with her youth group to Thailand. They had just suffered a bad Tsunami and this one lady is telling Bethany how she lost everything. h a Tsunami and she gets to see the pain and hurt of these people who have lost everything. One of my favorite parts is when she meets this little boy that just showed up after the Tsunami, nobody knew who he was or where his parents were. She got him to smile and taught him how to surf and even got to witness all of the people getting back into the water for the first time since the tsunami. At that point she said she realized that surfing was not the most important thing in the world, LOVE was.
If you know the story of Bethany Hamilton, you know that she did get back on the surf board and she did compete in competitions again and goes on to be a professional surfer (which was her dream since she was little). She did all this by holding on to her faith and knowing that God had a plan for her life, even with one arm! In an interview one of the reporters asked if she could go back to that day would she have still went out surfing knowing she would be attacked and she said she wouldn't have changed anything about what happened to her because she had reached more people with one arm than she probably would have every reached with 2 arms, wow!!
I know there are times when I think, "man why did God let this happen to me?" "how am I ever going to get through this?" but then I am reminded of one of my favorite passages in the bible James 1:2-4 "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."
We are all going to face trials, none of us are exempt from them, it's all about how we choose to face those trials and who we put our faith in. No matter what I may face in my life or what trials may come my way, I know that my God is in control and I can either choose to be defeated by those trials and give up or I can choose to trust in God and know that He is going to strengthen my faith through those trials!!
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