You may have seen the movie Unbroken about Louis Zamperini, the Olympic athlete who became a POW in the hands of the Japanese, but you only saw half his story. This movie tells the rest of the story of a man suffering PTSD from his years of torture at the hands of the Japanese and struggling to return to a life at home.
SPOILER ALERT
In those days PTSD was not understood, and Louis treated his pain and nightmares with a bottle. His life continued to spiral downwards in the years following the war. He blamed God for everything that happened.
Then his wife, who was wanting a divorce, went to a revival in Los Angeles in 1949.
She came home a changed woman, no longer wanting a divorce but a partner to stay with him in his dark place. She convinced him to go to the revival, he didn’t have anything to lose.
So he went. And he stormed out, still angry and fighting God. But a seed was planted, he went back the next night. And that night he fell on his knees, and knew at that instant he would never drink again and would serve Jesus until he was called home.
And he did. He said for the first time that night he slept without nightmares, never drank again, and he started a boys camp for troubled boys, which he ran the rest of his working days.
Here he is forgiving Japanese prisoners in 1950 who had been convicted of war crimes in his prison camp.
