Often when people look at Louis Zamperini’s life, they don’t come away with the impression he wishes they would have. You will find few stories as action packed and riveting as Louis’. His resilience and high pain tolerance often captivates and leaves a lasting impression on his audience. But in truth, one defining moment captivated him, and interprets the many years of his unfathomable endurance in suffering. That moment was when Louis encountered Jesus at a Billy Graham crusade and afterward, opened the Bible.   

Louis lived many lives, as some say—as a delinquent youth, an Olympic athlete, a young soldier, a POW, a war hero welcomed home, a husband suffering PTSD, and then as an entirely new man, and the joy-filled man that lived out the rest of his long life.  

The Bible says that nothing in all creation, not even the worst suffering imaginable, can separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ (Romans 8:38-39). Louis is living proof of this verse. It seemed all hell was unleashed against him, and yet all the while God’s strong hand was preserving this man’s life so that he might come to know Christ.