In my hand I hold a small ball that I have made with paper and rubber bands. As I face the congregation I engage them in a series of questions. Firstly, I explain what I have in my hand and then ask them to predict what will happen if I throw it down. I demonstrate and it fulfills that prediction. Secondly, I explain that the manufacturer created this ball to be resilient. The ball’s purpose is to bounce back. Likewise each one of us were created by God to bounce back from situations and circumstances that can knock us down. The truth I desire to have engraved upon your heart after today is how to live the resilient life that God has designed for you.
A gentleman by the name of Louis Zamperini is someone we are going to hear from today. …show more content…
In 1930 the police chose to help a wayward teenager find direction. They knew, from always trying to catch him, that he was a fast runner! So, the police officers captured his attention with track and field. He ran his first race and came in last place, but he did not quit. By the time he turned nineteen years old he had earned the nickname, The Torrance Tornado and caught the eye of the US Olympic Committee. Six years after he lost his first race he became the youngest US Olympian in track and field and traveled to Nazi Germany for the Olympic Games. In 1941, at twenty-five years of age he heard the news that America was going to war. Zamperini stopped his Olympic training to enlist as a soldier in World War II. He chose to do the one thing that terrified him as a youth. He trained to be an army bombardier. His days as a soldier were not glorious ones like his days as a US Olympian. I have told you some of Louis’ story, but through this video clip Louis speaks of the toughest days of his life.
Resilience is the ability to be strong, healthy, and successful again after something bad happens.3 Louis Zamperini could bounce back from the days of his childhood and in fact those days of hardship gave him a greater ability to endure being a prisoner of war. However, he did reach the end of his human resilience. His body survived prison camp and he returned home a hero, but his mind was still replaying the tapes of his tortuous days at the hands of his harshest prison