From the Raft to the Runway

In the summer of 1943, Louis Zamperini drifted on a life raft in the Pacific Ocean, sunburned and starving, sharks circling beneath him. The former Olympic runner had survived a bomber crash only to face forty-seven days adrift, then two years of brutal captivity in Japanese prison camps. When the war ended and Zamperini finally came home to California, the cheering crowds saw a hero. But behind closed doors, he was drowning in nightmares, rage, and whiskey. He later said those years after liberation were darker than the raft itself.

Then one evening in 1949, his wife convinced him to attend a Billy Graham crusade in Los Angeles. Zamperini walked in bitter and walked out weeping — not from sorrow, but from the overwhelming realization that the God who had sustained him on that ocean had never once let go. That night, the nightmares stopped. He poured every bottle of liquor down the drain. He eventually returned to Japan to embrace the very guards who had tortured him.

The Psalmist declared, "Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning." Zamperini's long night lasted years — the raft, the camp, the bottle. But the Almighty, who lifts His children from the lowest pit, turned that mourning into dancing. Sometimes the morning takes longer than we expect, but the God who promises joy is faithful to deliver it.