When a shark attack left teen Bethany Hamilton without an arm, she didn’t lose her faith.
Her story has recently been told in the inspiring movie Soul Surfer, but you might not know that, years earlier, Bethany’s youth leader Sarah Hill (played by Carrie Underwood in the film) also suffered a lifechanging surfing accident. “I went to duck dive under a wave,” Hill says. “I got tossed backwards and landed on my head. The impact was as if I hit cement. I broke my neck and back. I was 1/16th of an inch away from being paralyzed.”
Hill’s dreams were shattered as she questioned God’s plan. “I had never really experienced the Lord speaking to me in my life,” she says. “I did the church thing with my family, but it was never a personal relationship with the Lord. He began to show me that even though I had a tough life coming from an abusive home, He never allowed anything to overcome me and take me out. I recommitted my life to the Lord, and I’ve walked with Him ever since.”
That walk eventually led her to Kauai, Hawaii. One summer at a youth camp she met Bethany Hamilton. “Through being a youth leader to Bethany, God allowed us to develop a really close friendship, like a sistership,” Hill says. “As I was on my way to the hospital the day Bethany was attacked I was praying, ‘Lord, how do I minister to this family? What do I say to them?’ That still small voice popped the verse from Jeremiah into my head that’s used in the movie: ‘For I know the plans I have for Bethany, plans of good and not of evil, to give her a future and a hope.’ It brought back to my memory that He had always used Bethany as a light in a dark industry, and now He was going to use her as a voice. That was the Lord’s promise to Bethany and the Hamiltons.”