This article is an excerpt from the Shortform summary of "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand. Shortform has the world's best summaries of books you should be reading.
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What do Louis Zamperini and Billy Graham have to do with each other? Were they friends?
Louis Zamperini and Billy Graham became lifelong friends after Louis saw Billy Graham preach. Graham’s sermon encouraged Louis to accept Christ. Louis Zamperini and Billy Graham undertook projects together to encourage people to seek forgiveness and find Christianity.
Louis Zamperini and Billy Graham: An Awakening
In late 1949, Billy Graham, a young unknown man at the time, came to Los Angeles and performed a miracle. He set up what would become a massive revival residency. In just a month, he went from having 2,000 attendants at his sermons to 10,000. Word spread around the city and made its way to Cynthia. She begged Louie to take her, but he refused, so Cynthia went by herself.
Cynthia and Louie were living separate lives in the same apartment. She was still planning on filing for a divorce, but after she attended Graham’s sermon, she came home and told Louie the divorce was off. She’d had a religious awakening, and she wanted Louie to come next time to experience it. After much persistence, Louie finally agreed to go. He didn’t know it then, but it was the beginning of a friendship between Louis Zamperini and Billy Graham.
That first night, Louie became angry when Graham asked the congregation how long it had been since they’d prayed. The words poked at a dormant memory fighting to get out, and Louie felt cornered. At the next sermon, which Cynthia again persuaded him to attend, Graham said something that changed everything: “God works miracles one after another…. God says, ‘If you suffer, I’ll give you the grace to go forward.” To Louis Zamperini, Billy Graham’s words meant something.
Louie saw the morning in the doldrums, when he was certain they’d been led there by divine intervention. He saw the wires entangling his body as the Green Hornet sank and waking to find them inexplicably fallen away. He saw the Japanese plane shooting at their rafts but not one of them hit. He saw the prison camps and all he’d endured. Then his mind landed on the memory scratching at the surface—praying in the raft and promising to serve God if he saved him.
At that moment, Louie felt rain falling from the sky as he hunkered down in the raft. The flashback stopped, and he was suddenly filled with light. When they returned home, Louie threw out every bottle of alcohol and vice he’d used during the last years of despair. That night, he didn’t dream of the Bird. He would never have a flashback or dream of the Bird again. To Louis Zamperini, Billy Graham changed his life.
The Calling
Louis was a new man with a new purpose. When he thought of his past now, he only thought of the graciousness of God to help him survive. He became a Christan speaker, adding his awakening to his previous story. He saved up enough money to buy a small house for his family. But there was a question he still needed an answer to, and he had to go to Japan to get it.
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Like what you just read? Read the rest of the world's best summary of Laura Hillenbrand's "Unbroken" at Shortform .
Here's what you'll find in our full Unbroken summary :
- How Louie Zamperini was on track to become an Olympic athlete until the war started
- The unbelievable story of his capture as a prisoner of war
- The ultimate fate of Louie and his captors
