Soul Surfer, a new in-theater movie, was released on April 8th, 2011. The movie is based on a true story about a young surfer whose arm was bitten off in a shark attack. Anna Sophia Robb stars as Bethany Hamilton, the girl who lost her arm, and throughout the movie, she finds herself overcoming a hardship so great that she eventually begins to question her faith in God. Carrie Underwood makes her first-ever motion picture debut as a Sunday school teacher who helps Bethany overcome her loss. Dennis Quaid and Helen Hint are cast as her parents who help her regain her strength both physically and mentally, restore her passion for surfing, and most of all, her faith in God.
Born in Kauai, Hawaii on February 8, 1990, the real Bethany Hamilton was surfing off the North Shores of Kauai on October 31, 2003. After a fourteen-foot tiger shark bit off her arm, she lost sixty percent of her body’s blood, yet remained calm all the way to the hospital. She went through many surgeries without infection and was on her way to a recovery with a fully positive attitude. Doctors and lifeguards, who helped with her rescue, believed that her calmness came strongly from her faith in God and her strong sense in the water.
Since then, only a month after the attack, training began for her to start surfing again. A few months later, Bethany returned to competing against other surfers. In her comeback since the attack, placing fifth in the Open Women’s division was only one of the many successes soon to come. A year after the attack, Hamilton continued to win competitions and finally placed first in Explorer Women’s division in Nationals.
Yet winning these small competitions wasn’t enough; she still had the desire to go pro. In 2007, she realized what she wanted, trained longer, prayed harder, and participated in numerous World Tour events. She went on and placed second in the ASP World Junior Championships in 2009.
Hamilton, now twenty-one, has touched so many people; she has told her biography in many talk shows, TV shows, and to crowds of young individuals. Since the attack that changed her life forever, she has written numerous books and biographies of her life story. She has created her own blog, has her own website and even created an organization that supports other individuals just like her. Bethany Hamilton is the living, breathing, true model of inspiration. At such a young age, she overcame a tragedy that changed her life.
Bethany’s story has inspired so many people, has been told thousands of times, and is now made into a major motion picture. Her story instilled hope in those who thought they couldn’t go on, those who had given up, and the few that lost their faith in God. She continues to share her story and gives courage to those who thought they lost it. This movie will help and encourage young adults that, even if you lose a limb, or lose what you think could have been your future, that there is another future waiting for you. You just have to be the one to find it.