Few genres of books are more inspirational to me than good old-fashioned biographies. My holiday read this year was Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. She is the author of another favorite book and movie, Seabiscuit.

I can’t even put into words how disturbing and how moving this story is. Sometimes truth is far more amazing than fiction. Louis Zamperini, who ran in the 1936 Olympics along with the likes of Jesse Owens, survived 47 days on the ocean in a shark-encircled life raft after his plane, the Green Hornet, crashed. But things went from bad to worse. He was captured by the Japanese and endured more than two years of emotionally humiliating and physically destructive captivity. How he survived is a testament to one of God’s greatest gifts: human resilience.

The thing that caught me off guard was the post-war ending. He put his faith in Christ at a Billy Graham crusade and it totally changed his life. He stopped having nightmares of his chief tormentor, The Bird. It set him free from alcoholism and saved his marriage. His life did a complete 180.

I was so inspired that I’m trying to see if we can get him to speak at NCC. He would be our second 93 year-old speaker. The first was one of my personal heroes, Stanley Tam. Hoping we can land a second.