6 of 6

In Sandy Pollard's experience, yes. She wrote to tell me about a personal crisis in her own life, and how she found healing in part due to Steven Spielberg's film The Color Purple.

Involved in an unhealthy and damaging relationship, Pollard felt trapped. "I saw no way out of my situation. I felt as though God had abandoned me at times, leaving me to trudge on in hopelessness. I lost view of the big picture.

As I watched Celie's story play out over the years in that wonderful film, and realized that God was indeed at work in her life, and in the lives of others, I began to hope that my situation would someday change. As Celie poured her heart out to God in her letters to him, he did indeed answer her prayers . …not in her timing, but in his. He turned Earth upside down to insure that her children would be protected, by, of all people, the person that Celie loved the most, their Aunt. He eventually returned the children to their mother . …and all of the characters in the movie experienced redemption; through bitter providence, but redemption nonetheless. I have raised my three children as a single mother. But God began to work in my heart, and like Celie, I experienced transforming redemption because of the circumstances I had experienced. Looking back, I can see the hand of God, moving heaven and Earth to protect my children and me, until we could experience the grace and forgiveness that he wanted us to know. My children and I have all become believers, I have grandchildren who are precious, and we spend our lives happily pursuing the God that pursued us for so long.

Looking at the big picture of Celie's life in that film was one of the biggest motivators in an otherwise dark time for me. I will always be grateful to Alice Walker for having the courage to write of redemption and to Steven Spielberg for so beautifully transferring the story to film.

Writing from Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Scott Grandi has another recommendation for readers. He writes about Roland Joffe's The Mission, which stars Jeremy Irons as a Jesuit priest and Robert DeNiro as a troubled soldier who has different ideas about how God's work gets done. "The Mission challenges you from the first scene—a priest tied to a cross sent over the falls—to the last. The scene where the former conquistador is climbing the falls dragging his old armor, and has it cut off, is one of the finest pictures of grace I have seen in a movie."

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

first page |  6 of 6

share this page

June (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45