Heaven’s Rain recreates an amazing true story of forgiveness with a so-so movie treatment. For sure, this independent film—now available on DVD—has some strong qualities and is far better than most you’ll see from the faith-based market. I just can’t help thinking such a powerful tale deserves an equally powerful production.
When you are passionate about someone or something, you do not take no for an answer. You are unstoppable in your determination to find a way. You get creative. Passion drove Nick to get up at five in the morning to get to the pool before me. Passion drove him to finish his college assignments late into the night so he could volunteer at the youth center. Passion kept him coming back when I would get fearful and push him away. Passion made him wear great aftershave and even buy clothes that both fit and matched!
Passion will enable you to do what you would never do if you didn’t have it.
When Nick asked me to marry him, I was shocked. Would God possibly give me both ministry and marriage? Could he? Was this part of my race? I’d believed I could accomplish far more for the gospel as a single woman. I was so focused on maximizing every minute of every day for the call of God in my life, I couldn’t imagine making room in my life for a husband and a family.
One night, I was speaking at a youth rally of about a thousand kids. Before I stepped onto the stage I prayed, Father, if I’m going to go further with this guy, I have to know that I’m going to do more for your kingdom married than I am single. Otherwise, I’ve given my life to you and I just want to stay single. I have to know. Do I keep dating this guy?
I sensed God’s response to me out of Deuteronomy 32:30, which says, “How could one man chase a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight?”
Chris, God was saying to me, you can choose whichever one you want. If you don’t marry Nick, this is what you will have. You will have one thousand, like tonight. For your whole life wherever you go, I’ll use you. But one will chase one thousand to flight. Two will put ten thousand to flight. So if you do marry him, you will have a tenfold impact for my kingdom.
I called Nick and told him my conviction that if we married, I believed we would have a far greater impact ministering together than I had ever had alone. But… I would not be a traditional wife. Could he cope with that?
“Christine,” he said, “what am I supposed to tell God on judgment day? Am I supposed to say, ‘Lord, I’m sorry for all the millions of people who did not hear the gospel because I was too insecure to let Christine go out and evangelize’? That I wanted my underwear washed and my clothes ironed and a nice home-cooked meal every night? So I’m sorry that I never let her go. And I’m sorry that all these people went to hell?”
Nick wanted me to keep running the race. He did not want me to stop or slow down. He simply wanted us to run together. I was too stunned for words and overcome with the gift God had given me in this man — a man who would join me in ministry. He was so secure in himself and his relationship with God that having a wife in a leadership role in a national ministry was not a threat to him but an honor. He was okay with me, a woman on the stage, and he backstage, a spiritual warrior in our ministry. How could it be that this man, so passionate for the cause of Christ, was also passionately in love with me?
I thought, Lord, I can marry that kind of man.
And so I did. That is the power of passion!
Passion enlarged my heart. Not only was I still passionate for the cause of Christ and pursuing my purpose, but now I was also passionate about this amazing man of God. My goal did not change. Together, we would run toward the finish line. It was Jesus and always would be. God did not give me the baton of marriage to drop the baton of ministry; he gave me Nick to help carry the baton of ministry. God gave me the gift of the most determined, committed, selfless, unstoppable man I’ve ever met. A man so secure in his identity in Jesus Christ and his calling that he could break through the unseen, unrealized walls of my heart and take me deeper into the power of love than I had ever imagined possible.
Here we are two decades and two children later. We are still running our race. Still passionate about each other. Still passionately pursuing the cause of Christ.
Don’t get me wrong. We have had ups and downs and challenges to overcome, but our overriding passionate commitment to
Christ and to one another has enabled us to keep running this race together when we might otherwise have given up. Passion is not a momentary, fleeting emotion but the fuel of God in us, enabling us to be unstoppable as we run our race and finish our course.
Taken from Unstoppable: Running the Race You Were Born to Win by Christine Caine. Copyright © 2014. Used by permission of Zondervan.
Christine Caine is a best-selling author, global evangelist, and human-trafficking activist. Her latest project is Propel Women, a training program for Christian women in the marketplace.
At the age of 27, Brooks Douglass, the son of a missionary pastor, was the youngest state senator ever elected to office in Oklahoma. But eleven years earlier in 1979, his family suffered a horrific tragedy. Two drifters arrived at their home, bound 16-year-old Brooks and his parents hand and foot, then led 12-year-old sister Leslie upstairs and raped her. Afterward, the men shot the four family members before escaping, leaving them all for dead. Brooks and Leslie survived and drove to a neighbor’s home for medical attention.
The story doesn’t end there, of course. Brooks and Leslie both dealt with deep emotional scars in the years that followed (and to this day, undoubtedly). If Heaven’s Rain focused more on that, it might have yielded deeper resonance. What helped these siblings along in the ’80s? Faith? Friendship? There’s reference to Brooks working his way through college and then joining Special Forces before eventually taking office, and Leslie surely found psychological care to aid in emotional recovery over time. But Heaven’s Rain skirts most of that, breaking the cardinal rule of “Show, Don’t Tell” in a film that needed to better share these details.
Instead the movie relies on heavy—and disjointed—use of flashbacks to detail Brooks’ life in the Amazon rainforest bonding with his father (played by none other than the real-life Brooks, who also co-wrote). These scenes are sometimes touching, but the flashbacks are too frequent without always justifying their relevance to the present day scenes surrounding them.
Muddled storytelling and pokey pacing aside, the filmmaking is still strong, on par with most independent productions seen in art house theaters today. Director and co-writer Paul Brown has a strong TV resume that ranges from The X-Files and Quantum Leap to Pacific Blue and the recent Camp Rock movies. It also helps that the film relies on experienced unknowns for actors rather than amateurs. And the filmmakers handle the difficult subject matter with great sensitivity. Though rated R for some disturbing violent content, there are only brief flashes to the night of the murder—it’s not much worse than what is shown in TV crime procedurals these days.
Without giving too much away, Heaven’s Rain is strongest in the final thirty minutes when Leslie recollects her side of the ordeal to a reporter and Brooks makes a brave confrontation. These scenes are positively electrifying in content and acting. If only the rest of the movie was equal to the task, but Heaven’s Rain still serves as a loving testament from son to father, and an impactful testimony about loving our enemies while forgiving ourselves.
Here’s the trailer:
