By Cecelia Campbell Livingston
Miracles From Heaven is the perfect movie to watch with your family. Whether Christian or unsaved, it is a conversation starter when it comes to how a family should respond to challenges by turning their focus to where it really belongs – the Lord.
As the plot unfolds, the viewer is caught up in the challenges and conflicts the family goes through as they try to deal with the very real possibility that they could lose a beloved member. Being Christians, it is even harder for them to constantly pray and look for some glimmer of hope.
There are some tear-jerking moments in the film as the family’s unrelenting anguish takes the viewer on an emotional roller-coaster ride. If you love a movie that brings the tears, Miracles From Heaven is a stalk reminder of life’s realities and what families actually endure.
The Cast and Storyline
Based on the memoir by Texas mother Christy Beam, “Miracles From Heaven” focuses on the relationship between Christy (Jennifer Garner, of “Pearl Harbour”, “The Adams Project,” and Dare Devil”) and her middle daughter Anna (Kylie Rogers). Their family is happy and loving, but money is already a little tight when the family opens a veterinary clinic, and then Anna gets mysteriously sick.
Doctors initially diagnose chronic abdominal pain as lactose intolerance, but Christy disagrees and enters full Mama Bear mode in an effort to determine what is wrong with Anna. Christy’s faith is tested, however, when they discovered that Anna has a rare and fatal gastrointestinal illness that stops her from digesting food and manifests in a horrifyingly enlarged stomach and excruciating suffering. How was it possible for God to allow this to happen to her daughter and her family?
Anna accidentally falls 30 feet on her head while climbing a hollow tree in the famil’s backyard, which further complicates matters. Anna should have died in the accident, but she is now healthy. Was God, with whom Christy had previously been so angry, answering her prayers? Is it Anna’s imagination, or did she genuinely have a heavenly experience when she says that someone informed her she would be healthy again?
There are lessons to be learned from this movie as families get a blueprint for handling health crises. They can either fall apart, turn on each other, or turn to the source of true strength.
Not all will experience a miracle, but all can experience the peace, calm, and contentment to handle what life throws their way.
It’s a feel-good movie that makes a perfect fit in the midst of all the immoral content up for grabs on the media landscape.
