Running the Race

Guided by Pastor Knox, Bridget Perkins finds herself stepping into scenes from the life of Eric Liddell, the Olympic champion who left fame behind to serve as a missionary. The story picks up at Eric's little family home in Tianjin, China. Bridget can hardly believe he traded everything for such a humble life, and she wonders aloud how anyone could call it anything but a waste. To see it for herself, she takes on the role of NeNe, the family's faithful nursemaid, now thirty years older than when Eric was a boy.

Inside the house, Eric and his wife Florence are celebrating the birth of their second daughter, Heather, a little sister for Patricia. As they talk, Eric reminds NeNe of the days after his childhood illness, when his father urged him to run again and he kept failing. Eric reveals something he never told her: he was ready to quit until he overheard NeNe say his running days were over. Wanting to prove her wrong, he suddenly found he truly believed his father's words, that he could do all things through Christ who strengthens him. Bridget, speaking as NeNe, admits her worry that wartime China is no place to raise children, and Florence confesses she has thought the same. It is 1937, and war has just begun between China and Japan. Eric acknowledges the danger but insists the family must trust God, who brought them there and holds the future.

Four years later the news grows darker. A letter from a friend in Germany describes Jews being rounded up by the Nazis and shipped off to camps, and the British government warns all its citizens to leave China or face deportation, or worse, prison. Florence then shares startling news of her own: she is expecting a third child. Eric puts his family on a Japanese ship bound for safety, reasoning that with the Imperial fleet controlling the Pacific, it is the safest passage. He himself stays behind to keep the mission going, though the separation is a bitter pill. On deck he reminds NeNe of the ship that once carried him away to boarding school as a boy, when he declared that with Jesus he was never alone and always had the best friend. He makes young Patricia promise to look after her mother, her sister, and the new baby, blesses his family, and watches them sail away.

The war worsens after Pearl Harbor. Eric treasures a photograph of Maureen, the newborn daughter he has never held, until Japanese soldiers arrive at the mission and order him relocated at once to a civilian assembly center.

The scene shifts, and Bridget becomes Sarah, a new arrival at the Weihsien internment camp. A gaunt, cheerful man welcomes her; she barely recognizes Eric, whom the children all call Uncle Eric. The camp, once a college campus, is now ringed with guards and barbed wire, plagued by filth, bedbugs, hunger, and no running water. Yet Eric jokes that things could be worse: "It could be raining." If you can laugh, he tells her, you have hope, no matter your circumstances; that is the secret of being content. He keeps the camp's many children busy with chores, lessons from the missionary teacher Watson Hayes, and footraces. When a boy named Thomas refuses to race because of his bad leg, Eric confides that people once called him the ugliest runner they had ever seen, and they were right, but he ran anyway and loved it. Later, Eric gives Thomas the worn cleats he wore to win Olympic gold, hoping they will inspire the boy to keep running no matter what anyone says. He also comforts Mrs. Walters, a woman expecting a baby in the camp, promising that new life is always a welcome miracle and that everyone will care for her.

But Eric himself is failing, troubled by headaches and dizzy spells he waves away. At the Christmas Eve service he tells the weary, despairing camp about his old strategy for the 400 meters: run the first 200 as hard as he can, then, with God's help, run the second 200 even harder. "We are in the second 200 meters now," he declares, urging them to stay firm, feel God's pleasure, and finish the race. Moments later he collapses.

In the infirmary, Bridget discovers a letter revealing that Japan has offered Churchill Eric's release because he is a celebrity. She begs him to accept and go home to his family, but Eric quietly refuses. His life, he says, is not about him, and someone in the camp needs freedom far more than he does. He gives his place to the astonished Mrs. Walters so her child can have a decent birth. Soon afterward, too weak to rise, Eric listens as the Salvation Army band, at Mr. Hayes's request, plays his favorite hymn, "Be Still, My Soul." He recites its words about bearing grief patiently and trusting a faithful God, and tells Sarah he has never regretted giving up fame, for a life counts for far more in this work than in running. The most important race of his life was never on the cinder track. When she asks how he can be so content, he answers, "That's the secret. It's complete surrender." With that, Eric Liddell slips away.

Back in the present, Bridget tells the pastor she finally understands that Eric meant every word, and that a person really can be committed and content at the same time through complete surrender. She apologizes for a critical letter she wrote out of worry for her brother Wyatt, and even volunteers to drive other kids to the upcoming youth retreat. As she leaves, the pastor breathes a grateful prayer: a step in the right direction.