The Difference

Captain Ronald Perkins, a Marine who has come home from serving overseas in Rakistan with a badly injured hand, is struggling to find his place in ordinary life. His wife Carla bakes a carrot cake to celebrate some good news: through a coworker, she has lined up a well-paying sales job for him at a software company. But Ron turns it down flat, insisting sales isn't the right fit and that he doesn't need anyone finding him work. His daughter Bridget bluntly tells him that he needs a purpose, and though she softens her words at the last moment, Ron can tell she was about to say something harder. Later, when Bridget catches him snapping his laptop shut, he claims he's only emailing a Marine friend.

Feeling like he's losing his family, Ron visits Whit at the ice cream shop, warning him he doesn't want a religious lecture. He admits that everything with Carla now takes careful calculation, that his kids don't respect him, and that ever since his injury he can't serve, can't work, and can't even cut his own steak. Whit, who carries his own war wounds from Guadalcanal, gently suggests the real problem lies deeper than the injury: Ron is fighting God, and he needs to surrender and forgive. "Unforgiveness is a prison," Whit tells him.

Meanwhile, Bridget confesses to her brother Wyatt that she used their dad's password to read his email and discovered he has asked a Marine general to reassign him to any job at all. She's convinced he wants to get away from them, but Wyatt defends their father, saying he just doesn't fit in anywhere and is trying to figure things out. Bridget challenges Wyatt to make his Christianity useful and pray, and Wyatt answers that he already has been.

At dinner, Carla surprises Ron with concert tickets, but Ron announces he's been summoned to Washington by General Wilcox, with no explanation except to pack his dress blues. Before he leaves, Carla shows him a box of "stress monkeys" she squeezed to cope while he was deployed, and explains she packed them away the day she first prayed. She promises that no matter what decisions he makes, she will stick by him forever.

In Washington, Ron gets a shock: in a month, at a ceremony in Arlington, he will receive the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star for risking his life to save a fellow Marine under heavy fire, the very act that cost him his hand. The general hands him the nomination letters written by his squad, and one letter stops Ron cold. Skipping dinner with the officers, he goes straight to visit its author, Lucas, the man Ron carried a mile and a half on his back. Ron apologizes for once calling Lucas weak when Lucas had really stood by his convictions, and admits he has been angry at everyone and everything since coming home. For the sake of his family and himself, he tells Lucas he forgives him, even though Lucas did nothing wrong, just so he can finally move on.

Lucas then shares his own story, showing Ron a bent gear shift from the car he crashed at twenty-one after drinking, a wreck that shattered his younger brother's leg and ended his baseball dreams. His brother forgave him instantly, but Lucas was crushed by guilt for years, until a church sermon about the Apostle Paul led him to Christ. God lifted his guilt, and now the gear shift reminds him not of his mistake but of grace. He tells Ron plainly that Lucas isn't the only one Ron needs to forgive, and that real healing begins with asking God's forgiveness.

The next morning, Ron cuts his trip short and withdraws his request for a new assignment. At the airport, Wyatt calls and admits Bridget read the email and everyone knows. Instead of being hurt, Wyatt tells his dad, "We're a family. And you're my dad." Ron realizes what makes Wyatt and Carla different: Jesus.

Back home, Ron knocks on his own front door with flowers and asks Carla on a date to the concert after all. On the back porch under the stars, he shows her a compass that belonged to Tony, a friend who died overseas. Though Ron had spoken as if Lucas were to blame, he confesses he truly blamed himself for Tony's death, and kept the compass as a reminder of his mistake. Now it reminds him of how God freed him from that guilt. Then he asks Carla to pray with him, for their marriage, their kids, and his new life in Christ, asking her to teach him how. Overjoyed, Carla can only say, "Welcome home." Ron agrees: it's good to be home.