Well, this is one of the more incredible testimonies you will ever see.
Phan Thi Kim Phúc is an unfamiliar name in our culture today. Most of us, however, have seen the horrific images of the “Napalm Girl” running in panic, naked, down the street shortly after a bomb landed nearby and burned the clothes right off her body.
A photographer snapped a picture that would forever change her life — even more so than the injuries she sustained.
Watch her powerful testimony. Continue reading below the video.
She was so traumatized by not only the attack, which she recalls in vivid detail. “I saw the airplane and it’s so loud, so close to me. Suddenly, the fire everywhere around me. The fire burned off my clothes, and I saw my arm burned with the fire.” she explained.
With the picture of her naked now everwhere, she became ashamed, as not only was the picture public but the video of her running down the street naked as well, badly burned.
By 1982, she was suicidal, because, as she says, “I thought after I die, no more suffering, no more pain.”
At her most desperate hour, as she contemplated the horrific decision of taking her own life, God had other plans. She “found” the New Testament in the library in Saigon.
By Christmas of that year, she had become a Christian.
“Since I’ve had faith, my enemies list became my prayer list,” she said, before tearfully recalling realizing that she had “love” inside of her instead of wallowing hatred. “Forgiveness set my heart free. I forgive everyone who caused my suffering. Even the pilot, commander, people controlling me,” she said.
She also discussed having children, and when they were old enough, sharing the story with them. Her son’s reaction was incredibly sweet. “Mommy, hurt here?” he said, before kissing her scars.
An interviewer asks what she thinks of now when she sees the picture taken on that horrific day in Vietnam. “Now, I can see the picture. I am so thankful.”
God, who is sovereign over all things, has a purpose in all things — even the bad, even the horrible. Praise Him for leading this brave woman to the Bible in her hour of need, and for using her story as a searing testimony on the power of forgiveness and faith!