Second Edition featuring Rudy Kalis
How Michael was set free
Julie finds light in the darkness of postpartum
How Ben overcame hopelessness and found purpose
How Sarah Taylor survived attempted abduction
As her dreams crumbled around her, Hanna felt lost, facing rejection, grief, and failure. Watch her film to see how she found an identity she can live with.
Darrin Ray was born with a cleft palate and facial deformities and endured years of surgeries and bullying. He often wondered why God would make him this way.
Then a severe car accident involving a drunk driver left him with even more injuries and more doubts.
Fear haunted Danny Gokey, singer and American Idol contestant. He feared that God would leave him and feared that God would refuse his prayers. All his life he battled with questioning if God could be trusted to remain faithful. When his wife later faced a losing battle with a congenital heart condition, all his childhood doubts came rushing back. While his worst fear became reality, he’d face the ultimate question: would he give in to his fear or give his trust to God even in death.
In 2008 Michelle shocked television viewers with a 110 pound weight loss over a short period of time to win NBC’s Biggest Loser: Families. In her I Am Second White Chair film, released shortly after her victory, Michelle discussed just how important the show and competition would be towards making a change in her life and family relationships.
Now over a decade later, in this Second Edition, Michelle details just how much her life has changed, from her marriage to her subsequent weight gain and loss, motherhood, and establishing her true identity. It’s clear that while the scale may have defined her Biggest Loser victory it no longer controls her life.
In this Second Edition film, Doug goes deeper into his personal story, revealing his discoveries about loneliness and anxiety, and how he came to fully trust God despite some very dark and empty times. This Second Edition film covers Doug's journey through a learning disability called face-blindness, the heartbreak of miscarriages, and recovering from the loss of a child.
Donna Ward’s life seemed to be going exactly as she hoped – she married her high-school sweetheart, baseball player-turned-coach, Turner Ward, and had a family she loved. But with just three words, “It is cancer,” everything changed.
She had a double mastectomy, then a recovery that proved to be both physically and emotionally traumatic. She experienced pain on a daily basis and struggled to see her post-surgery body as beautiful. "It was heartbreaking to see yourself and feel like a beast, an alien." And with Turner on the road with the team, Donna feared facing all of this alone.
But in the midst of the pain, Donna and Turner found unexpected strength and hope.
Paul Goldschmidt always made baseball number one in his life. He knew that making it as 1 of only 750 Major League Baseball players was a risky endeavor. But he determined to give everything he had to winning a slot in the big leagues. And when he won it, he knew keeping it meant an absurd level of dedication to his craft. Faith, family, and life off the field, all needed to take a backseat to his goal.
Then, he asked his hitting coach, Turner Ward, “How can I be better.” The answer he got back surprised him. Playing better ball, he was told, meant putting something else at the top of his life.
Beth Nimmo and TJ Stevens are not people you’d expect to sit down for a talk. Beth lost her daughter in the school shooting that shook the nation’s conscience at Columbine High School. A decade and a half prior, TJ had walked into his high school armed with a rifle and began to shoot. Voices battled in his head for the next twenty-one hours as he held nine people hostage, threatening to kill them and himself. Now, TJ, the school shooter, and Beth, the mother whose daughter was slain at Columbine, sit down to talk for the very first time.
Dealing with the pain was less scary than the pain of what it would take to change.
Life is such a journey. Every step of it, good or bad, is still beautiful.
As Josh Turner looks back over nearly two decades of country music success since then, he also sees a stream of injuries, surgeries, and other physical challenges. They all sum up to a fight for the very survival of his dream to sing and perform. In this film, he shares the challenges he’s facing and the dream that inspires him to carry on.
When Moriah Peters Smallbone filmed her White Chair Film at 20 years old, she told us how she experienced peace in the midst of disappointment by choosing to trust in God’s plan for her music and career. She smiled wide as she showed us her engagement ring and described holding that same trust for her upcoming marriage to her husband Joel Smallbone.
This package includes two HD versions of the film, a thought-provoking discussion series centered around the story and excerpts from the film that support each lesson in the discussion series.
This package includes two HD versions of the film and Movin' Weight, the inspired by soundtrack that features music from the documentary and new music from No Malice himself.
This package includes two HD versions of the film, the discussion series, film excerpts for the discussion series, and Movin' Weight, the inspired by soundtrack which features music from The End of Malice.
I couldn't fake it anymore.
I have spent an entire lifetime struggling.
I really started longing for that attention and that love.
"I don't want to be in a box anymore, I don't want to play it safe." - Joanna Gaines
I think I'm probably more known for my health problems now than I am for anything I ever did on skates.
When you know who you are, everything else dissipates.
My marriage wasn’t the fairytale I dreamed about.
I had a hard heart because of my childhood.
Eating was the one thing in my life that I could control.
I went to sleep and woke up in the hospital three weeks later.
I knew if I could grab hold of a piece of hope my home life would be better, and it has been.
It wasn't a physical suffering, but I was suffering on the inside.
And I thought, what if my high school could do something with this excessive tradition to give people in the Sudan clean water?
I was never caught but I was terrified of losing my reputation.
I was looking for the hole, an emptiness and I tried to fill it in all the wrong places.
Growing up, I was constantly reminded that I was a second class citizen.
I was hurting so badly I wanted to die.
My injury was painful, but the promise is greater.
There's always something bigger behind whatever you're doing.
There are different kinds of emptiness, but it’s emptiness none the less.
Nothing can stop a destiny of greatness.
it’s hard to get a balance between reality and people making you more important than you really are.
Something was still missing.
I remember thinking that I would not be like my dad.
Life is so short, and so urgent.
A childlike faith, in the bright lights of Hollywood, brings joy and hope to millions.
We had the perfect marriage, the second time around.
In my mind I thought if I tell everybody everything that I'm going through, that they'll leave me too.
It’s always going to be a comforting feeling knowing there’s someone there who’s got my back no matter how I play.
I stopped cutting myself because I had something to live for.
When I got fired I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.
I gained cleaner purpose for life, after losing my father.
I lost the election, but not my soul.
I'm definitely not perfect. But at the same time, nobody is.
The culture as it was at the time was so controlled by the government—everything was very based on fear.
We drove each other into someone else’s arms.
I was doing all the things that I had promised and wanted never to do to my children.
I had a job and a profession and that’s a cool thing to have, but it wasn’t who I was.
You can live a life with principle or you can choose to live a life with preference.
I just loved everything Cowboys stood for.
I thought I would die when I heard the words cancer.
I got a rude awakening about who I was and what my color was all about.
Despite incurable cancer, I am content with my life.
From that first bump of cocaine, it was the love of my life.
Trying to have a good time was destroying me.
I felt a desperate need to be free, but everything was forbidden.
I wanted to be like my father. To have all the things he did, and to be respected like he was.
Why aren't I happy? There's money in the bank. There's cars. Why aren't I satisfied?
I had to reach the bottom before I could open my eyes.
I was judged off of a picture, because of the color of my skin.
I created this guy that everybody loved, and I went home and didn't like myself.
I just felt a sense of filth. Just dirt. Terrified that I had some kind of disease.
I had nothing I needed. I had everything.
I thought I had the world in a choke hold. I was bringing my A game in life.
My NFL dream came true...after God took over.
When you win they all lift you up and its easy to think it is all about you.
I was so worried all the time, I had so much anxiety about my own life.
I had to hit bottom before I would listen.
I believed the lie that it was too complicated or that I didn’t need it.
I faked my own kidnapping to get out of the pressure.
I was convinced I didn't have any friends.
When you leave a pimp, you leave with nothing.
Coaching football is a series of peaks and valleys.
I thought no one would love me and my life was ruined.
You never think, 'I'll get married and then I'll get divorced.'
They put my body on a table in the corner and left me for dead.
Redemption Island was exactly where I needed to be.
Pensé que era imposible perdonar algo así.
(This is a Spanish language film without subtitles)
El perdón es más fácil porque Dios me ha perdonado.
(This is a Spanish language film without subtitles)
All I could think of was my boy growing up not knowing his father.
I was born the wrong color, in the wrong neighborhood.
You can only run the ol' sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll so far.
I thought it was all about me, until I found someone to fill a hole I had in me.
When you are abused, you feel less than human.
I knew, at that moment, that the Lord has a purpose for my life.
This is something special, something powerful, and I want to be a part of it.
To really know that my life is not meaningless, that's freedom.
La búsqueda de una figura paterna me llevó a muchos problemas.
(This is a Spanish language film without subtitles)
The biggest doubt I had, was whether this was the right choice.
Of course I want to live a long life, who doesn’t? It’s not my plan though. It’s His plan. And His plan is perfect.
“Little by little, it became my career.”
Mi esposa me dijo, "mira que tienes que tomar una decisión, la fama o tu familia."
(This is a Spanish Film without subtitles)
Beating me, punching me, split my lip open, broke my ribs...that was the day that changed me.
I was waiting for this supernatural moment, but it didn't happen.
I've been fighting for this marriage and its not working.
I heard people talk about God and how great He was, and He didn’t seem great in my life.
They labeled me as the virgin bachelor.
I had reached my dreams, everything I thought was cool, and it just wasn’t working.
I had this hate in my heart. I was out of control.
Trying to act like someone you aren’t and trying to look like someone you will never be is exhausting and draining.
When you've got heroin addicts telling you that they're afraid to hang out with you, you might have issues.
I've done some things, but I'm able to be free from those things because of Jesus Christ.
I wanted to feel. I wanted to be a real person again.
I had to die in order to have a chance to live.
"God used her to save me, to save her life later on."
"I felt that something was missing."
It drives me to be better every day.
I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't concentrate. The anxiety took me.
Being able to turn to Jesus after the shark attack kept me alive.
Burned but not broken in the Pentagon attack.
I picked up that call with a lot of fear, thinking it would be the worst news of my life.
I listened to God in making movies, and needed to listen to Him about my own life.
You're not tall enough. You're our smart enough. You're not thin enough, fat enough, whatever it was. It was always something.
I want my music to offer the hope and encouragement I didn’t get.
As much as football defines me in this world, it doesn’t define me as a person.
I kept asking "Why me?" I realized that it’s not about me.
I was tired of chasing these temporary satisfactions that I was having.
I couldn’t deny something that had revealed itself to be true to me.
I wanted to be able to fit in.
I bought into the deception that there was something better.
If I renew my mind, then my actions will definitely follow.
I hurt myself. I hurt my friends. I hurt girls. Because I was afraid of being hurt.
Baseball is a difficult game and it can drive you crazy.
As a 20 yr-old athlete I had everything the world said should make me happy...
It just gets to the point where you just see the bad and the negative in everything and everyone, and you stop seeing the good.
An act of friendship led me to an even greater friend.
That’s the moment I realized it’s not about the money, or the fame, or the glory.
Change is difficult. It’s a process that can be messy and complicated and painful. In this Second Edition, years after Brian’s first film, his story is still a story of the hope he found in that moment with God where he felt his life begin to change, but it’s also about all the moments after – moments of loss, pain, uncertainty, trust and ultimately, restoration.
“When I found out I was pregnant it was the greatest moment in the world because it was basically God’s miracle of, yes, you’ve hurt your body for so many years, but this can still happen.”
I always felt like I needed to be the one to make things happen in my life
I Am Second Conversations – Michael and Tiffany Michael is a former neo-nazi whose life was defined by rejection and hate. Tiffany is an African-American probation officer assigned to his case. Today they sit down for an I Am Second conversation, side by side, to talk about the day that Tiffany came to Michael’s house, knowing who he was on paper – his record, and the symbols of hate on his walls and his skin – but open to the possibility of a life transformed, ready to work for radical change. “Can I ask you a serious question?” Michael asks. Tiffany nods. “Why did you believe in me so much? Why did you keep coming back? Why did you want to help me to change?…The things I did in my past, the people I’ve hurt…How can you love somebody like that? How can somebody respect me, accept me with the things I did? That’s why I had all that hate in me, because who would want me?” These are difficult questions, but Tiffany doesn’t hesitate. She gives her answer, calm and sure. “God,” she says.
“There’s failures and then there’s successes, and then there’s knock-downs and then it’s getting up, and it’s been kind of the story of my life.”
When we first sat down with retired figure skating champion and Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton seven years ago, we were profoundly affected by his calm strength and peaceful spirit as he described facing down fear, pain and uncertainty – moving through them to finding a new beginning again and again. In this follow up to his original conversation with us, we found ourselves inspired anew by the way his courage and commitment has only grown deeper.
“I’ve never been more content, and I’ve never been more in love, and I’ve never been more at peace than I am in my faith.”
In the time since his first I Am Second film, Scott and his wife Tracie adopted a son and daughter into their family. He’s continued to lean into the challenge of finding growth and grace in difficulty, championing connection where there is division, and reaching for hope in the face of the impossible.
In the six years since Jason “Propaganda” Petty’s original conversation with I Am Second, the rapper and poet has recorded two albums, released a volume of poetry, launched a podcast in collaboration with his wife Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty, and welcomed his second daughter into the world. But, these significant personal, creative and career moments have woven through a volatile and difficult time in our culture that, for Jason, came to a head with the death of Eric Garner in 2014. “The trauma of witnessing the death of men that look and talk just like me – witnessing them die…and then to watch no charges being brought.” It’s a season in our history that has hit so many in a deep and visceral place – and one that left Jason questioning why, instead of uniting and rallying us in a collective outcry, deaths like Eric Garner’s have further divided and isolated us. He moved through the depression and anxiety of bearing witness to violence and hatred, examining the source and expression of his own faith and creativity, looking for a place to land. “My survival – my meal – is intimately tied to yours. We’re literally in this together…and if we’re gonna get through this, we’re gonna get through this together.” It’s a truth both simple and deeply complex – one that strikes at the heart of Jason’s faith, defining his perspective and galvanizing his art.
“We never would have made it if it wasn’t for our foundation in our Faith in God”
As Jameel McGee was buying milk and groceries for his brand new baby boy, an Officer steps into change and tie their lives forever. A true story of racial reconciliation and radical forgiveness. A crooked cop, an innocent man, and an unlikely journey of forgiveness and friendship. Racial tensions had long simmered in Benton Harbor, a small city on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, before the day a white narcotics officer, more focused on arrests than justice, set his sights on an innocent black man. But when Officer Andrew Collins framed Jameel McGee for possession of crack cocaine, the surprising result was not a race riot, but a transformative journey for both men. (Excerpt from their book "Convicted") Jameel McGee & Andrew Collins
Professional cyclist, Ben King, beat his body into submission. He found himself spitting blood into the sink, the byproduct of an eating disorder that’d spun out of control. Control was all he wanted, but it was the one thing he’d lost.
The role of "father" was not one Michael identified with, having grown up without a consistent fatherly presence in his life. In this new White Chair Film, Michael shares how his children have shown him the transcendent, healing power of a Father's love.
“People all around me all the time would say, ‘Oh, you’re such an amazing singer,’ and that became my identity in a lot of ways…I’m the singer.”
When singer-songwriter Tori Kelly was signed to a record label at the age of 12, it felt like she was being given the world. Instead what followed was series of disappointments, broken promises, and a laundry list of things she was told she needed to change about her look or her personality in order to be a success.
“I was this singer…if I failed, then people would be disappointed.”
Tori found herself knocking on closed door after closed door, feeling increasingly discouraged. But, when she stepped away from noise and judgment of the industry, and took some time by herself in quiet, she found something she didn’t expect: her voice.
“Those moments in my bedroom, when it was just me and my notebook, that’s when I really got into songwriting more…It was this slow, building process that wasn’t forced. There was no ‘you’ve gotta try this, and you’ve gotta be this, and you’ve gotta have this different personality. I didn’t have to change myself, I could just be myself. ”
Today, Tori has recorded two full length albums, performed sold out tours and tv appearances, and been nominated for a Grammy. She sat down with I Am Second to share her story and a few things she wishes she could tell the 12 year old girl she used to be.
“The whole time I was running from God, He was waiting for me and welcomed me back with open arms”
Sometimes you get the thing you thought you wanted – the thing you thought would fix you, and make you feel better and stronger – but it doesn’t give you what you need. What do you do then? Maybe you find something else to pursue, and something else after that, and even then, you still want more. The irony is that eventually, all of these successes – the attempts to feel strong enough and worthy enough – start to feel like failure. NFL Long snapper Clint Gresham learned that lesson the hard way. He played six seasons in the NFL and won Super Bowl XLVIII with the Seattle Seahawks, but still found himself with the same growing sense of need.
“I want to be purposeful, every day of my life, every moment of it.”
At ten years old, Kathie Lee Gifford started the adventure of a lifetime and launched a career as an actor, tv presenter, talk show host, and singer/songwriter – a life lived in the spotlight. In a business bent on reducing women to a set of archetypes, Kathie Lee has always refused simple definitions.
“I may admire another person, but I don’t want to be that person.”
The same certainty of purpose that led her down the aisle to answer an altar call at the age of twelve, also armed her against the entertainment industry’s harshest rejection and allowed her to answer insult and injury with a wink and a smile as she turned her head toward the next opportunity. It landed her on millions of TVs in countless living rooms every morning, and gave her a voice of advocacy, influence and all the shine of the spotlight.
But, spotlights are tricky creatures. They illuminate and bring to life, but they can also expose and wash out detail and nuance, leaving room for the noise of assumption and criticism. Spotlights make it hard to find the quiet. They air the most personal of tragedies, amplify doubt and hopelessness, crowding out joy. But, when it comes to hopelessness, Kathie Lee stays in the fight.
“I’ve been in the desert as many times as I’ve been on a mountain top. But, I’ve learned my deepest lessons from the desert.”
Kathie Lee has many stories to tell. She was born in Paris, France and grew up in Maryland. She was a six year old girl who wrote a letter to Walt Disney looking for a job. She was a wife for 29 years who loved with purpose, forgiveness and courage. She’s a mother who raised two children to do the same. And she’s a career entertainer who discovered what could happen when she made her own joy non-negotiable, even in the spotlight.