You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. (Ps 32:7)

Warning: If you haven’t read one of my movie reviews before, they tend to be spoilers. You may want to see the movie first, then read on.

I just put my son, Joshua, to bed. He wanted to sleep in his sleeping bag which has a built-in blow up pillow. There is an essential warning on the pillow that reads, “Not a life saving device. Do not leave children unattended.”

That warning pretty much describes the movie Thr3e... I guess I should explain. Thr3e is based on the book by Ted Dekker and produced by Ralph Winter of X-Men fame. It follows the life of Kevin Parson, a seminary student with multiple personalities… three, in fact.

Kevin was raised by his aunt, who locked him in her home and psychologically abused him. She left him unattended in his room for hours and would spray water on him fully clothed in the shower while telling him he was a terrible little boy. He tried to save his own life by creating two other personalities: Samantha, the childhood friend he never had, and Slater, the strong bad boy he wanted to be so he could stand up to his aunt.

Kevin is able to use the multiple personalities as a life-saving device for quite sometime until it boils over, and Slater starts to stalk him while Samantha tries to comfort him. In comes Jennifer Peters, a police detective who becomes personally involved in Kevin’s case. The climax of the movie has Kevin and Samantha trying to stop Slater from killing Kevin’s aunt.

Jennifer finally realizes that Kevin has multiple personalities when she confronts all three and only sees Kevin. She convinces Kevin of this and he says goodbye to Samantha and kills Slater. It’s a beautiful picture of how we can be delivered by the truth.

I was not only amazed by how I couldn’t figure out how this movie would end (this doesn’t happen often), but by how the complexity of the human psyche MovedMe as well. Not only can a grown man fully convince himself that there are two other people in the world that don’t exist, but he is able to act the other two people out as well.

It’s not all that far fetched, actually. In a much smaller way I find myself having multiple personalities… again let me explain. It usually happens when I get mad. I’m very uncomfortable with conflict, so when someone upsets me I will act happy—and worse, nice. Well, that only lasts for so long until I start yelling at my kids or going ballistic on my friends while we are playing roller hockey.

To most people I’m a really nice guy, but for others I’m a raging lunatic. Which person am I really? Both, until I realize why I’m acting like a lunatic and take care of it; only then can I have peace and just be Patrick. A mailer came to my home promoting the DVD release of Thr3e and the tagline read, “Some sins weren’t meant to be discovered.” I think that is absolutely wrong. In the case of Kevin Parson, and my anger, the truth will set you free.

You see, the truth—telling someone you are angry when you are—is a life saving device… but I’m not so sure how to tie in “leaving children unattended,” so I’m just going to end this article by encouraging you to see Thr3e. It had a very limited release in theaters, so if you missed it, check it out now on DVD.