| When Viktor
Frankl was sent to Auschwitz, he'd been researching a book on Finding
Life's Meaning. But when his clothes were suddenly taken from him,
including the manuscript he'd hidden in his coat lining, he questioned
whether his life had real meaning at all. Then something happened: the
Nazis gave him the rags of an inmate who'd just been sent to the gas
chamber and Frankl found in the pocket a page containing a Jewish prayer
(from Deuteronomy 6:4-5): 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one God.
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all
your soul and with all your might.' 'How should I interpret such a
coincidence?' he asked himself, 'Other than to live my thoughts instead
of merely putting them on paper?' Later he wrote, 'Nothing in the world
will so effectively help you to survive as the knowledge that there is a
purpose to your life. He who has a 'why' to live for, can bear almost
any 'how'. Charles Dickens was lame. So was Handel. Homer was blind.
Plato was a hunchback. Sir Walter Scott was paralysed; Paul spent all
but seven years of his ministry in prison. What gave each of these
people the stamina to overcome their circumstances? Purpose! Each of
them had a dream, fueled by a fire within that could not be
extinguished. They had a 'why' that was bigger than every 'how'. Do you? |
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