"A meaningful life is not being rich, being popular, or being perfect. It's about being real, being humble, being able to share ourselves and touch the lives of others." -Unknown
Meaning makes all the difference. One of the most impactful books I ever remember reading was Victor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning." The book talked about the power of our choices in the times when it looked as if all choices had been stripped away.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Frankl survived four different concentration camps. I cannot even imagine it.
He observed that those who found their suffering meaningless succumbed to hopelessness. They died long before their last breath. Those who had rich inner lives, could dig deep and survive. Humor, art, faith, and a sense of having something to give the world around them gave them the grit to keep going. They lifted up those around them.
Even surrounded by the horrors and atrocities of a concentration camp, those who found humor, beauty, a connection to God, and a purpose found ways to survive. They would not let their circumstances break them. They would not internally bow to the evil they endured. Those who pursued a cause greater than themselves found purpose. They found a reason to get up and live another day.
Frankl uncovered a beautiful truth in the darkest, cruelest of all places. He said, “Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.” Yes, love. Love gives us meaning.
I have been working on memorizing 1 Corinthians 13. I am not there yet, but I keep the passage close every day. It was a challenge given by the amazing children of my beautiful sister in Christ, Sally, at her funeral.
It is a passage I have always loved, but now I associate it with her life, how she loved, and how she endured suffering. Sally never lost meaning. She always chose love.
" Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. -1 Corinthians 13:4,7 & 13
Choose love and find meaning.
Today, I am grateful for the meaningful.
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