Over the past few days, I’ve been reading Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, and I can already tell it’s going to be one of my favorite reads.
Which is a strange thing to say about a book that explores some of the darkest moments in human history.
For those unfamiliar, Viktor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor who endured imprisonment in several Nazi concentration camps during World War II, including Auschwitz. He witnessed unimaginable suffering, the loss of loved ones, and the systematic stripping away of nearly everything that makes us human.
I always try to put myself in the author’s shoes when I’m reading.
But what’s crazy about this particular book is that, from what I’ve read so far, the man barely had shoes to begin with.
Frankl describes being stripped of nearly everything. His possessions, his clothing, his identity as he had known it. Stripped down to nothing but the same bare existence we entered this world with.
If everything you owned, everything you accomplished, and everything you identified yourself by disappeared tomorrow, what would remain of you?
I have a hard enough time imagining what people would become if the internet disappeared tomorrow, much less trying to comprehend what someone would become after experiencing something as traumatic as what Frankl describes.
And that’s what makes this book so difficult to put down. I’m not just reading about what these people endured. I’m trying to understand what it did to them.
And yet, somewhere in all that darkness, Frankl still managed to find light.
Not through his possessions, his accomplishments, or even the promise of tomorrow, but through love.
He found himself thinking about his wife, not even knowing whether she was still alive.
In a place designed to strip people of their humanity, love remained something he could hold on to.
I know we talked about love last week, but man, this stuff is undeniable.
He was stripped down to nothing. Left with practically nothing to his name, and yet he still found love.
And I can’t help but think of my Savior, Yahusha Ha’Mashiach.
Stripped down to nothing, beaten, humiliated, and left to die on a cross. Yet even in the middle of His suffering, He still had the heart to ask the Father to forgive the very people putting Him to death.
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
— Luke 23:34 (NIV)
And even the criminal hanging beside Him, a man with nothing left to offer and mere moments left in this world, wasn’t beyond His compassion.
When that man asked Yahusha to remember him, He answered:
“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
— Luke 23:43 (NIV)
Think about that. He was suffering Himself, yet He was still showing love and extending mercy to others.
Not because they deserved it. Not because they could offer Him anything in return.
But because that’s who He was.
And that brings me back to the question I asked earlier.
If everything you owned, everything you accomplished, and everything you identified yourself by disappeared tomorrow, what would remain of you?
Would there still be room for love? For forgiveness? For compassion toward someone who had nothing to offer you in return?
I’m still reading the book, by the way. I just wanted to share some of my thoughts on it so far.
Just remember, this life is temporary.
Don’t let material possessions or worldly pursuits define who you are. Keep growing in spirit, and stay rooted in a love that reaches beyond this life.
Until next time,
Javier
Compounding Thoughts
What you practice today shapes who you become tomorrow.