From my narrow prison
During my dark nights of the soul, there are certain books I turn to for solace. The Holy Bible, especially the Gospel of John gives me comfort. Thoreau’s Walden helps me to see my life more clearly, but it’s Dr. Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning that always helps me find a reason to hope for better days ahead.
In the days after our daughter was in a coma this fall, I picked up Dr. Frankl’s book again and noticed all of the pink highlighting and pen marks I had left during my previous readings. For those not familiar with Dr. Frankl’s story, this brilliant doctor survived the concentration camps that killed his wife, his parents and most of his family. He lived the life of a laborer in the camps and only rarely used his training as a physician. He was there when the camps were liberated and he was able to return to his psychiatric practice after the war.
Dr. Frankl begins this book with a narrative of what he learned at Auschwitz and other camps. He found a compassionate Nazi commandant and a fellow Jewish inmate whose brutality outdid that of the camp’s Aryan masters. Inmates became heroes or criminals as they adjusted to camp life. Dr. Frankl mentions that one’s response to a set of circumstances is the last freedom anyone has. Whether life turns us into saints or devils is really up to us.
After he’s freed, Dr. Frankl looks up to the heavens and says, “I called to the Lord from my narrow prison and He answered me in the freedom of space.” Profound words from someone whose suffering yielded this magnificent book instead of a lifetime of hate.
God’s voice is in the narrow prison and in the freedom of space. Where we hear it is up to us, but His voice is never still.
