"I find that it is not the circumstances in which we are placed, but the spirit in which we face them, that constitutes our comfort."
-Elizabeth T. King
This quote has recently been a bit convicting for me. It's tough when we find ourselves in tough situations, or situations where we feel like we cannot survive. It's hard to know what to do, and all we want is to be "ok". I think the phrase "the spirit in which we face them" is interesting, and it is that which convicts me. We don't always get to choose our circumstances at all, but we do get to choose how we face the circumstances in which we find ourselves. When you find yourselves amidst an unpleasant situation, do you stop and think about the spirit in which you choose to face them? Do you stop to think about healthy ways to respond, or do you react poorly? It's tough to recognize that we have the power to choose how we face different circumstances, and it's even more difficult to own the power that we do have.
The following quote from Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning is my e-mail signature: "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." I found this about three years ago, after a rough patch during which I dealt with professional disappointment, infertility, the loss of my beloved cat ... and then the loss of my mother. Since then, I've had the infertility confirmed (translation: even IVF is unlikely to work for me) and I've lost my father.
ReplyDeleteI'm still working, every day, to not let grief give way to numbness and bitterness.