this world will break you
down
or open you up
it’s your choice

it will challenge you
and you can meet it
or shrink from it
it’s your choice

this world will disappoint you
and you can walk on anyway
or give up
it’s your choice

it can try and steal your peace
and offer you fear
but
it’s your choice

the world can offer you stories
of suffering
that crack you, enrage you
astound you and horrify you
but what you do
about it,
it’s your choice.

there were prisoners 
in the concentration camps
who chose
to hang on to some thread
of humanity
despite what was happening.

sometimes choice of how we
meet life
is the only choice
we have.

i have no words left
but bow down before such courage
to stay open to hope and meaning
under such suffering
and pray that i may
show even
an ounce of that courage
and dignity.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Victor Frankl – Viktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor.
http://www.viktorfrankl.org/e/chronology.html