Do we WANT to?

I was speaking to a religious 87 year old Warsaw ghetto and Auschwitz survivor... He mentioned that seeing his entire family wiped out only strengthened him to keep up the energy to remain alive until the war finished - and then to rebuild his family, contrary to Hitler's wish to destroy it. He is now a proud great-grandfather. (And I thought my battles were difficult!)

He explained how he was once irreligious, and owed his change in direction to an SS commandant: When being taken on a forced death march as the war was finishing, he was being marched in the freezing cold with no food for days - and anyone who fell was shot on the spot. Eventually, he did fall, and whilst waiting for the relief of a bullet, the commandant who was about to finish him off, instead bent down and told him to get up. He refused - he had no strength left. To which the commandant replied - "there is no such thing as I can't - only I don't want."

This man got up somehow and went on to survive the war.

To all those who had a recent fall, let us take this lesson to heart...

There is no such thing as "I can't get back up". If we aren't getting back up, it is only because we don't WANT TO.