Thinking Out Loud ~ A Moment of Grace

Victor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning describes incident shortly after his concentration camp was liberated. Although still living in the concentration camp, the prisoners were free to go wherever they wanted to go. Frankl found himself walking alone through the countryside. This is how he describes it. “I walked through the country past flowering meadows, for miles and miles toward the market town near the camp. Larks rose in the sky, and I could hear their joyous song. There was no one to be seen for miles around. There was nothing but the wide earth and sky in the lark’s jubilation, and the freedom of space. I stopped, looked around, and up to the sky; and then I went down on my knees. At that moment there was very little I knew of myself and of the world. I had, but one sentence in mind, always the same: I called to the Lord from my narrow prison, and He answered me in the freedom of space.”

Note: Have you ever had a spiritual experience similar to Frankl’s spontaneous experience of joy and gratitude? I have. When they’ve occurred to me, I have felt overwhelmed with the presence of God and felt the overwhelming desire to remain in that space forever. One cannot predict if and when they will occur, I call it a moment of grace.