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Against All Odds!
Updated: Jan 15
Friends, the mission of Discovering A BETTER LIFE MINISTRIES is to provide men and women with words of Encouragement and Hope, as well as empower believers in Jesus Christ around the world, to recognize, experience, and celebrate their oneness with all others who know Jesus as Saviour and Lord, regardless of denomination, church fellowship, or historic tradition.
Today’s Message of Encouragement from Discovering A BETTER LIFE MINISTRIES
(Stories of Real People, Real Events, Real Places)
And are dedicated to providing
Spiritual FOOD FOR THOUGHT
To HELP PEOPLE Find HOPE
THROUGH SHARING GOD’S GRACE and LOVE!
(January 15th, 2025)
Against All Odds!
"We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival."
(Winston Churchill)
Friends, in January 1982, American Steven Callahan set sail from the Canary Islands in a small sailboat he'd built himself. His plan was to cross the Atlantic.
Steven Callahan was 30 years old, fit, capable and looking forward to the voyage that had been his dream since boyhood. Six days later while he slept content in his berth, the boat struck something big, most likely a whale, and capsized. Awakened by the collision, Steven had only a few precious seconds to grab what he could before scrambling to position himself safely aboard a five-foot inflatable dinghy.
Having managed to grab only a small amount of food and some bottled water, along with a solar still for making sea water potable and a fishing harpoon gun, Steven knew from the onset that his chances of survival were not good. He had no way of knowing, however, that he was about to embark on an amazing journey in self-reliance that would last an astounding 76 days and carry him 1,800 miles across a vast and frightening sea.
During his ordeal, Steven Callahan faced death continually, fighting off sharks, exhaustion and the utter hopelessness of watching ships pass without noticing him. But despite the terror presented in every moment, he held tight to his wits and forced himself to think his way through each situation as it presented itself.
After losing the launching mechanism to the fishing gun, for instance, he lashed the harpoon to the gun and used it like a spear, often kneeling motionless for hours waiting for an unsuspecting fish to swim into the perfect spot before jabbing it.
As his body weakened from hunger and the intense and relentless heat of the sun, he scraped bits of rust from the bottom of metal food containers into his drinking water, hoping the iron would strengthen him.
Faced with such formidable odds, giving up would have seemed the only rational thing to do for most, but Steven Callahan was not like most people! He was one of those rare breeds of survivors who understands that we all have within us the power to carry on in spite of overwhelming circumstance.
In essence, Steven became his own survival coach, talking to himself constantly, convincing himself over and over again that he could make it. "I tell myself I can handle it," Steven later wrote in "Adrift at Sea," his narrative accounting of the ordeal, "Compared to what others have been through, I'm fortunate."
It's hard to imagine circumstances worse than being lost at sea, but perhaps Steven Callahan was thinking of Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl who, as a young Austrian doctor forty years before, had found himself in perhaps even more terrorizing circumstances when along with his young bride, his parents and his brother, he was arrested, stripped of everything he held precious, and taken to the concentration camp at Auschwitz.
During the early days of his imprisonment Victor Frankl kept his mind alert by trying to reconstruct the manuscript he'd been writing prior to his arrest. First recalling it word for word in his mind and then writing it down on stolen slips of paper, Victor Frankl realized the completion of this task gave him purpose, a reason for holding on to a vision of the future.
Later, when during a particularly gruelling pre-dawn march, another prisoner commented on the fate of their wives, Victor Frankl discovered that as long as his memory of his wife remained, he could keep her present with him.
Knowing she might already be dead, he accepted the possibility and then told himself that as long as he could keep her in his mind, she would remain alive to him. Later, Victor Frankl wrote that it was in that moment that "I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss."
It would be this discovery that meaningfulness can be found in suffering that would most impress Victor Frankl and lead to his life's work. "Everything can be taken from a man or a woman," he wrote years later, "but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
Friends, these two incredible men, I have just referred to, Steven Callahan and Viktor Frankl, survived because they simply would not give up, even when everything in each of their circumstances screamed that giving up was the only option. They chose their own way, willingly assuming total responsibility for their lives, refusing to step into victim mode by blaming God, nature or human cruelty for what had befallen them.
When we stop to think about it, there are certain things in life you and I can't control, such as nature, the past and other people. Steven Callahan and Viktor Frankl understood this. They also understood, as all successful people do, that we can control our thoughts and our actions and that when we do that, when we step up and take 100 percent control of our lives, by taking command of what we think and what we do, we become the masters of our fate. We also become undefeatable!
In reality, no one succeeds in life by taking the easiest path. We succeed only after we determine that we will commit ourselves to it and then insist on keeping our minds positive while we move consistently and persistently toward our goals.
Friends, I wanted to tell you about Steven Callahan and Viktor Frankl not only because I personally think their individual stories of triumph are incredible, but also because I know that on any journey toward success you and I may embark on, we are bound to come up against obstacles that may, for a time, seem impenetrable. When you do, I hope you will spend some time thinking of Steven Callahan and Victor Frankl and reminding yourself that compared to them, your task is really not all that insurmountable, after all! If you are committed, you'll find a way. I hope you will remind yourself of this and then follow Victor Frankl's example of returning your full focus and intention to the task at hand.
After that, you will need only to let your voice be strong as you utter those powerful and life-changing words: "I can handle this! I know I can!"
Friend, if you would like some help in regard to gain the power to carry on in spite of overwhelming circumstances you are facing in your own life, we’d be pleased to send you two pamphlets titled: “WHERE TROUBLE CAN’T HURT YOU” and “You Can’t Be Human Alone.”
To receive your FREE copies, write to: Discovering A BETTER LIFE, Unit 49/2 Plantation Street, Menora, Western Australia 6050.
You can also Email your request to us at abl-alb@omninet.net.au
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop and look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)
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Ron Bainbridge, EDITOR
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