Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
Life is a hard thing to measure. I ran a 13.1 on Halloween and it appeared that I went uphill the entire time. This poem has been fresh in my mind lately given set back, frustration, confusion, and probably most prominent of all, lack of control. Growing up my dad always told me that I had not much control over circumstance, just how I went through them. I’m glad he taught me this lesson early because there needs to be a grit, to every person, that lies beneath the surface.
This grit is unquantifiable, and it is intangible. It’s something that drives you way down deep. Something that, much like the poem says, keeps your soul unconquerable. Not many people are strangers to hard times. I hope that in those hard times you find yourself, as I do, clinging to some of these words that William Earnest Henley wrote down and leaning into the truth that Paul wrote in Ephesians 2 or that Jeremiah delivered on behalf of God in Jeremiah 2.
You were dead… but God…
And for me… because God… I find myself clinging even more tightly to such a great poem that truly has changed the way I live view grit. I hope I have it. I hope you find it. I hope you own it; because you will need it.
“Life’s ups and downs are like the sun and clouds and yet where I want to be found is in Your presence.”
leadershape 