Holding On — People Who Didn't Give Up

Why It Matters

One of the reasons we tell stories about real people from history is that they become evidence. Not just evidence of what happened — evidence of what is possible. When you learn that a real person, in a real situation, with real fear and real pain, chose to keep going — something in you shifts. It becomes harder to say 'I couldn't do that.' Because they did. And they were human, like you.

The people in this lesson did not hold on because they were made differently than you. They held on because they found something worth holding on for — a belief, a person, a purpose, a stubborn refusal to let the difficulty have the last word. That kind of holding-on is available to every human being who has ever lived. Including you.

It is also worth knowing that many of these people felt afraid, or desperate, or exhausted — and kept going anyway. Keeping going when you feel like stopping is not the same as never feeling like stopping. The courage is in the continuing, not in the absence of doubt.

When you are going through something hard, the stories of people who held on are one of the best resources available to you. Not as a lecture, not as proof that you should stop complaining — but as quiet company. As proof, held out like a hand, that it is possible to get through. Many have. You might too.

A Story

Three People Who Held On

Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in the American South in the 1820s. From the time she was very small, she was made to work without rest, was treated cruelly, and was not allowed to read or travel freely. When she was in her twenties, she made a decision: she would escape north to freedom, through hundreds of miles of wilderness, in the dark, trusting strangers, with people hunting for her. She was terrified. She did it anyway. And then — instead of staying safe — she went back. Nineteen times. Each time risking everything to bring others out. She said she never lost a single person on the journey, and she credited her faith: she believed that God was guiding her, and she trusted that guidance even when she could not see the path. She went through things that would have broken many people. She held on. And because she held on, so did hundreds of others.

Viktor Frankl was a doctor who lived in Austria in the early twentieth century. During World War II, he was sent to a series of Nazi concentration camps — among the worst places any human being has ever been forced to live. He lost his family. He nearly lost his life. In the middle of that horror, he made an observation that he would spend the rest of his life writing about: the people who survived were often the ones who had found something meaningful to live for. Not the physically strongest — the ones with a reason. He watched people give their last piece of bread to someone else. He watched people choose dignity in situations designed to strip them of everything. After he was freed, he wrote a book about what he had seen and learned, and it has helped millions of people find their way through dark times. He did not let the worst thing in his experience be the only thing that defined him.

Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker's daughter who, during World War II, helped hide Jewish families from the Nazis in a secret room in her father's house. She was eventually caught and sent to a concentration camp. Her sister died there. Corrie survived. After the war, she was asked how she forgave the people who had done such terrible things. She did not pretend it was easy. She said forgiveness was something she could not do in her own strength — she had to ask God for it, and she found, each time she asked, that it came. She went on to travel the world, including to Germany, telling people what she had found: that there is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still. She held on not by pretending the darkness was not real, but by insisting, from hard experience, that something stronger than the darkness was also real.

Vocabulary

Perseverance

Continuing to keep going through something difficult, even when you feel like stopping. Perseverance is not the absence of fear or exhaustion — it is the decision to continue anyway.

Dignity

The quality of treating yourself and others as people who matter — as beings with worth that no one can take away, even in very hard circumstances.

Purpose

A reason for doing something that is bigger than yourself — something you believe in enough to keep going even when things are hard.

Faith in hard places

Trusting in God's presence and goodness even when you cannot see clearly and circumstances feel impossible. This kind of faith is not pretending things are fine — it is holding on to something real when everything else is uncertain.

Evidence

Proof that something is real or possible. Stories of people who held on become evidence that holding on is something human beings can do.

Guided Teaching

When you are going through something hard, one of the most useful things in the world is proof that someone else went through something hard — perhaps harder — and came out on the other side. Not because it means your hard thing is small, but because it means you are not the first person to face difficulty, and people before you found a way.

Harriet Tubman, Viktor Frankl, and Corrie ten Boom went through things that are genuinely difficult to imagine — things that most of us will never face to that degree. That is important to say. We are not comparing their situations to ordinary childhood difficulties. But what they show us is a quality — the quality of holding on — that is the same quality you use when you face a hard thing on a much smaller scale. Courage is courage. Perseverance is perseverance. The scale is different. The virtue is the same.

Notice something else about these three people: each of them had a reason. Harriet believed that God was leading her, and she went back for others because she could not leave them behind. Viktor found that meaning — having a reason to live — was what kept people going in the worst conditions. Corrie held on because she believed that something stronger than the darkness was real. Reasons matter. They are what give people the ability to put one foot in front of the other when every part of them wants to stop.

What are your reasons? Even at your age, you have some. The people who love you. The things you care about. Your beliefs. The person you are trying to become. These are not small things — they are the things that make a life worth persevering through difficulty for.

Notice also that these people did not hold on alone. Harriet worked with a network of people along what was called the Underground Railroad. Viktor learned from watching others and shared what he learned with the world. Corrie was surrounded, in the camp, by her sister, and then, after the war, by communities of people who helped her carry what she had been through. No one perseveres alone. Holding on is easier when you are connected to other people — people who love you, people who believe in you, people whose own stories remind you that it is possible.

And one thing that all three of these people shared: they did not let the hardest thing become the only thing. They continued to see, even in the darkest places, something that was worth something. A small act of kindness. A moment of beauty. A conviction that people have worth. They held on to that perception with everything they had. That perception — that there is still something good, still something worth protecting, still something worth living for — is one of the most powerful tools a human being has.

For Discussion

1. 1.Of the three people in the story, which one's story strikes you most? Why?
2. 2.Each of these people had a reason to keep going. What were their reasons?
3. 3.Do you think it is possible to persevere through something hard without having a reason? Why or why not?
4. 4.What is the difference between saying 'this will get easy' and saying 'this can be gotten through'?
5. 5.What do you think Corrie ten Boom meant when she said there is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still?
6. 6.Is it okay to feel like you want to give up, as long as you don't? Why or why not?
7. 7.What are some of the reasons that matter to you — things you believe in or people you love that would help you keep going through something hard?
8. 8.If you could ask any one of these three people one question, what would it be?

Practice

A Perseverance Story

1. 1.Choose one of the three people from this lesson — or a different person from history or your own life who you know went through something hard and kept going.
2. 2.Find out one more thing about them that you did not know before. Ask a parent, look in a book, or ask your teacher.
3. 3.Write or tell their story in your own words: what was hard, how they kept going, and what they did because they kept going.
4. 4.Then write one sentence about what their story makes you think about your own life. What does it make you want to do or remember?

Memory Questions

1. 1.Who are the three people from the story in this lesson, and what did each of them go through?
2. 2.What does perseverance mean, and what is it not?
3. 3.What did each of the three people hold onto that helped them keep going?
4. 4.Is faith in hard places the same as pretending things are fine? What is it instead?
5. 5.Why do stories of people who persevered help us when we are going through something hard?
6. 6.What is one reason in your own life that would help you keep going through something difficult?