Are You a Survivor?

Were you glued to the TV when they were rescuing those thirty-three miners in Chile.
I was, too.
Ever since that day in August when the news first covered the story about the trapped miners, my imagination had been down half a mile down, in the dark, with those guys.
Those first seventeen days, before the outside world knew that they were still alive, must have been excrutiating.
That is what I think about the most: how did those men keep going with hardly any food, thinking they might starve? Would they be discovered? Would help arrive? What were their families doing?

I'm fascinated with survivor stories and have read much on the subject. Ben Sherwood's The Survivors Club is a well-told and well-researched book on how and why certain people survive terrible crises. I highly recommend it.
In a chapter about faith and health-outcomes, one researcher was quoted as saying that faith in God helps a person in crisis because he or she believes that there is a purpose in their suffering and that God is present. This, in turn, gives the survivor incredible perseverance.

Most of the Chilean miners said that their faith in God helped sustain them even in the worst time before the rescue efforts began.

A survivor might hit rock bottom (literally, like the miners) but hope persuades him/her to take one more step. . then another, and another.

What have you survived?

(Isaiah 40:31) "But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."