Resilience - One Good Word a Day

Resilience

We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.

HUGGING MY ARMS TO MY SIDES, I shivered a bit. It was Saturday morning, and the chill of the ice rink was seeping through my not-as-warm-as-I-thought vest. On the ice, kids spun in dizzying circles or practiced tiny steps as coaches encouraged them or demonstrated skills. I watched as my oldest daughters mostly managed to stay on their feet but caught sight of my five-year-old just as she wobbled and fell down, catching herself on her elbows. Unperturbed, she clambered back to her feet, smiling widely.

Describing it to my friend Lindsay later that week, I couldn’t help but marvel at the skaters’ resilience. The kids—especially the littlest ones—fell and got back up countless times. An avid figure skater during our childhood, she shrugged and smiled.

“That’s what they do,” she explained. “That’s the first thing the coaches teach the little ones: how to get back up.”

As children of God, that kind of resilience should be our default too. Life will topple us at times; it may even knock the breath from our lungs. But instead of thinking badly of ourselves or telling ourselves that God can’t use us, those moments can be opportunities to build our resilience muscles. Like a rubber band snapping back into place, resilience is demonstrated by elasticity. It’s not a measure of how hard someone falls, but of how they are able to recover and bounce back. In our Christian walk, that flexible response should be our posture as well. Though we will fall, with God’s insistently loving coaching we can bounce back to our feet again. He never gives up on us—so we shouldn’t, either.

Lord, thank you that our hardships can be lessons in resilience. Help us to always look to you and rise again. Amen.

-Kristin

One Good Step: Work on resilience by listening for negative comments in your head, then replacing them with positive ones (With God’s help, I can do this, I’m a great friend, I’m good at my job).