Day 19 resilience

If one more person mentions the day long power outage at Heathrow airport I will scream. Oh, wait, hang on a second....😂😂


Actually its not really anything to do with the airport, but the surrounding hoo hah about it seemed to involve the word ' resilience' being liberally scattered through every report.  Which is an odd word to use about an airport really, when you think about it. Anyhow, its something Ive been thinking about for a while, mostly in the context of raising children. 

Resilience Definition 
  1. the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.
    "the remarkable resilience of so many institutions"
  2. 2.
    the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.
    "nylon is excellent in wearability and resilience"

Given that this month marks the 5 year anniversary of the Covid outbreak there has been alot of media chat both looking back at that experience and wondering what the long term fallout has been.  One might have hoped that having gone through such a crisis and survived, we might all have grown in our resilience.  But the increasing numbers of people with poor mental health would suggest that we didn't.  We tend to look back a couple of generations and think that our forbears did better than we did. They rebuilt the country after two world wars and didn't complain of feeling anxious or stressed.  They were the generations who just got on with it. But then again, they were also the generation of ' big boys dont cry' and people dying from smoking and drinking and generally being worn out through gritting their teeth so hard for so long.  So maybe that generation didn't get it right either.

As I get older I'm learning more about being at peace.  And I think that is really what resilience is all about.  Its not about being brave in the face of difficulty.  Or even about healing from wounds quickly and well. I think maybe as Christians its about not losing our peace whatever our circumstances.  As we approach Easter we look at Jesus who is betrayed, falsely accused, whipped and tortured, abandoned by His friends and crucified.  At each stage of that process He could have been defeated in His spirit. Broken. He could at any stage have given up on His promise to His Father - Your will be done.  But He didn't. Right at the very end He is offering forgiveness to those with hammers and offering redemption to the thief.  I think that Gethsemane was Jesus wrestling not to lose His peace. And He didn't.  He somehow managed to put His own will (Father let this cup pass me by) in submission to the will of the Father ( yet.... Your will be done) in complete trust.  Knowing the joy set before Him (by faith)

I dont think the essence of being resilient is having a backup generator in case the power goes down.  Its not gritting our teeth and getting on with things in the face of adversity.  Its about instant forgiveness of those who wrong us and ultimate determination to hold onto the promises of God.  Here is where our peace lies. And it is a peace the world cannot shake or destroy or take from us. Hallelujah!



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