EVERYDAY ENCOUNTER WITH GOD
Pastor Sylvia's Enconters with God in the Midst of Everyday Life
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ABOUT THE COLUMN Sylvia would love to hear your thoughts about this week's encounter. Please send them to sylvia@pastorsylvia.com |
Resilience
As A Path To Holiness My Monday night women’s zoom group is focused on
building stronger Christian marriages. One of our repetitive issues is,
“How can I recover from disappointment?” Let’s face it—relationships are hard. We let each
other down. Our feelings get hurt. I have an expectation that Husband
will be perfect, and simultaneously forgive me for not being perfect.
When that doesn’t happen, it’s very disappointing. Last week in group the discussion was about surviving
marital hurts. Everyone seemed set on just getting through the tough
times. That is not biblical. Jesus said, “I
came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than
they ever dreamed of.”
In other words, Jesus came so that our struggles would be the pathway to
a better life, not just mediocre survival.
I’m
assuming that not everyone who has a Costco membership reads the
Costco Connection. January’s
cover story was about resilience. That word used to mean “bouncing back
from difficult situations,” but leading experts who study resilience now
see it as a catalyst for transformation.
Michael Unger, Ph.D., a family therapist and researcher at the
University of Halifax, compares resilience to a roller coaster. He
believes that unless we change the patterns of behavior putting us at
risk of adversity, we’ll always end up back where we started—unable to
handle a crisis. “If
we say you’re ‘bouncing back,’ the idea is that somehow, you’re
returning to normal. But nobody ever goes back to the same normal;
you’re changed by your experience,” says Unger. The
first step toward resilience is paying attention to what is challenging
us, which is something I appreciate about my Zoom group. It’s hard to
ignore difficulties once they’ve been spoken out loud to a bunch of
other women. Resilient people are good at recognizing when they’re
experiencing emotional pain. Once a situation has our full awareness, the next steps towards resilience are the five principles of attitude: gratitude, compassion, acceptance, meaning, and forgiveness. These are biblical.
Author Gary Thomas wrote
Sacred Marriage. In it he
says, “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make
us happy?” In other words, marriage exists to make us into saints, to
transform us into the best version of ourselves and draw us closer to
God. And not just marriage—all our relationships are opportunities for
conflict and disappointment, resilience and growth. I don’t want to just “get by.” I know what it feels
like to be stuck, trapped, and locked in. But I also know that
“Deliverance is to the Bible what jazz music is to Mardi Gras: bold,
brassy, and everywhere.” (Max Lucado) Where the women in my Monday Zoom
group see perfect marital messes, God sees perfect opportunities to
test, heal, and strengthen each one of us. Why? Because Jesus came so we could live life
abundantly. I think that resilience is how we will get there. |
RECENT COLUMNS A Christmas Letter From Jesus - 2023 |
Sylvia and Husband John have published a new book,
BOOKS BY SYLVIA
LAURA AND ME; A Sex Offender and Victim Search Together to Understand, Forgive, and Heal
THE RED DOOR; Where Hurt and Holiness Collide
Availible at Amazon and Barns and Noble