Resilience is the ability, or the capacity, of being able to continue.
Sometimes volunteers come to our little farm and they want to know about ‘self-sufficiency.’ Long before I became a Christian I was uncomfortable with this idea: if you’re self-sufficient, you don’t need anyone else – you grow your own food, generate your own electricity, fight your own battles, heal your own wounds… Of course this is a myth.
Being a Christian is the opposite of dreaming of being self-sufficient. We are dependent. We’re dependent on God for everything, and we know that we’re dependent on the people in our lives – on our parents, our teachers, our co-workers, the people who take away our rubbish, and eventually on our children (or other carers). At the same time we’re responsible, and we have to be responsible (see Love and Responsibility by Karol Wojtyła, later Saint Pope John Paul II)*.
But I just want to say a few words about resilience.
Today is 5 November. The days are short, the sun is weak, and the air is cold, at least here in NE Poland. Next week every night is forecast to be below 0°C.
The photos I’ve included in this post are not amazing, unless you think about the fact that they’re growing in my garden today. They’re supposed to be spring flowers (well, the daisies last all through summer as well). Certainly not November flowers, although I see them every year at this time.
I fall in love with these flowers. They really inspire me. God has given them life, and they want to live this life soooo much… They don’t care that they’ll be dead in a week. They don’t care that no bees or butterflies are going to touch them. They have life and so they grow, they open their little colourful flowers, and they praise God.
This life that God has given the flowers, he has given to all living things, including us. This life is resilient because it’s source is life itself, being itself.
That doesn’t mean it’s going to last forever. Only God himself is eternal. Slowly, over the time of our life, the spark grows weaker. But we all, always, as long as we are alive, have enough resilience to choose to love.
I pray for you to find that resilience in your heart, whether the cold and darkness of winter are troubling you, or whether you’re being threatened by other kinds of cold and darkness.
Remember the advice of St Ignatius of Loyola: when times are hard, remember that the light will come again; when times are good, prepare for future trials, so that then you will be able to remember that the hard times come and go.
I’m also praying and desiring to come back to this website and this podcast. Thank you all for your messages over the last 18 months of hiatus. Please pray for me.
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