Resilience

Resilience. 

Merriam/Webster defines it:

1

: the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress

2

: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change

 

Resilience is the key to recovery; personally, collectively.  Resilience has a number of contributing factors. 

 

Today- I was reviewing again Psalm 130 (note yesterday's post).  And read again in the notes by Spurgeon in his "Treasury of David" commentary.  Looks like the author of the Psalm is not known for sure, may have been David, but could've been someone else.  Certainly, whoever this anciet person was- he was all too familiar with hardship.

 

As with the commentator embedded in Spurgeon's notes-  as I read through this section, I was struck by how each aspect of hardship noted can be, and is likely, experienced to some degree or another by a Lyme Fighter!   The writer eloquently puts into words the depths of which a Lyme Fighter experiences these afflictions. The commentator's summation statement, one of the principle tools of resilience is noted:

 

Out of the depths. "Depths!" oh! into what "depths" men can sink! How far from happiness, glory, and goodness men can fall. There is the depth of poverty. A man can become utterly stripped of all earthly possessions and worldly friends! Sometimes we come upon a man, still living, but in such abject circumstances, that it strikes us as a marvel that a human being can sink lower than the beasts of the field.

 

Then there is the depth of sorrow. Billow after billow breaks over the man, friend after friend departs, lover and friend are put into darkness. All the fountains of his nature are broken up. He is like a water logged ship, from the top waves plunging down as if into the bottom of the sea. So often in such depths, sometimes like Jonah in the whale's belly, the monster carrying him down, down, down, into darkness.

 

There are depths after depths of mental darkness, when the soul becomes more and more sorrowful, down to that very depth which is just this side of despair. Earth hollow, heaven empty, the air heavy, every form a deformity, all sounds discord, the past a gloom, the present a puzzle, the future a horror. One more step down, and the man will stand in the chamber of despair, the floor of which is blistering hot, while the air is biting cold as the polar atmosphere. To what depths the spirit of a man may fall!

 

But the most horrible depth into which a man's soul can descend is sin. Sometimes we begin on gradual slopes, and slide so swiftly that we soon reach great depths; depths in which there are horrors that are neither in poverty, nor sorrow, nor mental depression. It is sin, it is an outrage against God and ourselves. We feel that there is no bottom. Each opening depth reveals a greater deep. This is really the bottomless pit, with everlasting accumulations of speed, and perpetual lacerations as we descend. Oh, depths below depths! Oh, falls from light to gloom, from gloom to darkness! Oh, the hell of sin! What can we do?

 

We can simply cry, CRY, CRY! But, let us cry to God. Useless, injurious are other cries. They are mere expressions of impotency, or protests against imaginary fate. But the cry of the spirit to the Most High is a manful cry. Out of the depths of all poverty, all sorrow, all mental depression, all sin, cry unto God!—From "The Study and the Pulpit", 1877.

 

 

Is today a day of anguish my friend?- If it is-  Cry out to Him Who Is Able to Deliver you out of that despair...to raise you above...

 

Is today a day of relief?  Give out a cry of rejoicing and thanksgiving...

 

Either way, know that what you are going through is not uncommon to mankind- Our God understands, and He Hears our Cries.  He is at work even now- working out your deliverance; meanwhile, rest in His presence and His peace. 

 

In Him are found the best tools for resilience-  begin on that road of resilience with a cry out to the LORD.  He will meet with you.  There is no pit too dark, too steep,too deep- for Our LORD to come to us, to be with us, to take our hand- and to leads us step by step out of that depth in which we find ourself.

 

Cry out to Him today- grab hold of His outstretched hand- hold tight as He leads you through this day. 

 

blessings-