Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? […] Yet in all of these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us» (Romans 8:35, 37).
Psychologicalresilienceis definedasthe ability to mentally or emotionally cope with a crisis or to return to pre-crisis statutes quickly. Some psychologists add to this definition the capacity to extract something positive from a difficult or traumatic event.
Perhaps we could consider it as more of a tool than a value; but resilient people live a life that is guided by several important values, so that is why I am including this story in the “Values» section.
In my senior year of High School, I had to read the book Night, by Elie Wiesel, for my class in English Literature.
At the age of fourteen, Elie was taken to a concentration campo. First he was in Birkenau, then Auschwitz, then Buchenwald. He lost his father, his mother, and his younger sister. He wrote Night to honor their memory. It is a deep, brutal, and enlightening autobiography.
Wiesel survived the camps, as did his older sisters, but he still carries unforgettable images in his mind and a tattoo of his prisoner number on his left arm. He lived through the transition from puberty to adolescence in the worst possible conditions. He was without a country for several years until he finally established himself in the United States. In 1986 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Besides numerous other prizes and awards that were bestowed on him, he received the permission and trust of the U. S. Government to work in the founding of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. (which I recommend you visit if you are ever in the area). He was an activist for human rights, and he participated in many awareness campaigns, giving his full support to different causes related to this subject.
You can read more about his story in some of his books. Unfortunately He stopped believing in God while he was in those concentration camps.
I don’t know what especially sad moments have marked your life,
or what unforgettable images you carry with you, or what “tattoo» you received.
I don’t know whether you thought about giving up your belief in God.
Perhaps you could go over some of these issues with the help of a professional counselor,
and I would encourage you to do so.
But I also want to remind you of today’s verse: the precious promise that Paul,
another veryresilient man, wrote, and that we can claim for ourselves today.