Ordinary Resiliency Search

Resilience is the quality that enables us to take life as it is and manage it in a healthy way.  As candidates, our missions look for characteristics of resilience.  As we serve in ministry we need to nurture this so that we have the strength to fulfill the call God has given us, even when we know it will be painful and difficult—staying fixed on the higher purpose, motivated by love, supported by friends while realizing that they can let us down, carried by the One who called us (1).

I was introduced to a process of developing a Personal Model of Resiliency at the Mental Health and Missions Conference in November, 2009 by Dr. Duncan Westwood of the International Health Management in Toronto, Canada(2).  This Conference is focused on Mental Health providers who work with missionaries, so the process as laid out is used to guide the counselors as they work with their clients in evaluating their strengths for resilience.

The first step of this process can be done without therapeutic guidance—conduct an Ordinary Resiliency Search.  As we look at our life in relationship to our Upward Journey (God), our Inward Journey (self and family) and Outward Journey (others) we are to search for a symbol, song, story, image and or metaphor of resiliency that describes our journey.  These should be:

inspiring,

contain adversity,

capture our whole being,

be portable, and

speak to the core of our being.

To help get you started, I’ll share a few personal examples.

• While I have been on home assignment in the United States, my image of resilience this year has been the Lord as my Shepherd. Needing a time of restoration after a full, fruitful but draining term of ministry, the image of being a sheep cared by the Shepherd has repeatedly brought me comfort and rest.
• A number of years ago I was facing surgery, with the possible discovery of cancer.  The refrain of “Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus” was the song that provided strength — “Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him, how I’ve proved Him, o’er and o’er. Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus, O for grace to trust Him more.”  My heart and my mind have gone back to that song at other times of struggling to trust during uncertainties.

As you are reading, stop and spend a few minutes quietly searching your heart for a symbol that describes your resilience. When you have that symbol in your mind, ask yourself these questions:

What did you find most life-giving about this symbol?

What did it tell you about yourself?

What was your most recent experience of God’s love?

While this is only the first step in the process (which then looks at adversities or challenges that need to be overcome in our lives, identifies attributes of resiliency along with risk factors that are already part of who we are, determines the presence or absence of protective factors in ourselves, screens  for the degree and number of stressors in our lives, and appraises our coping resources before developing and applying our Personal Model of Resiliency) I hope that in itself this will provide encouragement, strength and refocus for you.

Sources:

(1) Karen Carr, “If You Want to Go Far…” Mental Health and Missions Plenary. November 21, 2009.

(2) Duncan P. Westwood, Ph.D., “Developing a Personal Model of Resiliency”, Workshop at Mental Health and Missions, November 21, 2009.