My Rubber Soul: God's Gift of Resilience
Today I went for a walk in our local park and encountered some friends from church who commented on how well I looked. It is now nearly six weeks since I suffered near-fatal complications following a mastectomy, and I must admit feel like a different person. I hardly recognised the woman who first came out of hospital, battered and traumatised. The scars remain – and I am still having investigations for a potential pulmonary embolism - but I have recovered remarkably well, both physically and mentally.
When I first came home, I was physically very frail and required the kind of physical aids that I didn’t expect to use until well into my eighties. A bed downstairs had been fitted with a rail to enable me to get up in the morning and the bathroom was equipped with what I called my ‘geriatric loo seat’!
However, things could have been worse. When the occupational therapist came to visit he went round the house pointing out places where special aids should be put in. Thank goodness my darling daughter was there to head him off at the pass saying ‘my mother will kill you if you do that!’. Now a few weeks on, I am up and about and walking further each day. I have also started work in earnest in my new book about this experience which has the working title of ‘To the Ocean Floor’.
I have also, mercifully, recovered my mental equilibrium. When I first came out of hospital, I suffered from distressing flash backs to key moments in my ordeal, including the image of my husband standing crying in the lane as the ambulance doors closed and the drama and chaos of the resuscitation room which seemed to be burnt into my brain.
I was also initially overwhelmed with guilt at the trauma that I had put my family through and the thought that I had almost left them. I tortured myself by going through the events after my initial surgery, asking myself whether I could have done something differently - if I could have read the signs better. The thought that horrified me most was that if we had waited just another hour to ring the ambulance I would have died in my living room in front of him, leaving my darling husband with scars that might never heal.
But now the distressing flash backs have faded and I am once again living in, and appreciating, the current moment. The guilt has also been assuaged by my wonderful surgeon and breast care nurses who have assured me that there is nothing that I could have done to prevent this happening. Anguish has been replaced my a sense of peace in the present, and hope for the future.
When I went for my Herceptin treatment this week the nurses commented on how amazingly well I had recovered, and looking back I can see that this has been a pattern in my life. I have had far too many operations and periods of illness, but I do seem to ‘bounce back’ remarkably well. My sister has observed that I have seem to be made of steel girders, but steel doesn’t bounce! I think, rather, that God has put rubber in my soul.
Resilience is a inbuilt part of the Christian life. Jesus was brutally honest about the fact that despite following him, our temporal life would not be without troubles. But he also makes us resilient; developing that quality that enables us to ‘bounce back’ from and adapt to stressful life changes, and to move on with life after loss and tragedy. Being resilient doesn’t mean that we don’t suffer or grieve, rather it is about our ability to grow as a result of that suffering.
In Proverbs 24:16 we are told ‘for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again, but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes.’ And there are great examples of resilience in the Bible, from Job, who suffered greatly but refused to give up his trust in God, to the Apostle Paul who wrote, ‘We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.’ (2 Cor 4:8-9).
The key to resilience seems to be trust. From our limited viewpoint it may look as if the end is in sight, but from God’s perspective our trails may well signal a new beginning.
Kate Nicholas is a preacher, Christian author, broadcaster and consultant. Her best-selling memoir Sea Changed (shortlisted as Christian Biography of the Year 2017) is an account of her unconventional journey of faith and previous healing from advanced cancer.
Her latest book, Soul’s Scribe: Connecting Your Story With God’s Narrative , draws on scripture, philosophy, psychology and over 20 years’ of reflection as a Christian communicator to take you on a journey through the various chapters of your soul story, providing you with the tools to share that story in a way that will inspire and encourage others.
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