Bouncebackedness: The Ball or the Egg

As I sit down to write this, my phone continuously jingles with updates from a group text I’m in with my co-workers. I work for an inner city non-profit that focuses on empowering and building up elementary school children.

This morning, the older brother of two of the children in our program was shot while walking his siblings to the bus stop.

It looks like he’s going to be okay, but it was really frightening for a stretch as the texts flew in while the situation developed. Unfortunately, where I work, this is the rule and not the exception.

Life is difficult.  As tragedy unfolds daily and crises occur constantly, I often wonder if resilience is even possible.

This series on “bouncebackedness” – or the art of learning resilience – is something that only applies to you if you’re human.

This past Sunday, we focused on the fact that our “jars of clay” – the bodies with which we travel this life – can really get banged up.

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 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 Corinthians 4:7-9

So, how do we come back from the bumping and bruising and breaking caused by our life? It’s easy to read those verses and focus on the fragility of the clay jar. Don’t miss the little word nestled in there: treasure. That’s the thing about jars of clay – they aren’t super durable. But the treasure within is.

I can’t get this quote out of my head:

“Sometimes we focus on the container and not the contents.” – Lead Pastor, Aaron Hlavin

So what are those contents? What is it that I cart around in my clay jar that’s of so much worth? It’s Jesus and the hope and the grace that He offers. The life He so freely poured out for us. I carry that in me. I’m learning how to offer that to those around me.

I recently attended the viewing of a woman who had passed away. I stood in the funeral home with her mother – who was no stranger to tragedy. In the past eight years, she’d lost a granddaughter, a husband and now a child.

Yet, she recounted to me all the ways the Lord had been faithful in her many years, including as recently as that day when she was able to share Jesus with her former employer in front of her daughter’s casket.

If she had wanted to express the grief she was feeling and the unfairness of life, no one would’ve faulted her. But she chose to focus on the contents of her earthen vessel. And she poured that treasure into my life that day.

I was humbled.

A couple of weeks ago, Aaron and I visited a woman at her home. She’s under the care of hospice – weak and frail. She, too, is no stranger to loss – two children and a husband. But the joy of her life is her two adult grandchildren. Her eyes brightened when she talked about “her angels.” With tears in her eyes, she shared of God’s faithfulness.

Again, I was humbled.

Both of these women of God could’ve easily focused on the trials and tribulations of life.  But instead they chose to focus on the treasure. On Jesus.

Lord, help us – help me – to be resilient. Help me pour You – and the salvation that you offer – out to a dying, broken world that needs the contents of my jar so much more than it needs the cracked and broken container. Make this clearer to me day by day, as I bounce back from the bumps and bruises of this fallen world. You are our hope. You are our reconciliation. You are our everything. Let us never forget that.  

Written by: Jaime Hlavin

Edited by: Brigit Edwards