FOREWORD
Overcoming: What Scripture and Science Say About Resilience
Few truths are more essential to life in this aching world than those contained in this book. Without them, we’ll be utterly unprepared for what we will inevitably face, like running onto a battlefield in a bathing suit. But when we live into these age-old truths and their practical applications found in the pages ahead—although the road will rarely be easy—we’ll live with confidence that we can survive and even thrive amidst a world that’s often far less than it should be. We’ll also be well-equipped to help others do the same.
A Clear-Eyed View of Our World The Bible is nothing if not brutally honest about life on earth. We don’t always convey that in our supposedly Christian messages today. At times, we can sanitize Scripture and our faith into a shiny, happy pep talk. Spend even a few moments in the Bible, and you’ll encounter something very different. Right alongside immense goodness and beauty, virtually every page is marked by pain. Again and again, we see how humans wrong others and harm themselves. We ache at the ways the vulnerable are misused, even by those who ought to protect and care. One thinks of Moses, taken from his family as a baby, set floating in a crocodile-infested river. There’s Joseph, sold into bondage by his own brothers, trafficked, enslaved, maligned, and imprisoned. We see Esther, orphaned as a girl and raised by her uncle amidst a culture where enemies longed to obliterate their entire race. One could go on and on. In the Bible, adversity and trauma touches most every character. And so it has been ever since. As Jesus stated boldly, “In this world, you will have tribulation…” (John 16:33) Those words proved accurate not only for his disciples, all but one of whom died a violent death. They’re also true for every child entering life on earth.
The Call to Lament Scripture never downplays this reality. It carries no hint that we ought to ignore the bad stuff, paste on a smile and pretend it didn’t happen to them, to us. Rather, we are led into lament. We are invited, even called, to grieve—like David mourning the battlefield death of his best friend, Jonathan (2 Samuel 1:17-27). Like the bereaved Shunamite woman who lost