Looking for Resilience by Jennifer Dilts
“Tripolar spirituality (a commitment to loving God, self, and others) realizes that love of God and love of neighbor become one when united in shared life together.” David Augsburger
A few months ago, I became captivated with the story of Gabe Grunewald, the late American professional distance runner, and cancer advocate. I read every article that I could find about her and listened to every podcast that she, her husband, or her best friend have recorded. In one podcast, Gabe’s best friend recounted Gabe’s reaction when she first learned that her rare cancer, the one that she had lived with for ten years, had now spread to multiple other places in her body. Gabe said, “It’s not what I expected, but I hope that I can adjust.”
Gabe’s authenticity, vulnerability, and unbridled enthusiasm for life have touched me deeply. She continued to show up on the starting line of the track, even when she was far from her physical best. Gabe wrote, at the end of a hard year of cancer treatments, “I prayed that something would work. I wept. I wiped my tears and laced up my shoes. I did not give up on hope or my dreams.” When Gabe could no longer race, she poured her energy into her foundation, Brave Like Gabe, which funds rare cancer research and empowers cancer survivors through physical activity.
Gabe embodied resilience. By all accounts, she worked hard to live a shared life. Even after her death, she continues to inspire me. I think of her often, and she reminds me to do the very best that I can with each day that I am given. As a physician who works with patients with chronic pain, I have come to believe that our resilience matters more than any other quality that we possess. Thankfully, resilience can be cultivated. It’s not something that we are just born with, and that’s good news, especially when times are tough. We foster resilience when we work to build and maintain our close ties with family, friends, and our community. This shared life looks different now than it usually does, but we can still help and encourage each other. Our resilience grows when we take time for play, and humor, and silliness. Our ability to thrive during adversity grows when we limit our media exposure to healthy amounts, and focus on things we can control, like our attitude, the way that we structure our days, and the healthy ways that we care for our bodies.
We are in that dark space between Good Friday and Easter. It’s not a comfortable place. We want to run ahead, to focus on Easter already. And yet, we aren’t quite there yet. We have hope and assurance that Easter will come. We know that our God loves us deeply. And yet, we have fear and uncertainty. My prayer for us, in the midst of these uncertain times, is that we can be open and vulnerable, and continue to live with hope. As Emily P. Freeman prays in The Next Right Thing, “…give us the courage to admit what was hard and embrace what we love. Remind us to move toward life, again and again. We ask today for a hopeful vision of the future even while we sit with question marks. Thank you for being with us and within us and for never leaving us alone.”
Photo was taken from the Brave Like Gabe website.