Make Relational Connections to Build Resilience in the Face of Trauma

Last updated on: March 29, 2017 at 11:16 am by Paul Louis Metzger

Make Relational Connections to Build Resilience in the Face of Trauma 2017-03-29T11:16:30-07:00 Paul Louis Metzger

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The American Psychological Association specifies several ways to build resilience in the face of trauma. One of them is “make connections.” Here is what the APA says about the need to make relational connections:

Good relationships with close family members, friends or others are important. Accepting help and support from those who care about you and will listen to you strengthens resilience. Some people find that being active in civic groups, faith-based organizations, or other local groups provides social support and can help with reclaiming hope. Assisting others in their time of need also can benefit the helper.

The APA’s statement finds parallels with statements made by the Apostle Paul in his prison epistle to the Philippian Church. In what follows, I will discuss how the Apostle Paul made connections with others during his imprisonment in Rome, as illustrated in his letter to the Philippian Christians. This is the third in a series of posts on Paul and resilience in the face of trauma in his ministry (for the first two posts, refer here and here).

While encouraging Christians in Philippi to work through their differences to build unity, he also relies on them for their prayer support, along with the help he receives from the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Paul writes,

for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:19-21; ESV).

The Philippians were faithful friends and co-workers of Paul’s (Philippians 4:10-20); so, too, were Timothy, his son in the faith, and Epaphroditus, whom the Philippians had sent to tend to Paul’s needs while in prison (Philippians 2:19-30).

Some of us might be tempted to think of the Apostle Paul as a self-made and ruggedly independent man. If that were so, he would not have looked to others for spiritual, emotional, and financial support. As resilient as he was in the face of many extreme challenges, Paul could not have gone it alone. No one can. In fact, if it weren’t for Jesus working through Ananias to lay hands on Paul (Saul) to remove the scales from his blind eyes, and through Barnabas to offer Paul (Saul) the right hand of fellowship (See Acts 9), there might never have been an Apostle Paul!

If Paul needed help during difficult times along his life’s journey, we all do. And yet, we cannot trust just anyone. We must be discerning. Timothy had proven himself, as had the Philippian church, including Ephaphroditus. I should add that Paul had also proven himself to be trustworthy; even from his imprisonment, he is reaching out and caring for the Philippian believers with the various challenges they face. If you don’t have people to whom you can go to bear your burdens with you, pray that God would bring faithful friends into your life. Pray, too, that you would be someone others can go to during their times of need for appropriate forms of counsel and comfort.

While there are times when we might feel isolated, and situations where we have to work in remote settings, even then we can and must rely on God’s Spirit. We always need God’s Spirit to guide, counsel and comfort us; we must also look to others for support through prayer and other means in such times. No person is an island, not even St. Paul or St. Peter, who some consider a rock.

In the U.S., we often pride ourselves on being self-starters, people who pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, and who made it their own way. But if we are honest with ourselves, all of us have received breaks and assistance to varying degrees along the way. For all the individual resilience that we may boast, and which is important, our strength of character in the face of trauma is also the mark of strong community support. We cannot face trauma alone.

This was brought to my attention by two missional Christian leaders who had traveled to Haiti. One is from a megachurch in Beaverton, Oregon, and the other is from Uganda. Each leader was struck by the resilience of the Haitian people in the face of a history of traumatic conditions (refer here, here and here); the resilience of the common people they encountered was bound up with the relational connections that they have fostered over lengthy periods of time. For all the resources and skills of the mission teams that came to Haiti from Oregon, the missions pastor realized that the relational resources of the Haitian people were far greater than what could be found in his church community back home. Even the Ugandan leader, whose people know a profound thing or two regarding strong communities, was struck by the depth of relational bonds among the Haitian communities he engaged.

While we may never face conditions like the dear people of Haiti, we may not always be in positions where we can rely on our academic credentials, ethnic heritages, financial savings, and other resources to help us face various forms of trauma. When such things prove to be vacuous or at least do not suffice, we will need to lean on relational capital. Why wait until we are experiencing extreme forms of trauma to build such capital? We should take steps now to make necessary relational connections with trustworthy others, praying as we go. We should also ask God to make us trustworthy allies for others, too.

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