Resilience is About Embracing Change
I personally have a bent toward quitting. I defined so much of my life around staying at the expense of my own peace that learning to quit felt like a reclamation of power.
And yet, quitting never really erases the weight of what was left undone. I’ve quit plenty of things, and I’ve learned that quitting comes with its own regrets. The relief of letting something go is often followed by the ache of wondering what might have been if I’d just held on a little longer.
Are You Exhausted?
We are tired of life knocking us down and having well-meaning Scripture quoted over us. Let’s be honest: Being told to “just trust God and keep going” when we’re at our breaking point feels more like condemnation than encouragement. We don’t want to be inspired; we want to be understood.
While we are worn out from getting up again and again and again, we can’t afford to stay down. When I look back, I can’t help but see clearly that the very challenges that felt overwhelming in the moment were what built my ability to rise, even when it felt like doing so was punishment.
We’ve convinced ourselves that resilience is the product of our strength, our ability to muster up courage, or our ability to pull ourselves up from the pit by sheer will.
But what if that definition fails to speak to the way resilience actually manifests in our lives?
The Invitation to Something Deeper
We aren’t tired of being called to rise again; we are tired of a cheap version of this call. The cheap kind of resilience that fails to account for its own weight and how it forces us to engage in the rhythm of falling and rising again and again.
I want to invite us into something deeper than another pep talk about resilience, something that doesn’t demand we bounce back in the same shape we were before life knocked us down. Sometimes rising changes us, and the journey of regaining our footing is embracing every stage of that rise.
Rolling the Boulder
Existence is a cycle of striving and falling, pushing forward and being pushed back. There is a purpose in the choice to continue.
Our pushing is not meaningless. It is not futile. It is shaping us into something deeper. We are refined through the weight of rising again. Every climb, every push forward is not just an act of resistance but an act of faith. It doesn’t have a Hollywood ending.
Our story is about the messy act of rising again and again, even when we know the seventh again will only lead to the eighth. It offers a new perspective: Resilience isn’t about finally reaching the summit where suffering ends but about finding the strength to keep pushing and making peace with the process of rising.
Our boulders may take many forms: grief, rejection, failure, obstacles that seem insurmountable. We may feel trapped in circles of effort that yield no reward. But the lesson is that there is meaning in the act of enduring. Through enduring, we find that resilience is messy, imperfect, and hard—and deeply defiant and profoundly human.
Resilience, as I’ve come to understand it, isn’t the absence of falling. It’s learning how to trust God in the fall, and how to let Him lift us in the rising. We rise knowing God walks beside us, behind us, and before us (Ps. 139:5). Every time we think we can’t push the boulder one more inch, His strength meets us in our weakness.
Reflection
What boulders are you rolling? Write down what you have been doing to rise again. Has your rise been changing you for the better?
Did you enjoy this post? Check out the book The Myth of Bouncing Back by Charaia Rush. We love how she shows you how to learn to stand again and ultimately rebuild a beautiful life.
Charaia Rush is a writer and speaker based in Colorado. She is the author of Courageously Soft, an invitation to hold on to tenderness in a world that demands toughness. Her work has been featured by She Reads Truth, Christian Parenting, and other platforms where faith, honesty, and everyday life intersect. Known for her poetic voice and practical wisdom, Charaia writes for anyone learning to live with hope, wrestle with truth, and keep showing up–even when it’s hard.
