Weathering the Storm: Simple Strategies for Being Peaceful and Prepared

Resilience enables us not only to survive adversity but to be transformed by it. This book offers simple and proven strategies to develop resilience that will be of enormous benefit to anyone who is yearning to feel more peaceful and prepared. Coast Guard veteran interfaith chaplain and pastor Tracy Mehr-Muska shares the stories of her own struggles with self-esteem sexual assault and miscarriage that inspired her to research resilience and to enthusiastically reach this conclusion: resilience is not something that is inborn but instead is a set of characteristics we can cultivate. Mehr-Muska brings these characteristics to life using inspirational secular and multifaith stories as well as compelling scientific evidence. She ties each chapter together with an uplifting story of a personal friend that bravely and gracefully overcame obstacles and embodies each of these essential characteristics. Weathering the Storm also poses insightful questions for reflection and offers concrete strategies for implementation that can be used individually or in group contexts such as faith communities families and therapeutic relationships. Just as we practice fire drills before a fire happens this book will help us be better equipped for the eventual storms of life so we can live with greater peace and preparedness. Weathering the Storm pulsates with hope without hint of smoothing over rough seas of human trauma and tragedy. With raw personal transparency and innovative attention to the resilience of her closest mates former Coast Guard officer and current university chaplain Tracy Mehr-Muska coaxes us into believing in our capacity to endure. She reminds us again why we are alive. There is no simpler way to say it: your life will be richer for having read this brave and beautiful book. --Robert C. Dykstra Princeton Theological Seminary Mehr-Muska offers wise and accessible counsel to all of us who could use more resilience. Drawing from the life experience of a group of women she met in the Coast Guard as well as her own years working in hospice and as a college chaplain Mehr-Muska shows that resilience is not a magical attribute that only some have but a set of skills that can be learned. A pleasure to read this book is a deeply sensitive and insightful guide on how to meet lifes challenges with clarity and courage. --Victoria Pitts-Taylor Wesleyan University Some people get stuck in a spiritual or political or personal traffic jam and start whining. Others start planning alternative routes. Still others make good use of the down time. Tracys book helps you become a back roads thoughtful spirit-full anywhere any time kind of person. --Donna Schaper Judson Memorial Church Tracy W. Mehr-Muska DMin serves as a university chaplain at Wesleyan University. She is an ordained Presbyterian pastor board-certified interfaith chaplain Coast Guard veteran wife and mother. Her passion for learning about and teaching resilience has been inspired by the strong and spirited people she has served and worked alongside while in the military and while ministering in a trauma hospital prison psychiatric hospital university and hospice.