COZAD, Neb. (RNS) Having read Willa Cather’s novels about the harsh winters that awaited European pioneers, I wondered if a trip in early March to lead a men’s retreat would be my first taste of a true Nebraska winter.

Not so. Temperatures are in the balmy 40s. Mountains of snow have melted away. The wind-swept clay fields of central Nebraska wait to be planted, and only tales told by survivors to convey winter’s severity.

Forty consecutive days below 20 degrees, I am told. 24 below zero one day. Snow measured in feet, not inches. They made it. They survived.

I suppose that was Cather’s point, too, as she sat in her comfortable New York home and wrote novels about the Nebraska childhood she had survived and happily left behind.

Men on this retreat tell their own survivor stories: grim days in Vietnam, youthful indiscretions, drinking sprees, career ups and downs, medical ups and downs, church ups and downs.

Most seem OK with where life has brought them, although a few struggle with remorse and worry. We all resonate with this retreat’s theme: “Pilgrims in a V.U.C.A. World,” drawing on a futurist’s insight of a world ahead that will be “volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.”

Change, not stability, is our constant. Unpredictable outcomes, surprises, negatives-turned-positives, promises that come up empty — they’re all happening at an accelerating pace. Our recent battles over whether to allow change, and how much, and who can control it, seem utterly pointless.

As we press on in this often-bewildering storm, some in our society tell stories of a halcyon yesteryear when things used to be better. We’ve had too much change, they say, and can’t handle any more. Gauzy tales about old-time rock ‘n’ roll and old-time religion tend to follow that path — harmlessly in the case of music, quite destructively in the case of religion’s nostalgia.

A better use of stories — the kind I heard happening at this Episcopal retreat — is to recognize the durability of life: change didn’t destroy life, it shaped life. In God’s providence, negative changes often led to positive outcomes. What seemed lost came up found. Life is good, even if life is hard. Even when things don’t work out, light still shines.

We don’t see that durability until we experience it. My marriage wasn’t formed in an idyllic June wedding, but in a 48-inch blizzard five months later when we lost heat and water and had only each other for support. My parenthood was formed in the darkest hours, and my writing has always flowed more deeply during times of trouble.

I am convinced that our churches’ finest hour lies ahead. Unless we aren’t paying attention, we know the situation of our congregations is dire. We know our fights over change led nowhere. We know that it’s time to dig deep, stop fussing, get bold, and to tell those still frightened, “We have survived worse storms than this, and God was good.”

That’s the point of survivor stories, you see. Not that things were better sometime “back then,” but that we don’t need to fear living in this volatile, change-driven world, because we are stronger than that and God is more providential.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)