Stronger Than Before

In 1892, German anatomist Julius Wolff published a principle that still bears his name. Wolff's Law states that bone adapts to the stress placed upon it — and nowhere is this more visible than at a fracture site. When a bone breaks, the body floods the injury with specialized cells that build a dense mass of new tissue called a callus. Over weeks and months, this callus is sculpted and hardened until the bone at the break point becomes denser and stronger than it was before the fracture.

Orthopedic surgeons see this routinely. The place that shattered becomes the place that holds.

There is a theology in that. When life fractures us — when grief or failure or betrayal cracks something deep — we assume we will always be weaker there. But the God who engineered bone to rebuild stronger at its broken place is the same God who promises, "I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten" (Joel 2:25).

Hope is not the naive belief that nothing will break. Hope is the confidence that the Almighty specializes in making the fractured place the strongest place. The psalmist knew this: "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit" (Psalm 34:18).

Whatever has broken in your life, God is not finished with it. He is building something stronger than what was there before.