The Repair Enzymes

In 2015, Tomas Lindahl shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for a discovery that should stop every one of us in our tracks. He found that every single cell in your body suffers tens of thousands of DNA breaks every day. Tens of thousands. Radiation, toxins, even the simple act of living damages the molecular code that holds you together.

By all rights, we should fall apart. But we don't — because God built repair enzymes directly into our cells. Specialized proteins race along the double helix, snipping out damaged sections, filling in the gaps, and stitching the strand back together. This happens constantly, silently, faithfully — thousands of repairs every hour in every one of your thirty-seven trillion cells.

Here is what strikes me: God did not design a world without damage. He designed a world with restoration built into its very fabric.

That is forgiveness. Not a world where nothing ever breaks. Not a relationship where no one ever wounds. Forgiveness is the repair enzyme of the soul — the grace that moves toward the damage, cuts away what is corrupted, and makes us whole again.

When the Apostle Paul wrote that we are "God's workmanship" in Ephesians 2:10, he chose a word — poiema — that speaks of a masterpiece crafted with intention. The Master Builder is not surprised by our fractures. He has been in the restoration business since before the first cell divided.

The same God who threads repair into every cell of your body offers that same relentless mending to every broken relationship you carry today.