Ernest Hemingway once said: "The world breaks everyone, and some get strong in the broken places." In this, he was right. Ours is an imperfect broken world. your wife tells you that you are not the father of your son. The doctor breaks the news that you have an inoperable cancer. your son is arrested for shoplifting. The promotion that you deserved went to a less qualified colleague.
Everyone is broken eventually, but only some mend stronger because of it. "Out of the process of pain", wrote A.B. Simpson, "Comes the souls best wine. The eyes that have shed no rain, can shed but little shine."
When Amy Carmichael became an invalid, the result of a fall, she spent the next ten years of her life bedridden. She considered those years which she spent immobile some of her best as she wrote, counseled the unending stream of people who came to her, and prayed for India and the world.
When Amy Carmichael felt the crushing , unexpected blows of life, she turned to God and found solace and strength. To those who suffer, God promised "Beauty for ashes; Joy instead of mourning; Praise instead of heaviness. For God has planted them like strong and grateful oaks for His own glory." (Isaiah 61:3 TLB)
Nothing that happens to you can happen apart from God's knowledge and God's will, and nothing which life throws at you can carry you beyond His grace and care. God doesn't fix everything, but He gives grace for everything. That can help make you strong in your broken places.
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