As my body was being scanned this morning, a paradox hit me out of nowhere: How can we be so fundamentally fragile, yet undeniably strong at the exact same time?
Now, I’m not calling myself fragile. Anyone who takes one look at my former football player frame would laugh at the idea. But the truth is, some of the strongest people I have ever known carried tremendous strength in incredibly fragile frames and vulnerable mindsets. They made me realize that strength isn’t a monolith. God distributes strength to us all, but in entirely different currencies. Some get the physical armor; others get the quiet, enduring spirit.
And yet, even the most formidable among us have a breaking point.
Think of a world-class weightlifter. They can load onto a bar and lift it with absolute authority. But add just ten more pounds—a mere fraction of the total weight—and the body collapses. The structure breaks down.
Perhaps it is precisely at these boundary lines—the exact threshold where our self-reliance fails—that the human soul is forced to look upward and outward.
It is at these limits where we are driven to turn to others, or to God herself. Yet, for some odd reason, we treat our fragility like a dirty secret. We are terrified to show the cracks in our armor or to ask for an extra hand to bear the load, as if admitting a limit diminishes our worth.
But maybe our fragility isn’t the opposite of strength at all. Maybe it’s the very thing that gives strength its meaning. A diamond is strong because it resists breaking, but a tree is strong because it knows how to bend in a storm. True resilience isn’t about being unbreakable; it’s about acknowledging our finite limits, and having the courage to reach for the infinite when those limits are reached.
Today started as a random thought in a cold scanning room, but the more I reflect, the more I realize it’s one of the truest things about being human.
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