Dear Friends,

How we meet the challenges of our lives defines us. I recently read this aphorism — “Behind every strong person is a story that isn’t easy.”

We would not know what kind of storms we can weather and what kind of battles we can survive and win, if we had not encountered hardship, pain, disappointed, failure, and rejection. Every scar I bear from six decades of living conveys a lesson shaping my character and approach to new problems. No doubt, the same can be said of you at whatever age you are reading this.

An immense block of white marble from one of the famed quarries at Carrara was hauled into Florence, Italy and deposited on the piazza next to the cathedral in 1464. It was a beautiful piece of stone and it gleamed in the Tuscan sunlight.

The sculptor Agostino di Duccio had been commissioned to sculpt a statue of David as one of a series of Old Testament characters to adorn the cathedral roof. For ten years, Agostino labored to rough out the legs, feet and torso, and started to gouge out the space between the legs. His talents were no match for the promise of the marble, however, and he left the project.

Ten years later, the city leaders called on another sculptor to finish the project. He made little progress and quit. The hacked and scarred block of marble sat out in the elements for the next twenty-five years. An inventory of the cathedral workshops in the year 1500 listed “a certain figure of marble called David, badly blocked and supine.”

Despite the bad treatment, it was a magnificent marble of an exceptional size and quality, There had been considerable cost and expense involved in bringing it to Florence. The wealthy wool merchants who had underwritten the project were desperate to see something done with it. They consulted a number of leading artists including the great Leonardo da Vinci about the big chunk of marble they had begun to call “The Giant.” No one seemed to have a vision for the sculpture.

Finally the twenty-six year-old native son Michelangelo convinced the leaders to give him the commission. He had a shed built around the marble to protect against the elements and prying, critical eyes. Then he went to work.

Agostino’s unfortunate gouge made it difficult to position the legs. So Michelangelo gave the nude David a distinctive stance, resting his weight on his right leg, hips and shoulders slightly turned to the left with his sling held in his left hand and draped over his left shoulder. David appears somewhat tense and combative awaiting his showdown with Goliath.

It was a long two and a half years before Michelangelo unveiled his 17.0′ tall masterwork to the city and the world. It was received with acclamation and is considered as the greatest sculpture of the Renaissance and perhaps ever.

This story encourages me. There are few, if any, of us who have escaped inartful gouges to our hearts and souls on the way to becoming who we are today. Maybe those whose scars we bear gave up and abandoned us exposed to the elements. Our emotional and spiritual stances have likely been altered as a result. Tense and combative may be attitudes to which we can relate all too well.

But we can be grateful to our Lord Jesus Christ who offers to cover us and recreate us as the expression of his very own life. Those who choose to “live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty” can realize his vision for our lives and trust his creative power to shape us into his likeness.

Jesus “was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces.” Yet, “by his scars we are healed” (Isa 53:3,5b). Whatever they have done to us, whatever we have done to ourselves, he can work with what we are and make of us something beautiful (Isa 61:3).

The Apostle Paul tells us straight out, “We know that in all things God works for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28). The Creator of the Universe who put the planets and stars in place, filled the oceans and raised the mountains, and specifically made you in love, will not give up on you. However sin and evil have marred us, he can restore us, and it is his loving will and his glory to do so.

May Jesus Christ be praised and may you be encouraged in his love.
“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Psalm 34:8).
Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

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Please note that the content and viewpoints of Mr. Hansen are his own and are not necessarily those of the C.S. Lewis Foundation. We have not edited his writing in any substantial way and have permission from him to post his content.

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Kent Hansen is a Christian attorney, author and speaker. He practices corporate law and is the managing attorney of the firm of Clayson, Mann, Yaeger & Hansen in Corona, California. Kent also serves as the general counsel of Loma Linda University and Medical Center in Loma Linda, California.

Finding God’s grace revealed in the ordinary experiences of life, spiritual renewal in Christ and prayer are Kent’s passions. He has written two books, Grace at 30,000 Feet and Other Unexpected Places published by Review & Herald in 2002 and Cleansing Fire, Healing Streams: Experiencing God’s Love Through Prayer, published by Pacific Press in spring 2007. Many of his stories and essays about God’s encompassing love have been published in magazines and journals. Kent is often found on the hiking trails of the southern California mountains, following major league baseball, playing the piano or writing his weekly email devotional, “A Word of Grace for Your Monday” that is read by men and women from Alaska to Zimbabwe.