Bridges are designed by educated and trained engineers. The concepts are drawn and checked Even the materials are researched and calculated. The formulas are checked and rechecked. They know the load, the balance, the height and the span and the stress. They factor in how it will be used and the environment it will be used in and use computers to help them calculate it all out and draw the plans for someone to follow. The steel, the bolts, the concrete, the rebar in the concrete, the cables all have parameters and requirements. The vendors and the manufacturers realize that you can’t bake a quality cake without quality ingredients and so goes it for that bridge too. All the pieces have to match the intended design. The builders are experienced too. They have the satisfaction knowing they start with nothing but it is them that puts it all together based on the design they were given. . They have done it before, they have powered the machines. They have moved the dirt, set up the forms to pour the concrete before. The welders have welded miles of beads. Cranes have moved heavy materials and placed them within a fraction of an inch where the mass needs to go. With their hard hats on and sleeves rolled up, all things come together as planned and us travelers have no idea how much sweat and blood went into erecting that bridge. Throughout the buildup , the engineers look it over and they measure it to see if its to the plan. The inspectors come along too trying to find anything that may put a doubt into the entire process. They have a job in their minds but have the people in their hearts as it will be their families traveling on this bridge. So then it’s done and all is proud of what is left standing. It sure does look like a bridge! Politicians show up to because they found the money or raised the money or requested the money or somehow impacted its existence. So they go there in their suits to cut the ribbon because today roads are open to all kinds of possibilities in the future. But through it all…when is the bridge really tested? When do we find out for sure just what its made of? When can we say that we know for sure that it works as designed or it can handle things we never ever thought about? The bridge is tested by stress of use in its environment. There will be truck after truck traveling over it. Some trucks found a way to sneak in oversized and over weighted loads and find justification to break the rules of the road. There will be cars traveling over the speed limits day in and day out.. People will lose control of their cars and hit the sides and or gouge the pavement or maybe even crash and burn on this bridge spilling fuel, oil and blood on the structure. There will be harsh winters with all its road salts, the sand with anti-freeze agents melting into the seams, the bolts and the welds of that steel structure. Those road salts make the surface safe for travelers, but is it corroding the structure and just how much? There will be snow plows and sparks jumping off their plows as they push the snow piles up on the sides. Then comes the thaw from the sun that seems to grow stronger every summer and its rays beating down on the surface making the pavement into a griddle. The hot sun blisters the surface and bakes the undercarriage as traffic goes by day and night. Just a few weaks ago the cold was bitter and now the sun is unbearable. Over the years ever inch of that structure will cool and heat, expand and contract and the bridge pop and crack and make noises that no one really notices. The bridge is there in all kinds of weather, even when it’s not fit for man or beast. The winds will blow, the tornadoes pass by, hail will smack down and lightning may even find a way to the ground through the structure. The river will rise and fall at is feet. The water will push and shove and tug. Driftwood the size of oak trees will soon come and all the old trash from someone else’s life will jockey around the supports. Some will pass through, but some will cling and some will jamb allowing the force of Mother Nature to push at its feet. Who realizes over the years that the foundation where the supports stand have changed, the ground has moved or settled or maybe even a trimmer from the ground shook it a little. I have found myself to be like that bridge and my stress comes from everyday life. Oh yes I had a perfect engineer in God that gave the builders the blueprints. I had the perfect builders, my mom and dad. But I never knew much about my own bridge until life threw me all those stresses and strains. I have the day to day changes and have felt the cold and the heat of life’s ups and downs. Things that I never expected to come down river have passed through or created a log jam at my base . The storms have came and the snow has melted. Corrosives have seeped into my seems and dripped into the crevices of my core. Sometimes those things that corrode my steel were from things I desired or thought I needed or perhaps even from the salt of my own tears. I have weathered the storms and how they seem to come and come. So just like the bridge, it’s the stress of life that really determines what I am made of, how I was built and what I was designed for. If it was not for my inspector in Jesus Christ I am afraid the bridge would have fallen. For he is the only one that has taken the time or the interest to see me through it all. He knows I have been tested but he is there with me for he knows who designed me and who God gave those blueprints to. Without that stress, I guess I would have just been a model on the engineers desk, maybe a picture in a scrapbook or some CAD file on a forgotten hard drive, but my designer had plans for me and my builder built me for something. Its easy to be joyful or optimistic when things go your way. Its easy to be pleasant when you are not tested, but when that moment comes and your foundations shifts, your support structure creaks, your surface cracks and that log jam is pushing on your supports….that’s where the real you is found. So be careful to judge another person based on how your bridge looks compared to how their bridge has faired, you have no idea what it has seen or the stress that has come its way. We must go back to the designer to look at that bridge and we look forward to the inspector.
Posted on: Sun, 01 Sep 2013 12:35:23 +0000
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