A Good Foundation Makes All the Difference
OK, so not everyone is a fan of bridges. I led a mission trip many years ago and getting to our destination involved driving across bridges—lots of bridges. I wasn’t aware of how many until I discovered one woman on our team gets anxious crossing bridges—even the small ones.
I would not invite this friend to visit the Kinzua Bridge State Park in northwest Pennsylvania. This bridge would make anyone nervous, especially now. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
In 1882, the New York, Lake Erie and Western Railway needed a branch lane out of the Elk County coalfields. They just faced one obstacle: a ginormous, deep valley called the Kinzua Valley. In an amazingly short 94 days, they constructed a railroad bridge sitting atop twenty towers. For a period, it was the tallest railroad bridge in the U.S. Touted as the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” some of its towers were taller than the Brooklyn Bridge.
Constructed out of cast iron, it was sturdy enough, but trains had to drop their speed to five miles per hour to keep the tall bridge from vibrating. But 18 years after its construction, locomotives were getting heavier (up to 85% heavier), and they needed to update the bridge. In 1900, the bridge was temporarily closed, and the cast iron towers were replaced with steel. And so it continued until 1959 when, because of other railways, the line with this bridge was no longer needed.
A state park was created around the Kinzua Bridge, and the massive bridge was part of a sightseeing train ride through the Allegheny National Forest. But disaster hit in 2003. Twenty years ago, on July 21, 2003, a tornado came through the valley. There were no deaths or injuries, but the tornado caused massive damage in less than thirty seconds. Eleven of its twenty towers collapsed.
The bridge has stood so long, enduring countless heavy locomotives hauling coal cars, so what caused the collapse? The obvious answer seems to be the high winds, but the bridge itself contributed. When the bridge transitioned from wrought iron to steel, they replaced all the wrought iron, but they didn’t alter the towers’ foundations. They placed the steel towers on the same concrete bases without replacing the iron bolts. Structurally, stronger and deeper bolts were needed, and it took the 94 mile-an-hour tornado winds to expose the weakness of the rusted iron bolts.
Architects and structural engineers know a structure is only as good at its foundation. But you don’t need an engineering degree to know that; even the Bible tells us that. Jesus said:
“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash” (Matt. 7:24-27).
We can build our lives on a lot of things that look pretty good. They may even stand under certain conditions. But when the storms of life come blowing through, we find out too late that we built on the wrong foundation. I’ve hit this age where I can confidently say with David, “I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous abandoned” (Ps. 37:25).
I have made a conscious decision to build my life on the teaching of Christ and His Word. It has never failed me. Not once.
The right foundation makes all the difference.
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