One Millimeter at a Time

In the 1950s, a Soviet orthopedic surgeon named Gavriil Ilizarov made a remarkable discovery in Siberia: shattered bones could be regrown. His device — a ring of metal rods anchored to the bone — would slowly pull the fracture apart at exactly one millimeter per day. Move too fast, and the gap would fill with fibrous scar tissue instead of bone. Too slow, and it would calcify prematurely. But at precisely one millimeter a day, new bone would grow to fill the space, cell by cell, until the limb was whole again. The process took months. Patients wore the apparatus through every season of their recovery. There was no shortcut.

Ilizarov's method, now called distraction osteogenesis, is still used in hospitals around the world. What strikes many patients is not the pain, but the strange faith required — to trust that something invisible is being built inside them, one day at a time.

The life of faith often feels this way. We pray for restoration — in a broken marriage, a wandering child, a fractured community — and see nothing changing on the surface. But James 1:4 reminds us to let patience have her perfect work. The work is real, even when it is invisible. The bone is growing.

God does not rush the deepest healings. One millimeter. One day. Trust the process He has already begun.