One of the things I’ve learned about living on twenty-five acres is that there is always another project waiting. Some projects are exciting. Others are simply necessary. And sometimes, the projects we put off the longest end up teaching us the greatest lessons.

Lately, my husband and I have been talking a lot about our chicken coop.

When we first moved onto the property, we were blessed with a plastic outdoor storage building that someone gifted us. We decided to turn it into a chicken coop, and at first, it seemed like the perfect solution. As we started putting it together, though, we realized it wasn’t nearly as sturdy as we had hoped. It would probably keep predators out under normal circumstances, but we knew it wouldn’t stand much of a chance during a strong Arkansas storm.

Thankfully, there was an old tool shed already sitting on the property. The doors were completely gone, and it had certainly seen better days, but the bones of the building were solid. The walls were sturdy and the roof was still in good shape. We built temporary doors, made a few improvements, and before long, it became home for our flock.

For a while, everything seemed fine. The chickens were protected from the rain, they had shelter from the wind, and the building looked secure. But over time, we began noticing something: the predators always seemed to find the places we hadn’t quite finished.

A small gap here. A loose board there. An opening we thought was too insignificant to matter. They never came through the strongest part of the coop; they always found the weak spot.

Teensy’s Story of Survival

One evening, that reality became transitionally, painfully clear when a predator attacked our flock. One of our little hens, Teensy, was badly injured. At first, we weren’t sure if she would survive. The attack left her with significant nerve damage, and for six long weeks, we cared for her, wondering if she would ever recover. There were daily moments of uncertainty, tiny victories that most people would never notice, and a lot of prayers.

By God’s grace, she made it.

Today, Teensy happily spends her days in our fenced backyard and comes inside every single evening—even joining us in the living room to wind down and watch Grimm at night. She still walks with a limp, and because another encounter with a rooster could cause permanent damage, she lives separately from the rest of the flock. We’re already making plans to build her a backyard coop of her own and eventually give her a few companions. She may carry scars from what happened, but she also carries a beautiful story of survival.

Looking back, I’ve realized something: the attack wasn’t really caused by the strength of the predator. It was made possible because of the weakness in the coop.

Gaps in the Armor

How often does the enemy work the same way in our own lives? The Bible describes Satan as a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. But I’ve noticed something over the years: he rarely attacks where we’re strongest. He looks for the places we’ve neglected.

 The places we assume are “good enough.”

 The little compromises we convince ourselves don’t really matter.

 The prayer life we’ve slowly allowed to become inconsistent.

 The bitterness we’ve chosen not to deal with.

 The quiet pride we’ve excused.

 The relationships we’ve stopped investing in.

 The Bible gathering dust because life feels too busy.

 The unforgiveness we’ve hidden away.

Those small openings may seem harmless at first. But the enemy doesn’t need the whole wall to come down; he only needs a gap.

When Paul tells us in Ephesians 6 to “put on the full armor of God,” I don’t think that’s accidental. He doesn’t say to put on most of it. He doesn’t tell us to protect only the areas where we already feel confident. He says the full armor—because every single piece matters.

The older I’ve become, the more I’ve realized that spiritual maturity isn’t about pretending we don’t have weak spots. It’s about allowing God to reveal them before the enemy takes advantage of them. That requires humility, honesty, and inviting God to search our hearts, even when we’d rather believe everything is fine.

I think that’s why David prayed in Psalm 139:

“Search me, O God, and know my heart… See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

David wasn’t asking because he thought he had it all together. He was asking because he knew there could be places he couldn’t see.

Rebuilding by the Master Builder

Sometimes we’re so accustomed to living with a weakness that we stop noticing it’s there. We become comfortable with the gap—until one day we’re reminded that gaps matter. But the good news is that God doesn’t reveal our weak places to shame us. He reveals them because He loves us.

When we discovered the weak spots in our chicken coop, we didn’t throw the whole building away. We didn’t decide it wasn’t worth saving. We started making plans to strengthen it, to reinforce it, and to prepare it for what was coming.

That’s exactly what our Heavenly Father does with us. He doesn’t abandon us because we have weaknesses. He patiently goes to work restoring what is broken, strengthening what has grown weak, and teaching us to depend on Him rather than ourselves. In fact, some of the strongest believers I know aren’t people who have never been wounded; they’re people who have allowed God to heal what was wounded.

Scars are not signs that God has forgotten you. Sometimes they’re evidence that He brought you through something you never thought you would survive.

Every time I watch Teensy hobble across the backyard with her little limp, I smile. She doesn’t know she’s different; she simply goes about enjoying the life she’s been given. Maybe there’s a lesson in that, too. So many of us spend our lives focusing on the scars we’ve collected, but God keeps reminding us to focus on the life we’ve been given.

This winter, we’ll spend time strengthening that old chicken coop. We’ll seal the gaps, replace what needs replacing, and reinforce the places predators once found. We don’t do this out of fear, but because we love what has been entrusted to our care.

Maybe that’s a question worth asking ourselves today: What has God entrusted to you? Is it your marriage? Your family? Your walk with Him? Your integrity? Your purpose? Your testimony? Is there a place where you’ve quietly been saying, “I’ll get around to fixing that someday”?

Friend, don’t wait. Ask the Lord to reveal the weak places. Open His Word, spend time in prayer, and surround yourself with believers who will lovingly point out the gaps you may not see on your own. And then trust God to do what He has always done so faithfully: strengthen what remains.

Our security has never rested on our own strength. It rests in Christ. He is our refuge. He is our fortress. He is the One who rebuilds what is broken, restores what has been wounded, and faithfully completes the work He began in us. While predators may find our weak spots, they will never overcome a life that is continually being strengthened by the hands of the Master Builder.