Staples in My Head and Stakes in the Ground

If you're just joining the party, I'd recommend reading my first post as a primer, which includes a few disclaimers and housekeeping items of note.

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This is not the first dark road I've walked down with God. 

It's not the first time hard things have come my way.

It's not the first time I've been confronted by what I believe to be true about him. 

I am not finding myself suddenly in new territory, being confronted by a crisis of faith on top of a crisis of health. Yes, my functional circumstances are fresh, but my history with God is old. 

Decades old. 

Roots run deep between me and Jesus. 

I practically came out of the womb going to church. Faith is baked into generations of my family. There have been very few Sundays in my life when my skinny backside has not filled a church pew. (Sadly, the church I attended as a child, one that profoundly marked my family, burned to the ground in 2020.) But it's a faith that wasn't just my family's. 

It eventually became mine.

Jesus became mine. 

In the days I spent in the hospital, I kept telling nurse after nurse, the ones who would sit down to listen and help me process, "I believe God is real. I believe he is good. I believe he is sovereign. And I don't believe hard things change any of those truths."

I am no doubt seeing God in fresh ways in these turbulent days, but in other ways, he is also a God who is now seemingly so familiar to me. I'm not over here feeling like I'm encountering a God who is foreign to me, like some stranger has showed up on my doorstep, leaving me wondering who this weirdo is ringing my doorbell and if I need to brandish a can of mace or not.

I've spent years seeking to know him, love him, question him, chase after him. 

And here in these days, those habits are carrying me. I'm still seeking to know him, love him, question him, chase after him. Cancer hasn't altered the trajectory of those disciplines. 

There have been plenty of moments spread throughout my life, anchor points along the way, of wrestling with God. Something would happen in life and I'd have to sit down and ask myself, "What do I believe to be true about him in this moment?" I'd sink a stake in the ground. 

Something else would happen. What do I believe to be true about God? I'd sink a stake in the ground. 

People I loved would suffer. What do I believe to be true about God? Stake in the ground. 

Friends died. What do I believe to be true about God? Stake in the ground. 

Babies died. What do I believe to be true about God? Stake in the ground. 

Mental health would consume.What do I believe to be true about God? Stake in the ground. 

I pounded stake after stake after stake after stake, laying claim to ground that belonged between me and God. 

I might have a line of ten staples in my head at the moment, but I have an even longer line of stakes in the ground, ones that declare this is ground that belongs to God and God alone. 

The stakes will always trump the staples. 

The

stakes

will

always 

trump 

the

staples.

There is a long line of past moments that have come before, many documented below from years gone by, the ones that prepared me for this moment. I encourage you to give this highlight reel of former posts a glance. If I had to rewrite these posts today, I wouldn't change a word of them. What I wrote a year ago, two years ago, or ten years ago, is still what I would write today sitting on this side of a brain mass and cancer diagnosis.

Then start putting your own stakes in the ground with God.

Find a sledgehammer and start tapping.

One at a time.

• Eucatastrophe (January 2023)
• Smelling Like Smoke (January 2023)
• What Hollows the Mind (January 2023)
• Even If the Answers Never Come (February 2022)
• Why Have I Been Forsaken? (September 2021)
• When Life Threatens to Separate (December 2018)
• Something Greater Than My Fears (June 2018)
• Though You Slay Me (November 2017, this one brought tears to my own eyes, revisiting it)
• The Last Laugh (May 2017)
• For the Ones Who Have Been Licked by the Flames (August 2014)
• But Even If (May 2014)
• Conversations with Dirt (February 2013)
• Joy (February 2012)
• Out of the Darkness (August 2010)

PPS: Want to leave a comment? If you select "Anonymous," would you mind including your first name or first name/last initial in the body of your comment? That way I know who you are!