Bear Grylls has NOTHIN' on me!

I've got so much to do, and I've got so many directions I'm running, I had to just stop before I continued, and share an experience and a picture with you!

About a week ago, Chris, Zach and I were up Little Cottonwood canyon, looking at the fall leaves. While we were there, Zach and I went off to explore, and found a great place that had three fallen logs over the river. As I was standing near the bank on one of these logs, I lost my balance and put my foot behind me to catch myself. Instead of coming down on hard ground however, I ended up stepping into a hole filled with dead pine branches. As I fell back, I hit a tree pretty hard with my back, and was momentarily stunned. When I tried to move however, something was holding my leg in place. I yanked my leg out of the hole, and as I did, a resounding "dead wood" "SNAP" was heard, and suddenly I was free. As I walked away, my calf was burning and I knew I'd scratched it up pretty bad. What I didn't realize is that I'd impaled myself on a branch, and had broken off the tip INSIDE MY LEG!

I reached down to see what I'd done, and ran into the branch, which was about as big around as a 10 penny nail. As I tried to pull it out, I realized it wasn't jammed in there under the surface of my skin like a big sliver, but instead, it had punctured STRAIGHT into my leg just below my calf muscle! The stick was about an inch and a half long, and was completely jammed in my leg, leaving less than a eighth of an inch sticking out. As Zach turned several shades of pale, I began trying to pull it out - but it didn't want to cooperate, and I finally had to grit my teeth, and scream while I yanked it out. Zach and I burst out in hysterical laughter, and both agreed it was one of the coolest things we'd ever seen!

After it was out, I probed the wound again, and found ANOTHER smaller branch just below it - also sticking straight into my leg. I wasn't able to grab that one, so using my trusty Leatherman, Zach grabbed on to it, and pulled it from my leg. It was only about three-quarters of an inch long, but still as thick as a framing nail! Once all the sticks were out, I pinched and pushed on it to make it bleed really well, then washed it off in the river (yes, your watershed... you can thank me later!)

Zach and I were totally thrilled by the experience, and both agree it was one of the coolest, manliest things I've ever done... Sick huh? LOL... I have to admit I did feel a little like Rambo when he had to sew himself up. I'm just glad I didn't pass out.

I got home and washed it well with anti-bacterial soap, and filled the hole with triple-anti-biotic ointment, and it's healing up just fine. It's not something I want to ever experience again, and I'm grateful it didn't hit anything vital, but come on... how many times in your life do you get to pull a branch out of your leg while screaming your war-cry into the surrounding forest? If I could grunt like Tim the Tool Man, I would! It was a very cool experience!

Where I was impaled by two sticks

Talk about a journey! HOLY COW!

A confession... Tsk tsk tsk....

I know that everyone comes to a point in their lives with their relationship with God where they want to just throw their hands up and say, "F*** it - that's it... No more - I'm done." Mine came over a week ago, and as hard as I tried to be a non-believer, it didn't work. Damnit.

Are you shocked? I am. Why did I do it? Well, it's a long story, but it basically comes down to the frustrations of seeing every one of my family members declare they want nothing to do with God, with "Christianity", or especially, and I'm guilty here too - with Christians in general. It's all sort of a cumulative effect - being burned by people who are in positions of spiritual leadership and authority, being accused of things that you'd not only NEVER think to do, let alone accomplish the act, being railroaded into doing things that go against your nature because you felt you had no choice, and finally, being horribly judged by people who are SUPPOSED to love you MORE than judge you, and especially trying to hang on to my faith when I feel completely alone, and judged for wanting to keep the flame alive.

It finally came to a head the other night, and I decided that nothing, or more specifically, NO ONE is worth the hell and pain I'm going through trying to hold on to a dying flame. I've watched as all of my kids have expressed their disdain and disgust with "...Christians" who are nothing more than judgmental a**holes with nothing better to do than meddle in others lives - instead of looking after the proverbial "log" in their own eyes." I've seen my beloved's faith get rocked to the point where she trusts NO ONE who calls themselves a believer... and I've seen something that used to be such an amazingly "uniting" aspect of our relationship die on the vine.

Frankly, it has pissed me off.

And by way of a disclaimer, I know we're not pure as the driven snow, and we've had our times of failure, but I can say with a VERY clear conscience, that those times of failure came only after doing all we could to live with integrity and honesty, and finally no longer being able to control our hurt, disgust, disbelief and anger.

So, while I didn't give God the finger - as it were, I did pack up all my books and notes, and put them on the shelf - FULLY intending on getting boxes and putting them away, or throwing them all away, and no longer believing. While the thought of throwing out any book bothers me, I was willing to 86 all my bibles, commentaries, studies, and literally ANY thing that may have something to do with Christianity. In my mind, KARMA - doing unto others as I'd want them to do to me - was going to be the behavior of the day, but completely without God. No more. No how. No way.

Then, I made the mistake of reading something I wrote some time ago... Here on this blog in fact. Earlier this year I wrote an entry called, "Just HOW important is faith?" which contained the scripture reference from Isaiah 7:9 which says, "Unless your faith is firm, I cannot make you stand firm."

DAMNIT God! WHY did you say that? WHY did I write that? WHY did I read that? ARGHHHH!

I read that passage over and over... and couldn't get it out my head. "Unless your faith is firm, I cannot make you stand firm." And then the internal arguments started: "God? Unless MY faith is firm? WHAT?" "Why don't YOU make MY faith firm?" "Why do I have to have firm faith?" "Why don't YOU just make my faith firm?" "My faith is in the toilet... how's that for firm?"

And yet, the words still spoke to my hurting, defiant, pain-filled, and angry heart - "Unless your faith is firm, I cannot make you stand firm." Shit. That means it's a failing in ME! That means that in spite of everything that's hurt me, and everything that's made me angry, and everything that's grieved my heart, it's still up to me to keep my faith alive - and "established" as some translations say. I didn't like that thought. Inside of me I began making excuses... "It's too much to ask at this point..." "What good is being the only one in my family who is trying?" "What good does having firm faith do, when people who are clearly lacking in faith, morals, humility, and honestly are still prospering and seeing success in their lives?" "What's in it for me?"

I KNOW I'm not alone in feeling like this... and yet, "Unless your faith is firm..." It makes me want to scream out, "SHUT UP GOD! - HOW COULD YOU KNOW OR UNDERSTAND?" "YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY KNOW WHAT IT IS I'M GOING THROUGH, LET ALONE TALKING ABOUT!"

And yet, the passage remained, stubbornly replaying like a bad audio loop, "unless your faith is firm, I cannot make you stand firm." Ouch. And even more painful was the realization that He CAN possibly know. He CAN understand. And even worse, He cares that I'm in this crisis. And, if that's true, then I have a responsibility to respond to Him... and I have a need to make my faith firm. Oh crap. Another painful round of confession and repentance is in my future. I hate that.

This isn't the first time my own words have been used against me. And it likely won't be the last either - sad to say. So last night I pulled my favorite bible down from the shelf where it had been relegated to sit until I threw it away, and flipped it open to Isaiah, and had to eat a little crow, and try to wipe some spiritual "egg" off my face. Exactly HOW to firm up my faith isn't really clear to me - as there is no magic bullet to do so - but I know there are things that build faith - and one of them isn't throwing a temper-tantrum when life is handing me "faith firming" turds that taste like gravel in my mouth, or causing me more pain than I want to deal with.

So I wearily climbed back on the horse last night. God and I haven't had the "woodshed" moment yet, but I know it's coming. I know I deserve it. And who knows, maybe my butt will be firm enough that it won't hurt as bad as everything did to drive me to this point.

"Unless your faith is firm, I cannot make you stand firm."

Abba, I believe. Help my unbelief - PLEASE.