Some things are learned by staying

Why I Keep  Writing

When I first started my spiritual journey as a young man, I assumed faith meant trusting God to prevent certain things from happening. Not all things — just the worst ones. The unnecessary ones. The ones that leave damage behind and questions in their wake.

I thought faith would be a shield, but life has a way of testing what might be assumed to be safe, and a day comes when everything changes.

A diagnosis that lands like a sentence.

A fall that shouldn’t have mattered… but it does.

Abruptly recalling a phone call while returning to the location

Suddenly, I realize my faith is no longer theoretical, and that Scripture offers a different faith story.

For example, the Book of Job disquiets us because God does not step in when we think He should. And Job becomes an example — not of God’s protection from hardship, but of His permission to endure it.

God allows what He does not endorse. He remains present when He does not intervene.

And these things are learned by staying.

Jesus tells Peter that Satan has demanded to sift him like wheat (Luke 22:31–32). Jesus doesn’t say, “I’ll stop it.” He says, “I’ve prayed for you.” And when Peter later fails, Jesus doesn’t throw him away. He restores him — and then gives him a calling.

Paul pleads for relief, only to be told that grace will be sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Scripture refuses to make things tidy.

Permission is not abandonment.

But neither is it an explanation.

For me, writing has become one of the ways I stay with that tension. Not to solve it, but to resist the urge to escape from it too quickly.

Stories allow us to remain present to what hurts without turning away. They help us trust that God is still at work even when outcomes feel unresolved. They keep us close to the place where faith can become something deeper than optimism.

I keep writing because my faith matures when I stop expecting God to prevent all harm and start trusting Him to remain present in it.

Some things are learned by staying.

Not by winning. Not by escaping.

By staying.

May Jesus keep us close.

 

 

P.S. If this reflection, “Why I Still Write,” resonates with you, you may want to know it’s also the spiritual backbone of Ward’s suspense series, the Cain Family Chronicles. The first novel, The Permission, explores what faith looks like when prevention doesn’t come—and staying becomes the only way forward.

THE CAIN FAMILY CHRONICLES

The Cain Family Chronicles were born out of this same wrestling. These stories will not ask whether evil exists; they assume it does.

They ask what faith looks like when harm is allowed, when truth is opposed, and belief becomes costly.

The Permission, the first book in the Cain Family Chronicles suspense thriller series – a repurposed and rewritten story — aims directly at the hardest question most of us carry:

Why does God allow what He could stop?

And if He does not prevent it, will we stay?

The Permission will be released in March, 2026. Stay tuned for more about The Permission and the Cain Family Chronicles at https://wardtanneberg.com