The Tension Where Truth Lives

Walk through any cemetery and you’ll see two dates carved into stone.

A beginning.
An ending.

And between them… a dash.

That small line carries the weight of an entire life.

The world measures us by the dates.
He was born here. She died there.
Started this. Finished that.

But Heaven does not measure us by the dates.

Heaven reads the dash.

The dash is where faith was tested.
The dash is where prayers were whispered in the dark.
The dash is where we failed… repented… rose again.
The dash is where character was shaped and love was chosen.

No one lives in the dates.

We live in the middle.

And that middle is rarely dramatic.

It is made of ordinary Tuesdays.
Hard conversations.
Forgiveness that costs something.
Obedience when no one is watching.
Faithfulness when no applause comes.

The dash is where God does His deepest work.

We spend so much time worrying about when we started…
Or how it will end…

But the real question is this:

What are we doing with the middle?

Because one day, our name will be etched in stone.
Two dates will be written.
And a dash will sit quietly between them.

That dash will tell the story.

Not of how much we owned.
Not of how impressive we appeared.
But of how we loved.
How we endured.
How we trusted God when life was uncertain.

Life in the Middle is not about waiting for someday.

It is about stewarding today.

The dash is not filler space.
It is sacred space.

It is the place where doubt wrestles with belief.
Where pressure forms character.
Where calling meets discipline.
Where God shapes souls in ways that eternity will reveal.

You cannot change your start date.

You do not control your end date.

But you are responsible for your dash.

So live it intentionally.
Forgive quickly.
Serve quietly.
Love deeply.
Trust boldly.

Because in the end…

It’s not the date.

It’s the dash.

Pastor Charles E. Howse Jr
Beth-El Baptist Church