How Have You Built Your Foundation?

By Nate Stuck

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a speech Nate Stuck gave during the May 30 commencement ceremony of East Fairmont High School in West Virginia. As Light + Life strives to be an intergenerational magazine that helps readers navigate their faith amid our world’s challenges, our team believes readers will benefit from Nate’s bold testimony at a public high school graduation. We encourage you to pray for teens and young adults as they live out their faith in “a beautiful but messy world.”

Let me ask you all a question. Can you think of a time when you really wanted something?

This can be when you were applying for a new job, attempting to get into your dream school, or trying to pass a test you stayed up all night studying for. Something you wanted so badly that you began to ask yourself: If I could trade my right arm for this, would I take the offer? Who has ever wanted something that much?

An Unexpected Crisis

For me, that thing was a pizza party. On Dec. 3, 2015, my mom went in for a standard gallbladder procedure. All I knew was that Mommy was going to the hospital, and when she came back that evening, she would no longer be sick, and we would celebrate with a pizza party. Now, as most of you have probably guessed, my mom didn’t come home that night.

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“The only thing that kept [my dad] from breaking in that moment was the foundation he had built in Jesus.”

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During the procedure, she experienced an unexpected complication, triggering pancreatitis. What this meant for her was that pancreatic fluid, designed to digest food, was being pumped throughout her body. The doctors discovered what had happened two days later, and she was life-flighted to Pittsburgh, almost dying on the helicopter.

As one would expect, her condition continued to worsen. As she was slowly eaten alive from the inside out, her organs turned like ground beef, and the doctors couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

My dad, understanding what would likely come next, called the family in to see her one last time. My grandpa drove in from North Carolina, bringing nothing but necessities and a suit for the funeral.

My dad was soon hit with the harsh reality that he would be left alone to care for their three young children, and that he would have to tell them Mommy wasn’t coming home. He has said that the only thing that kept him from breaking in that moment was the foundation he had built in Jesus. As his whole world collapsed around him, he had one constant truth that he could stand on. He knew that whatever the outcome, this would not be the end and that God would help our family through it.

And let me tell you, God is good. My mom made a miraculous recovery that baffled the doctors. Just two weeks after the initial procedure, nine days before Christmas, my mom came home. Although it was much later than expected, we had a pizza party after all.

Falling or Remaining?

So why did I tell you this story? As I was preparing for this speech, I racked my brain trying to figure out what it was I had to offer you. I had a long list of tidbits of knowledge and wisdom about continuing your education and preparing for the future, but everything I wrote felt wrong.

Then I thought about this story, and I realized what I had to offer.

As I say goodbye to high school, I simply want to leave you with a warning and a question — a warning that we are about to enter a beautiful but messy world. A world where, at any moment, the ground can crumble beneath your feet.

And the question is: How have you built your foundation?

When those hard times come, will you fall through the floor, or will you remain on solid ground?

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