{"id":402,"date":"2016-01-13T09:00:30","date_gmt":"2016-01-13T15:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/?p=402"},"modified":"2015-12-29T21:22:48","modified_gmt":"2015-12-30T03:22:48","slug":"spikes-in-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/01\/spikes-in-faith.html","title":{"rendered":"Spikes in Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are beautiful cacti that bloom in different seasons. There are cacti who remain green through the darkest night and driest conditions. It&#8217;s really amazing how much these plants persevere.\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-medium wp-image-398 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/388\/2015\/12\/cactus-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"cactus\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But one thing is certain with these plants &#8212; you can&#8217;t touch them. Their needles can hurt you. Yet these same needles protect the plant.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes we need to realize that the needle pricks we feel can actually be protecting us. They may hurt or give you a big jolt if they are deep, but at the same time you are protected from other things you might not be able to handle or even control.<\/p>\n<p>When you feel challenged, take a lesson from the cacti &#8212; persevere as you were made to do!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are beautiful cacti that bloom in different seasons. There are cacti who remain green through the darkest night and driest conditions. It&#8217;s really amazing how much these plants persevere.\u00a0 But one thing is certain with these plants &#8212; you can&#8217;t touch them. Their needles can hurt you. Yet these same needles protect the plant.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":591,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Spikes in Faith - Through the Lens of Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/01\/spikes-in-faith.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spikes in Faith - Through the Lens of Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There are beautiful cacti that bloom in different seasons. There are cacti who remain green through the darkest night and driest conditions. It&#8217;s really amazing how much these plants persevere.\u00a0 But one thing is certain with these plants &#8212; you can&#8217;t touch them. Their needles can hurt you. Yet these same needles protect the plant.&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/01\/spikes-in-faith.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Through the Lens of Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-01-13T15:00:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-12-30T03:22:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/files\/2015\/12\/cactus-225x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"eelliott\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Spikes in Faith - Through the Lens of Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/01\/spikes-in-faith.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Spikes in Faith - Through the Lens of Faith","og_description":"There are beautiful cacti that bloom in different seasons. There are cacti who remain green through the darkest night and driest conditions. It&#8217;s really amazing how much these plants persevere.\u00a0 But one thing is certain with these plants &#8212; you can&#8217;t touch them. Their needles can hurt you. Yet these same needles protect the plant.&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/01\/spikes-in-faith.html","og_site_name":"Through the Lens of Faith","article_published_time":"2016-01-13T15:00:30+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-12-30T03:22:48+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/files\/2015\/12\/cactus-225x300.jpg"}],"author":"eelliott","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/01\/spikes-in-faith.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/01\/spikes-in-faith.html","name":"Spikes in Faith - Through the Lens of Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/01\/spikes-in-faith.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/01\/spikes-in-faith.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/files\/2015\/12\/cactus-225x300.jpg","datePublished":"2016-01-13T15:00:30+00:00","dateModified":"2015-12-30T03:22:48+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/#\/schema\/person\/3a91f7335d342e05f30c3f30934c63b2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/01\/spikes-in-faith.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/01\/spikes-in-faith.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/01\/spikes-in-faith.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/files\/2015\/12\/cactus-225x300.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/files\/2015\/12\/cactus-225x300.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/01\/spikes-in-faith.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Spikes in Faith"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/","name":"Through the Lens of Faith","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Elizabeth Elliott","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/#\/schema\/person\/3a91f7335d342e05f30c3f30934c63b2","name":"eelliott","description":"Elizabeth Elliott is a staff writer at the Arlington Catholic Herald and a freelance writer. She majored in music and journalism at Creighton University. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Creighton University. For over 20 years she has played flute for church-related events. She has written for America Magazine, Busted Halo and several other publications.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/author\/eelliott"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/591"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":403,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions\/403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}