Relearning God: A Pilgrimage Through Doubts
Chapter One: When the Light Flickers
Elian sat alone in the dim sanctuary of Waypoint Church, the hum of the city bleeding faintly through the stained-glass windows. The pulpit stood silent before him, and the echo of his own words from Sunday’s sermon still clung to the walls. “Faith anchors us when understanding fails.” He had said it with conviction, and yet now—two days later—it felt like a phrase he had borrowed, not one he believed.
Valemere had been good to him. A bustling city pulsing with ambition and contradiction, it was the perfect place for a young preacher to make a name. His church had grown fast, the congregation swelling with professionals, artists, and seekers. People clung to his words, his confidence, his clarity. He had answers. Always. Until last week.
It started with the Daniels family.
Their daughter, Zuri—barely five—had collapsed during school play rehearsal. A rare, aggressive neurological condition, they said. Her father, Andre, had built half the church’s tech infrastructure. Her mother, Liana, had taught children’s ministry for years. They were faithful, prayerful, generous. And now they were broken.
Elian visited the hospital with his Bible and his well-worn prayers, the ones that had comforted others many times before. But this time, something inside him trembled. Zuri lay still, her small frame barely rising with each breath. Machines beeped in rhythms too sterile for a child’s life.
“Elian,” Andre whispered, eyes swollen with nights of grief, “why would God let this happen? We did everything right.”
Elian opened his mouth. He had a verse—Psalm 34:19. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous…” But it felt cold in his throat. He closed it again.
That night, back in his apartment above the church, Elian stared at the ceiling as the weight of a thousand sermons pressed on his chest. The God he had explained so neatly now seemed unsearchable. And not just unsearchable—but silent.
He prayed. Nothing. He opened the Scriptures. They blurred. And somewhere in that silence, his certainty cracked.
Chapter Two: The Silence Between Questions
The days after Zuri’s diagnosis unraveled like a slow-motion storm. At church, Elian’s words began to sound like echoes—beautiful, rehearsed, but increasingly hollow. He noticed it first in prayer meetings. Where once he spoke boldly, now he hesitated, his hands trembling slightly as he reached out to pray for healing that he wasn’t sure would come.
He avoided eye contact with Liana that Sunday. She sat in the front row, hands wrapped around Zuri’s blanket like it was holy. When Elian looked down at his notes, the words blurred. So, he improvised—spoke from the heart. But even his heart seemed to hide behind metaphors and soft assurances.
That night, after everyone had gone, he wandered Valemere’s quiet riverwalk. The city lights shimmered on the water like distant promises. He remembered how he used to walk here when he first arrived, praying aloud, claiming the city for God. It had felt so clear then—his calling, his purpose. Everything was anointed, certain. But now… now he felt like a man talking to a locked door.
His thoughts turned back to seminary—the doctrine courses, the theology debates. He had always excelled. People said he was gifted. Elian had believed that too, once. That knowledge would always keep him steady.
But standing by the water, he felt like Peter on the waves, and for the first time, he realized how much he had relied on knowing, not trusting.
That night, he journaled. Not a sermon. Not a reflection to share. Just pain. Just raw questions.
“Lord… if knowing You was supposed to bring clarity, why do I feel more lost the closer I get? What do I say to a grieving family when You’re silent? Is my faith just… performance? Is this what true belief feels like—uncertain, trembling, stripped?”
He wrote until his tears stained the paper.
The next morning, he woke to an email from Andre. Zuri had worsened. They were moving her to palliative care.
Elian stared at the screen, unmoving. And for the first time since he became a pastor, he whispered aloud into the room:
“I don’t have the answers anymore.”
Chapter Three: When Heaven Went Quiet
The hospice ward smelled of antiseptic and quiet despair. Elian stood by the doorway, clutching a withering bouquet he’d picked up on the way. It felt like an insult now—fragile color against so much grey. Zuri lay curled on the bed, her chest rising with effort, a stuffed lamb cradled in her arms.
Andre looked up, his face drawn and exhausted. “She asked for you.”
Elian stepped closer, his shoes almost apologizing with every creak. Zuri’s eyes fluttered open—half-lidded, heavy—but she smiled.
“Hi, Pastor,” she whispered.
He knelt beside her bed, heart pounding. “Hey, sweetheart.”
“Did you bring your Bible?” she asked.
He hesitated. “I did.”
“Can you read the one about the valley?”
He knew the passage instantly. Psalm 23. Of course. But as he opened the familiar text, his hands trembled. The words blurred again. He blinked, hard.
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…”
His voice cracked on “You are with me.”
Was He? Elian wondered. Was God here, in this sterile room where a seven-year-old fought for every breath? Was He with Zuri—or had heaven closed its doors?
After he finished reading, Zuri smiled faintly. “I like that part,” she said. “The shadow part. Shadows mean there’s still light, right?”
Elian nodded, the ache in his chest tightening. She didn’t need theological precision. She just needed presence.
Later that night, Elian returned to the riverwalk. He didn’t pray. He just stood there, aching.
Then—something shifted.
It wasn’t a vision. Not a voice. Just a weight lifting, a stillness that settled around him like a cloak. A silence that wasn’t empty but full. Peaceful. Present.
He sat on the stone ledge and wept—not with answers, not with clarity, but with the strange, painful comfort of being seen. As if heaven hadn’t gone silent… it had simply waited for Elian to stop talking long enough to listen.
For the first time in his life, he realized that maybe real faith wasn’t forged in knowing—but in surrender.
“My grace is sufficient…” he heard, not from the sky, but deep within.
He didn’t write a sermon that night. He wrote Zuri’s name in his journal and drew a cross beside it. Not a period. Not an answer. Just a cross.
A place where heaven met grief—and didn’t flinch.
Chapter Four: Cracks in the Pulpit
The next Sunday, Elian stood behind the pulpit at New Dawn City Church, staring at his notes like they belonged to someone else. The sanctuary was full—rows of eager faces waiting for answers, waiting for the confident rhythm of the man they’d always admired.
But something in Elian had shifted. Zuri had passed away two nights before.
He hadn’t told anyone yet. Not even the pastoral team. He hadn’t cried again since the riverwalk. Not because he wasn’t grieving, but because something deeper than tears had taken root.
Today, his sermon was supposed to be about victory—about faith that moves mountains. The notes he’d written just days ago now sounded hollow. Victory? How do you preach that when a child dies mid-prayer?
He closed his Bible slowly. “I wrote a sermon,” he began, his voice quiet, “but I can’t preach it today.”
A murmur rippled through the room.
“I’ve spent years believing that if we had enough faith, things would turn out the way we wanted. That knowledge and certainty could shield us from pain. But this week, I watched a little girl with the purest faith I’ve ever seen… fade.”
He paused, searching the crowd for eyes that didn’t look away.
“She believed God was with her. Even when her body betrayed her. And I realized something—I’ve been preaching certainty… but God never promised clarity. He promised presence.”
A hush fell across the room.
“Maybe real faith doesn’t mean we stop asking questions. Maybe it means we dare to ask them—out loud—and still keep walking.”
It wasn’t the message they expected. But it was the truth. His truth.
After the service, people lingered. Some wept. Others simply hugged him. One woman—older, quiet—grasped his hand and said, “Thank you for not pretending.”
That night, Elian sat on his apartment balcony, overlooking the city lights. His phone buzzed with unread messages. He didn’t check them.
Instead, he opened his journal.
Faith is not knowing.
Faith is trusting even when God doesn’t explain.
Faith is showing up when heaven feels quiet.He didn’t know what tomorrow held. But for the first time in a long while, he wasn’t afraid of the questions.
He was learning to live inside them.
Chapter Five: When the Dust Settles
The days that followed felt slower. Quieter. Elian no longer filled his calendar with back-to-back appointments or stood behind every podium he was invited to. He walked more—along city streets, through parks, beside hospital corridors. He listened more too.
The emails kept coming. Some thanked him for his honesty; others questioned his theology. A few accused him of spreading doubt. But he didn’t respond—not out of fear, but out of reverence. Something sacred was happening in the silence. A recalibration.
One evening, he visited Zuri’s family. The apartment felt hollow without her laughter. Her mother, eyes sunken from days without sleep, opened the door and simply pulled Elian into a hug. No words. Just grief. Shared.
In Zuri’s room, he noticed the drawing pinned above her bed. A cross, drawn in shaky purple crayon. Underneath, in careful block letters: “God is with me.”
Tears came then. Hot, quiet, cleansing.
Later that night, he met Amara at the same riverside bench.
“She really believed,” Elian whispered.
“I know,” Amara said. “And maybe that’s the point. She didn’t need answers to believe.”
He nodded. “For a long time, I thought faith was about having the right answers. But maybe it’s about learning to trust… even in the not knowing.”
Amara studied him, her voice soft. “So what now?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But I think I want to help others who are learning to live in the questions too. I want to build something… gentler. A place where people aren’t pressured to perform belief, but to grow in it. Even if they’re still doubting.”
“A refuge?” she offered.
He smiled faintly. “Yes. A refuge for the uncertain. A place where it’s okay to cry on the way to healing.”
Months later, the doors opened to The Refuge—a community space nestled in the heart of New Dawn City. It wasn’t a church in the traditional sense. There were no pews or polished sermons. Just shared meals, open journals, honest conversations, and spaces to pray—or not—without shame.
Elian stood by the door most evenings, greeting each soul like they were holy ground. Because he’d learned something in the wilderness of his doubt: that people weren’t projects to be fixed, but stories to be heard. Echoes of God’s image—cracked, yes, but still glowing.
And as the city lights blinked in the distance, Elian finally understood: the deepest faith wasn’t certainty. It was surrender.
He didn’t have all the answers.
But he had peace.
And that was enough.
Epilogue: Elian’s Journal
“To the one struggling to believe—
I wrote this not from a mountaintop, but from the valley.
And it was there I met God in ways I never could have in the light of certainty.”I used to think that having strong faith meant having no doubts. That if I just studied hard enough, prayed long enough, or served faithfully enough, all my questions would dissolve into clarity.
But then came Zuri.
And the questions didn’t dissolve.
They multiplied.I watched her smile through pain, believe without answers, trust when I could not. And somewhere in my grief, I realized: it wasn’t that my faith had failed. It had grown up.
Real faith doesn’t silence all the noise.
It gives you the courage to sit with it.
To believe anyway.
To hope when the evidence is missing.
To love when the answers are gone.If you’re walking through a season where your knowledge has come up short—
If your heart is full of questions no sermon can satisfy—
You’re not broken.
You’re becoming.Keep walking.
God is not offended by your questions.
He’s already walking with you in them.—Elian
New Dawn City
Journal Entry #87
- 0 Replies
Sorry, there were no replies found.
Log in to reply.