For Myself and My Fellow Doubters: Doubt Doesn't Count You Out

Ok. It's time for me to put something on here beyond entertaining records of events and people. There are much too many things going on inside of me to not disclose. At L'Abri I've recognized the freedom to be me FULLY. Not the Kelley that others expect to see and hear (which I'm good at portraying), but the unique Kelley who is created lovingly in the image of God. And the Kelley with all of her big life questions, struggles and insecurities. I have felt a similar welcoming for questions in my other settings (home, church, college, nashville) but because my inner questions often reflected some serious doubts about Christianity, fear was always attached. Unfortunately the Christian culture I was nurtured by gave me this fear of doubt. For example, I hear the echoes of evangelists, teachers and preachers, "If you're not 100% sure then you're 0% sure." And in a somewhat fundamentalist setting I would often translate that as "Certainty or hell. " So I held my questions, my doubts and with lips sealed I grew to be a very doubtful Christian. Doubtful Christian. Sounds oxymoronic, eh? But what I've discovered is that the opposite of doubt is NOT certainty. It's faith... trust... courage. There are few things if ANY that we can know with absolute certainty. But our ability to approach these teachings of Jesus with courage is a gift. And when we make space for that gift to be active we are never let down. We learn that it works. It makes sense. We can trust the Bible because it describes reality the way it is. We are hurt by the wrong we inflict on others and ourselves, we all strive to do right and expose wrong, and we feel disconnected from God, others and even ourselves. This great sense of pain and unknowing is the result of humankind's severed relationship with God, which is proof in itself that we were created for a relationship, our iniquities have distanced us and we need to be redeemed. We need restoration of the self we were intended to be so that we can properly commune with our Maker. Love Him. So we are told to obey His commandments as a reflection of this love for Him. When we obey, we understand that He is good and trustworthy. We learn in our love for Him how to love others. And pieces of our intended self are restored bit by bit.... Here I am preaching the gospel (=the good news) to myself. The good news with which I can resonate. And this good news is that God loves me and that death (the "big D" deaths and the "little d" deaths) do not have the final word about me. And there are still days of doubt for me. There always will be. It's my personality, as it was Thomas's. What is all this? Can it be true? Am I brainwashing myself with Christianese? How can I know? But Jesus speaks to my personality as He did to Thomas's. And I can at least have peace with the thought that my doubts are okay and don't make me any less a redeemed child of God. They are welcome and so are yours.