“…when he kneels at other times and prays or meditates or tries to achieve a Big-Picture spiritual understanding of God as he can understand Him, he feels Nothing — not nothing, but Nothing, an edgeless blankness that somehow feels worse than the sort of unconsidered atheism he Came In with.”

“Never worry alone. When anxiety grabs my mind, it is self-perpetuating. Worrisome thoughts reproduce faster than rabbits, so one of the most powerful ways to stop the spiral of worry is simply to disclose my worry to a friend… The simple act of reassurance from another human being [becomes] a tool of the Spirit to cast out fear — because peace and fear are both contagious.”

“Did I know myself less, I might perhaps venture to handle something or other to the bottom, and to be deceived in my own inability; but sprinkling here one word and there another, patterns cut from severalpieces and scattered without design and without engaging myself too far, I am not responsible for them, or obliged to keep close to my subject, without varying at my own liberty and pleasure, and giving up myself to doubt and uncertainty, and to myown governing method, ignorance.”

“The father of doubts has a son of knowledge.”

“The illusion of fear accompanies goals to test the will to succeed.”

“It was Suzy Kassem who first said, Fear kills more dreams than failure ever will.”

“Trust is not a gasoline-soaked blanket that succumbs to the matches of betrayal, never able to be used for its warmth again; it’s a tapestry that wears thin in places, but can be patched over if you have the right materials, circumstances, and patience to repair it. If you don’t, you’re always the one who feels the coldest when winter comes.”

“From the house of unbeliefto true religionis a single breath;From the world of doubtto certaintyis a single breath;Enjoy this precious single breath,for the harvestof our whole livesis that same one breath.”

“Let us account for all we see by the facts we know. If there are things for which we cannot account, let us wait for light. To account for anything by supernatural agencies is, in fact to say that we do not know. Theology is not what we know about God, but what we do not know about Nature.”

“Turns out, I wasn’t the only one struggling with doubt. I wasn’t the only one questioning my church’s position on homosexuality and gender roles, and a whole host of other issues. I wasn’t the only one who felt lonely on Sunday mornings.”

“When we grow in faith, the doubt shall ceased.”

“Whoever doubt is in state of delusion.”

“Belief acts as a temporary bridge when we are trying to accept something that seems incomprehensible. We use belief and simply accept the workings we cannot understand until the time comes when at last we comprehend.”