patty – yes, life really is a big bundle of paradoxes, isn’t it. i think learning to embrace them is a big part of our journey.

laurie – always great to hear from you. i wish united still flew down to el salvador, we really want to get down there but it’s hard without direct access. i hope this place can be helpful to others on the journey. peace & hope to you in the trenches…

blueorchid – oh how i love your honest journey. it can be so scary, the darkness and not feeling the solid ground underneath, wondering how far the sinking will go, but i love that image from narnia that gives you a little hope…i think of you often and how much i wish you were in some of these conversations we’re having face to face!

phyllis – potentially? hahahha! love you & am so glad that we don’t have to whisper anymore. i wonder what those blue sky people make of us?

jim – yeah, it makes me so happy that you have each other & the safe place you’ve created

tom – the shoulds really take their toll. and yeah, to me a lot of doubt are the questions & questioning. i love it when my kids and i sit around and they start asking deep and powerful questions that i have no easy answers for…something really lovely always comes from it.

margret – thanks for your thoughts & i love the metaphor!

ken – oh how i love you.

mark – always beautiful thoughts about God’s love for us

minnow – i love it when there’s another angle to a passage that has made many feel inadequate and ashamed somehow…

It is not your faith that motivates God to act; it is His love for you which motivates Him. My son got his fingers mangled in a beater when he was about 6, I’m outside chopping wood. Dad!!! Dad!!! – he screams. Do, I stop and examine his faith in me that I will act? Of course not!! It is a Father’s love that motivates me to come to his aid. So it is with God – His love for you ….

This was of great encouragement to me, as all your missives are. In fact, I’m hard pressed not to submit a paragraph or 40 in response to every post!

With regard to faith and doubt, I’ve told people for years that God is big enough to handle our questions. Perhaps it’s time for a follow-up query: If He’s not afraid, why should His children be?

I loved your comment about real relationships standing the tests of time and uncertainty, also your “God and i are still hanging in there. many of my superficial relationships “in church” are gone. doubters & pot-stirrers aren’t super popular there.”

Frankly, I would think pot-stirrers would be welcomed, encouraged, and applauded. Who wants a burnt, smelly, unpalatable meal, when instead you could have a beautiful melding of spices and textures, and no sticky stuff difficult to clean up? I hope my pot-stirring days never end!

All of Heaven’s best,
Margret

I’m actively learning more and more that the only thing about God and life that does not change is the Character and Nature of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. However even my understanding of God and His Character and Nature is continuously growing and in some ways changing.

I’m finding out that much of what I once new was wrong.

I love what you said about people that use the word should too often. As I read somewhere “We would all be better off if we stopped “Shoulding” ourselves and on others.”

For me I don’t know if the right word is “Doubt,” but “questions” and “questioning” doctrines and dogmas are definitely helping set me free from religion, and saving/strengthening my faith and building my relationship with Father and the few others he has currently connected me with.

Questions regarding things I’ve thought had to be translated wrong in the bible I’ve had for 32 years are beginning to be confirmed that is the Holy Spirit was allowing me to see truth that I once doubted because it disagreed with the evangelical doctrinistas.

Tom Wilson